<b>Bijsluiter</b>. De hyperlink naar het originele document werkt niet meer. Daarom laat Woogle de tekst zien die in dat document stond. Deze tekst kan vreemde foutieve woorden of zinnen bevatten en de opmaak kan verdwenen of veranderd zijn. Dit komt door het zwartlakken van vertrouwelijke informatie of doordat de tekst niet digitaal beschikbaar was en dus ingescand en vervolgens via OCR weer ingelezen is. Voor het originele document, neem contact op met de Woo-contactpersoon van het bestuursorgaan.<br><br>====================================================================== Pagina 1 ======================================================================

<pre>Guidance on the way  Advisory Committee on the Council for Culture
forward for colonial National Policy Framework
collections          for Colonial Collections
</pre>

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<pre>      Summary                                                   4
                                                                    Table of content
1.  Introduction                                               10
1.1 The Minister’s request for guidance                        13
1.2 The Committee’s composition and working method             14
1.3 The guidance                                               15
2.    The Netherlands as a colonizer                           17
2.1   European expansion                                       18
2.2   Dutch expansion                                          19
2.3   The Netherlands as a colonial power                      22
2.4   Modernization                                            26
2.5   Decolonization                                           27
2.6   Conclusion                                               29
3.  Colonial collections                                       30
3.1 Colonial collections in the Netherlands                    30
3.2 A closer look at the leading museums                       31
3.3 Provenance research by museums                             38
3.4 Acquisition method                                         39
4.    Past returns                                             40
5.    Developments in other European countries                 45
5.1   France                                                   45
5.2   Germany                                                  46
5.3   Belgium                                                  48
5.4   United Kingdom                                           49
5.5   Other countries                                          50
6.    Views in the source countries                            51
7.    Matters of relevance to the handling
      of colonial collections                                  54
7.1   Method of acquiring colonial cultural heritage objects   54
7.2   The cultural importance of a colonial cultural                  2
      heritage object                                          55
7.3   Conditions after return                                  56
7.4   Other options in addition to return                      57
7.5   Cultural heritage objects not owned by the State         57
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<pre>8.    The legal framework                                       59
                                                                     Table of content
8.1   The law in the colonial territories                       59
8.2   International law                                         60
8.3   Soft law                                                  62
8.4   Legal impediments to returns                              64
9.    Guidance submitted to the Minister
      on the handling of colonial collections                   65
9.1   The policy framework                                      67
9.2   To whom the return takes place                            72
9.3   Assessment of requests for return                         73
9.4   The assessment procedure                                  77
9.5   Provenance research                                       79
9.6   International cooperation                                 80
10.   Concluding remarks                                        83
      Endnotes                                                  84
      Sources                                                  103
      Literature                                               108
      Annexes                                                  114
      Letter to Parliament from the Minister on
      the establishment of an Advisory Committee to
      the Council for Culture                                  115
      The Minister’s request for opinion                       117
      Overview of discussions undertaken by the Committee      119
      List of Dutch former colonies and trading posts          121
      Survey results                                           123
      Historic returns of colonial cultural heritage objects   129
      Publishing details                                       132
                                                                       3
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<pre>         Summary
The Netherlands had trading posts and colonies in Asia, Africa and North
and South America from the beginning of the 17th century. The Dutch
                                                                                    Summary
maintained a presence at many locations on these continents as traders,
colonists and occupiers for more than four centuries. For the indigenous
population this was a time marked by exploitation, violence, racism and
oppression. It was also a time in which many cultural, historical and religious
objects that can still be seen today in Dutch museums were brought to the
Netherlands from these territories. These include cultural heritage objects that
came into Dutch hands against the will of the owners, for example through
theft or military action.
The Dutch colonial collections consist of a wide range of cultural heritage
objects, including art objects, religious objects, historical objects, jewellery,
natural history objects and utensils. In total there are hundreds of thousands
of objects. In addition to museums that manage large and interesting colonial
collections, such as the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Museum
Bronbeek and the Rijksmuseum, many smaller museums also have colonial
collections. A survey of Dutch museums conducted by the Committee and the
Dutch Museums Association shows that much remains unknown about the
way in which colonial cultural heritage objects came into Dutch possession.
Some museums nevertheless state that they are managing objects which they
know to have been acquired during the colonial period without the owner’s
consent.
The return of colonial cultural heritage objects by former colonial powers is
not a recent phenomenon; the first examples of returns date from the colonial
period itself. The Netherlands has hitherto mainly returned objects to
Indonesia. The reasons for these returns were varied. In some cases objects
were returned as a diplomatic gift, for example to mark a state visit. In some
cases the returns were based on agreements between countries, such as the
joint recommendations between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the
mid-1970s. No return policy has yet been developed jointly with the source
countries, however.
There are differences among the European colonizing countries in the way
they deal with their colonial cultural heritage objects and requests to return
them. There are countries that take a conservative attitude towards requests
for return and others that are more open to such requests. There are countries
in which the government keeps out of the debate and countries in which the
government has adopted a clear position. Some countries confine themselves
                                                                                     4
to permanent loans of objects to source countries, while other countries
actually transfer ownership of cultural heritage objects. These differences
reflect the variety of views among countries, but also have to do with
differences in legislation that may impede the return of objects. There is
nevertheless a growing urgency to tackle the issue in all countries.
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<pre>This is not only because the source countries and representatives of diaspora
communities are increasingly making their voices heard, but also, and chiefly,
because the countries that previously had colonies consider it increasingly
important to take responsibility for their colonial past.
The Committee’s discussion partners in former colonized countries state
that they consider it important that their museums can tell the colonial story,
                                                                                    Summary
including by means of objects that are currently in the Netherlands.
The discussion partners in Suriname and the Caribbean consider that the
museum infrastructure must be brought up to standard before objects are
returned to them. The discussion partners would like regular museum-level
cooperation with the Netherlands in the field of capacity development.
The Indonesian discussion partners emphasize the importance of joint
academic provenance research. The discussion partners state that the return of
cultural heritage objects is a matter to be agreed between states, but that
communities to whose culture these objects belong must also benefit.
A number of aspects play a role when dealing with colonial cultural heritage
objects and particularly requests for their return. The first is the way in which
an object came into Dutch possession. A request for the return of a cultural
heritage object that was looted, for example, requires a different approach
than a request to return a cultural heritage object that was acquired
legitimately by way of gift or purchase or whose provenance history cannot
be determined. The importance of the cultural heritage object, both for
the source country and for the Netherlands, must also be taken into
consideration, together with the storage conditions and accessibility of the
cultural heritage object after any return, as well as the availability of
alternatives to a return. Finally, it is naturally important who the current
owner is: central government, another government authority or a
private individual.
The handling of requests to return cultural heritage objects is not so much a
legal as an ethical question. This is due to the statute of limitations in Dutch
law and the fact that international conventions relevant to colonial cultural
heritage objects do not have retroactive effect. The standards and principles of
international humanitarian law and the ethical codes of international social
organizations can serve as a useful guide to the ethical handling of requests for
return. They call for an accommodating response to requests for return, the
guiding principle being that what was stolen must in principle be returned.
Unlike a number of other European countries, Dutch law does not oppose the
return of colonial cultural heritage objects by the State to source countries.
                                                                                     5
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<pre>Recommendations of the Committee to the Minister of Education,
Culture and Science
1.   The Committee considers that the first step in developing a policy on
     dealing with colonial collections is the recognition that an injustice was
     done to the indigenous population of the colonial territories when cultural
     heritage objects were taken against their will.
2.   The second step is expressing a readiness to rectify this historical injustice,       Summary
     which is still perceived as an injustice today, where possible and to make
     this readiness a key principle of the policy on dealing with colonial
     collections.
3.   The Committee recommends adopting that policy after agreeing it with the
     countries where the Netherlands exercised colonial authority for a long
     period, including in any case Indonesia, Suriname and the Caribbean
     islands. These countries’ views must be respected and accommodated, with
     a bespoke approach being taken to each country where possible. Only a
     shared policy on dealing with colonial cultural heritage objects can lead to
     satisfactory outcomes for all parties. In other words, care must be taken to
     avoid a neocolonial repetition of the past in which actions are driven
     primarily by the views, feelings, standards and values of the
     former colonizer.
4.   To contribute to this joint policy development, the Committee
     recommends conveying to the countries in which the Netherlands exercised
     colonial authority a readiness to return unconditionally all cultural heritage
     objects in respect of which it can be demonstrated with a reasonable degree
     of certainty that the source countries did indeed lose them involuntarily
     and that they then came into the possession of the Dutch State.
     This should naturally apply to the extent that the source country also
     desires such return.
5.   The readiness to return objects unconditionally means it is important that
     the redress of a historical injustice through a request for return is not
     weighed against other interests, however relevant these may be in
     themselves. In the Committee’s opinion the redress of an injustice is not
     achieved only through an actual return but also particularly by making the
     acknowledgement and redress of this injustice a fundamental principle of
     the policy.
6.   The Committee recommends informing the source countries in which the
     Netherlands exercised colonial authority that the Netherlands is also
     prepared to consider requests for return for state-owned cultural heritage
     objects whose provenance history cannot be determined or does not
     indicate involuntary loss of possession. This should apply in cases where              6
     these cultural heritage objects are of particular cultural, historical or religious
     importance for the source country. Unlike the case of cultural heritage
     objects that were lost involuntarily, the Committee considers that when
     such requests are assessed, the importance of a return for the source
     country should be weighed against other relevant interests on the basis of
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<pre>     reasonableness and fairness. After all, in the case of these requests the
     fundamental argument is not one of rectifying an injustice, but of
     honouring a particular interest of the source country. Examples of interests
     to be weighed are the importance of a cultural heritage object for the
     Netherlands, the storage conditions and accessibility after a possible return
     and the availability of alternatives to a return.
                                                                                        Summary
7.   The Committee also recommends considering requests to return cultural
     heritage objects owned by the Dutch State from countries that were
     colonized by other powers. Since such requests may require wider
     consideration, the Committee recommends taking a decision on the basis
     of reasonableness and fairness and on the basis of a weighing of interests.
     Nevertheless, if the request concerns a cultural heritage object that was lost
     involuntarily, the Committee considers that here too the guiding principle
     must be the possibility of rectifying an injustice. This is because regardless
     of whether the Netherlands itself played a part in causing the injustice in
     these countries, as the current owner of the cultural heritage object it is the
     only party able to rectify that injustice.
8.   In cases where a cultural heritage object is owned by the State, a decision
     on a request for return from the source country must be taken by the
     Minister of Education, Culture and Science. The Committee recommends
     that the Minister take a decision on such requests on the basis of a public
     opinion of an independent advisory committee appointed for the purpose.
     This means that the Minister’s decisions are based on an expert judgement
     arrived at independently of the ownership interest.
9.   The Committee recommends establishing an Expertise Centre on the
     Provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects with the tasks of verifying the
     provenance of cultural heritage objects in the event of requests for return,
     conducting or commissioning additional provenance research as necessary,
     establishing, managing and generally providing access to a database on
     the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects in Dutch museums,
     and promoting expertise among museums.
10. A  necessary prerequisite for the policy line recommended by the
     Committee is knowledge of the colonial cultural heritage objects held by
     Dutch museums and the means by which they were acquired.
     This knowledge is essential for source countries to be able to request the
     return of cultural heritage objects. The Committee recommends that
     the Minister draw museums’ attention to their responsibility to research
     the provenance history of their colonial cultural heritage objects and make
     their knowledge of it accessible to the source countries.
11. The   Committee’s discussions with representatives of the source countries
     consistently showed that they were concerned not only about the return of           7
     cultural heritage objects. Support in establishing a museum infrastructure
     with good storage conditions, training of expert staff, the possibility for
     students to serve internships in Dutch museums, the conduct of joint
     research and exchange of knowledge were repeatedly cited as important
     matters by the source countries. These discussions brought the Committee
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<pre>   to the view that appropriate handling of requests for return was not an end
   in itself, but should be part of cooperation between the Netherlands and
   the source countries in which they work together to tell the story of the
   colonial period from different perspectives. The Committee therefore
   recommends that the Ministers of Education, Culture and Science, Foreign
   Affairs and Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation make museum-
   level cooperation between the Netherlands and the source countries a
                                                                                 Summary
   subject of their international cultural policy. The Committee also
   recommends that the Minister of Education, Culture and Science devote
   attention to such museum-based cooperation in the policy with regard to
   the BES islands.
12. Finally, other
                European former colonial powers are also currently
   considering how to deal with colonial cultural heritage objects.
   The Committee therefore recommends, possibly through Unesco, investing
   in the exchange of knowledge, ideas and views between these countries and
   seeking opportunities for more international cooperation and coordination
   with like-minded countries.
                                                                                  8
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<pre>Summary 9</pre>

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<pre>1.       Introduction
Dutch museums possess a wealth of cultural treasures whose origins lie in
the colonial period. These cultural treasures have very different provenance
                                                                                   Introduction
histories, ranging from gifts presented by the local populations to colonial
administrators to items looted during wars and military expeditions.
The Banjarmasin Diamond from the Rijksmuseum collection is renowned. [1]
The original uncut 70-carat diamond was owned by the Sultan of
Banjarmasin. In 1859, following the death of the Sultan’s successor,
an uprising and a new unpopular Sultan chosen by the Dutch, the colonial
government decided to intervene militarily. The sultanate in Banjarmasin
was dissolved andthe area came directly under Dutch authority. The diamond
was sent to the Netherlands. At the end of the 19th century there were already
doubts about the legitimacy of Dutch actions in Banjarmasin and today
the diamond is seen primarily as an example of spoils of war. [2]
A silver ladle in the form of a calabash, from Curaçao. [3] In the 18th century,
the Dutch West India Company (West-Indische Compagnie – WIC)
commissioned this item from a local silversmith. This creole object is the
product of indigenous as well as local African and European cultures and has
no single path to cultural ownership. Moreover, unlike traditional ladles it is
of silver and therefore rare. [4]                                                    10
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<pre>                                                                                  Introduction
This banjo now in Museum Volkenkunde collection was collected in Suriname
by John Gabriel Stedman between 1772 and 1777. Stedman was a Scottish-
Dutch officer who served in a Scottish regiment of the State army. In his well-
known publication ‘Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted
Negroes of Surinam’ he described the campaigns against Marron
communities and the atrocities perpetrated by plantation owners against the
enslaved population. Although it is not conclusively known that the objects
collected by Stedman were taken under duress, they were undoubtedly
acquired in a colonial context. [5]
Weapons were viewed as traditional power symbols in the Dutch East Indies.
This spear rack from the Rijksmuseum collection was presented to Governor-
General Jean Chrétien Baud in 1834 during an inspection tour of Java and
Madura by ‘East Indian Notables’. Baud received a number of gifts from local        11
rulers during this tour. [6] These objects may have been given voluntarily,
but may also be evidence of the obligation to express loyalty to the
Dutch government.
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<pre>                                                                                    Introduction
This stone statue is Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and beloved
Hindu god who can eliminate obstacles to success. This Ganesha comes from
the eastern cella of Candi Singosari. This is the only temple of the Singhasari
kingdom (1222 – 1292) that remains in Singosari (East Java). [7] In 1803,
Nicolaus Engelhard, governor of the north-eastern corner of Java, reputedly
‘discovered’ the temple which was overgrown. He subsequently placed three
figures from the temple, including Ganesha, in his garden in Semarang.
In 1819 this Ganesha statue was shipped to the Royal Institute for Sciences
in Amsterdam. In 1841 the figure became part of the collections of the
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities), after which
it was transferred to Museum Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology)
in Leiden in 1903.
A diamond, a silver ladle, a banjo, a lance rack, and a Ganesha figure,
these are five examples of cultural heritage objects that illustrate the cultural
wealth and diversity of present in former colonies. Each comes with its
own historical, cultural or religious background. All five were acquired in
territories colonized by the Netherlands, by way of gift, looting or by other
means, as in the case when acquisition is described as a ‘found object’.
These holdings increasingly arouse a feeling of discomfort associated with
changes in the way in which Dutch society views its colonial past. This change
in perspective is also reflected in the debate surrounding Zwarte Piet, and
the commemorative statues of colonists in Dutch squares and the streets,
tunnels and schools carrying their names. More than ever, Dutch society is
reassessing its colonial past. Racism, exploitation, violence and oppression          12
are increasingly viewed as core characteristics of the colonial period.
This reassessment is sometimes perceived as problematic and can give rise
to fierce controversy as these characteristics are at odds with many people’s
cherished image of the Netherlands as an anti-racist, tolerant and peace-loving
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<pre>country in which human rights are held as paramount. In the Committee’s
opinion, however, an open-minded view of the Netherlands’ colonial past
ought not to threaten that identity nor promote a ‘down with the Dutch’
mentality. On the contrary, ‘rethinking’ Dutch history may make society as
a whole, with more than a million inhabitants whose family history is partly
colonial, that much stronger.
                                                                                    Introduction
Thinking more critically and openly about the past also makes it appropriate
to look more critically than before at colonial cultural heritage objects held
in museums’ collections. These objects have, over time, come to be viewed
as more or less the museums’ own possessions even as the importance for the
source countries and the manner in which they were acquired may be
acknowledged. Museums are increasingly recognizing this. For example, in
2019 the National Museum of World Cultures presented a list of principles
the museum would apply to assess requests for the return of colonial
objects. [8] Last year also saw the launch of the PPROCE pilot project,
conducted by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies,
the Rijksmuseum and the National Museum of World Cultures. This project is
gathering knowledge on methodologies for researching the provenance of
colonial objects.
In other European countries questions of how to move forward with colonial
cultural heritage objects is climbing up the social and political agenda.
For example, the German Museums Association issued guidelines in 2018 on
                                                                                     The Minister’s request for guidance
how museums should deal with objects collected during the colonial period
and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of a relaxation of conditions
for the restitution of African cultural heritage in French possession.
This was followed by the now famous report by Savoy and Sarr which
galvanized discussion across Europe due to its outspoken views. [9] In the
United Kingdom the frequently more reticent view of directors of national
museums regularly make the headlines. In Belgium the reopening of the
AfricaMuseum in Tervuren ushered in a public debate about looted art.
The debate on the handling of colonial collections in Europe is topical with
countries returning cultural heritage objects – for example in March 2020
the Netherlands returned a kris linked to the Indonesian resistance hero
Prince Diponegoro. However most European countries have not yet achieved
a broad consensus on the ways forward for colonial heritage nor adopted a
firm government policy on the subject.
1.1   The Minister’s request for guidance
In her letter of 10 April 2019 the Minister of Education, Culture and Science,
Ingrid van Engelshoven, informed the House of Representatives that she
wished to adopt just such a policy direction for the Netherlands by the end of
2020. [10] Although museums are custodians of colonial cultural heritage and
have expertise and experience on how to manage it, they are ultimately not the          13
collections’ owners. In the vast majority of cases collections are owned by the
State. But other authorities, universities, associations and foundations are also
owners of colonial cultural heritage objects managed by museums. There are
also many private collections that include colonial objects.
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<pre>If the State is the owner, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
decides how to deal with the colonial heritage and – more specifically –
on whether or not to return objects.
In the above cited letter to the House of Representatives the Minister set out
two ambitions. First, she wanted the colonial heritage in national collections
to be accessible and to tell stories of connection from a variety of perspectives.
                                                                                     Introduction
Her aim is to promote the visibility of a past intertwined with the former
colonial territories. The second ambition was to develop a national policy
framework for moving forward with colonial collections. With regard to this
second objective the Minister’s aims were twofold: to develop a methodology
for provenance research and to design a careful procedure for dealing with
requests for return. Her wish was to give priority to cultural heritage objects
from former Dutch colonies in cases where evidence strongly suggests that
there was involuntary loss of possession.
To develop that national policy framework the Minister asked the Council
for Culture to establish an advisory committee tasked with outlining a future
framework for the handling of colonial heritage. In particular this committee
would address international cooperation in this field and the handling of
requests for returns. The Minister asked the Council to present its guidance
by 1 October 2020. [11]
1.2   The Committee’s composition and working method
                                                                                      The Committee’s composition and working method
The composition of the Advisory Committee on the National Policy
Framework for Colonial Collections (hereinafter: the Committee) is broad
and diverse, in terms of both expertise and discipline (lawyer, anthropologist,
historian, curator, researcher, art dealer, museum director) and origin
(Surinamese, Indonesian, Antillean, Indo-European, Dutch, British and
French). The Committee is chaired by Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You.
Leo Balai, Brigitte Bloksma, Martine Gosselink, Henrietta Lidchi,
Valika Smeulders, Hasti Tarekat Dipowijoyo and Joris Visser are also members
of the Committee. Sander Bersee and Emma Keizer act as the
Committee’s secretariat.
The Committee undertook a literature review and held many discussions with
academics, lawyers, museum directors, curators and others. Discussions were
conducted with policymakers in Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and
Germany, countries where the way forward for colonial collections remains a
live issue. In addition the Committee canvassed opinions from parties in
Indonesia, Suriname and the Caribbean islands to understand how to manage
heritage originating from these territories. The Committee considers views
of source countries to be especially important: the policy on the handling of
colonial collections must not be one sided or reflect solely the views of a
former colonial power, but must rely in equal measure on the views, wishes                14
and expectations of the source countries. Finally, with the cooperation of
the Dutch Museums Association, the Committee asked museums about the
presence of colonial cultural heritage objects in their collections.
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<pre>1.3   The guidance
This guidance focuses on cultural heritage objects and collections that were
acquired in the period that began in the 17th century, when the first ships
sailed from the Netherlands to Asia, and ended in 1975, the year in which
Suriname became an independent republic. [12][13]
                                                                                    Introduction
Archives beyond those present in museums which shed light on the collections
themselves, are not specifically addressed by the guidance. Archives are
significant for the documents they contain, for the information therein and
specific access rights. For these reasons they require a specific approach and
are considered to lie outside the scope of this guidance. Human remains also
form a distinct category in museum collections. The principles and procedures
included in this guidance with regard to the handling of requests for return
may be applicable to human remains and objects containing human remains,
but the issues regarding respectful treatment are broader than addressed here.
The specific ethical considerations therefore also fall outside the scope of
this guidance.
Although the Netherlands was active as a colonial power in many parts of the
world, the guidance is focused on Indonesia, Suriname and the Caribbean
islands, countries where the Netherlands exercised formal colonial authority
for a longer period and where a substantial proportion of the Dutch
population has roots. But it does not follow that the Committee’s guidance is
                                                                                     The guidance
not then applicable to objects from other territories where the Netherlands,
or other or other European countries, exercised colonial power.
The guidance is constituted as follows. This introduction is followed by an
outline of the historical context: the Netherlands’ colonial past and that of its
former colonies. The third chapter then gives a brief overview of the colonial
collections managed by Dutch museums. The fourth chapter addresses past
returns of cultural heritage objects and the related agreements made between
the Netherlands and its former colonies. In the fifth chapter the Committee
discusses views on the handling of colonial heritage held in other European
countries. Chapter 6 presents findings arising from discussions the Committee
conducted with interested parties in source countries. In Chapter 7 the
Committee then outlines the considerations relevant to identifying the way
forward for colonial collections, after which it sets out the legal framework in
Chapter 8. These are descriptive chapters. Chapter 9 draws together the
guidance: the Committee’s recommendations on the intended policy goals,
the procedure for assessing requests for return, research into the provenance
history of colonial objects and international cooperation. The guidance ends
with brief comments by the Committee on its assignment.
A final remark: the Committee had less than a year to respond to the
Minister’s request for guidance. Given this short timeframe and given the             15
complexity of the subject matter, the Committee had to impose certain
restrictions on itself. For example, it was not possible to be comprehensive
in the descriptions of colonial histories, the overview of former returns or
the inventory of colonial cultural heritage objects held in Dutch museums.
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<pre>These descriptions serve primarily to provide a pertinent and intelligible
context for the Committee’s policy recommendations.
A second observation is that in order to reflect views held in the source
countries, the Committee would have liked to directly familiarize itself by
conducting discussions in-country with representatives of government,
museums, academia and cultural communities. These visits, however, proved
                                                                                   Introduction
impossible due to the travel restrictions resulting from the coronavirus crisis.
The Committee did nevertheless conduct exploratory discussions online
with a number of country representatives.
A third and final observation is that the Committee had to make choices
in the terminology used to describe circumstances, persons and population
groups. For example, the guidance uses the form ‘enslaved persons’
rather than ‘slaves’ . The Committee is conscious, however, that there are
differing views on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of terminology
or certain designations.
                                                                                    The guidance
                                                                                     16
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<pre>2.       The Netherlands as a colonizer
The Netherlands had trading posts and colonies in Asia, Africa and
North and South America from the beginning of the 17th century.
                                                                                   The Netherlands as a colonizer
The Dutch maintained a presence at many locations on these
continents as traders, colonists and occupiers for more than four
centuries. For the indigenous population this was a time marked by
exploitation, violence, racism and oppression. It was also a time in
which many cultural, historical and religious objects that can still be
seen today in Dutch museums were brought to the Netherlands from
these territories. These include cultural heritage objects that came
into Dutch hands against the will of the owners, for example through
theft or military action.
From the final decade of the 15th century European countries’ drive to
expand fundamentally changed the world order. These changes are still
perceptible: in the uneven distribution of power and prosperity in the world
and in the European languages that are spoken in Africa, Asia, Australia and
the Americas. Countries such as the Netherlands, France and the United
Kingdom became multicultural societies in part due to the migration of
peoples from existing and former colonies. More than a million Dutch people
have a fully or partly colonial family history. Former colonial territories also
experience the complex legacies of colonial history up to the present day.
Violence, exploitation, oppression and racism are recurring elements,
from whatever perspective colonial history is viewed. Peoples and cultures
were eradicated in regions such as the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
In other regions rebellions were subdued by bloody military action,
and millions of people from Asia and Africa were enslaved, put to work in
the region or elsewhere in the world.
The colonial period brought many forms of inequality. This includes in the
terrain covered by this guidance, namely the cultural expression of
communities of formerly colonized countries and the ownership of and access
to their cultural heritage. In the Americas, following the subjugation of the
indigenous cultures, new societies came into being in which groups of people
from Africa and subsequently Asia, were present. They too were restricted in
their cultural and artistic expression. [14] Many cultural heritage objects from
communities colonized by European powers found their way into European
museums. These include objects whose owners had to relinquish them
involuntarily and objects which, regardless of the acquisition method,
are missed in the source countries because they are recognized as important
for identity and for telling their histories.                                           17
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<pre>2.1   European expansion
The history of European colonialism is complex: it is characterized by
conquest, racism, exploitation and violence, as well as by cooperation with
local rulers.
European overseas expansion began in the final decade of the 15th century
                                                                                      The Netherlands as a colonizer
and was initially a Spanish and Portuguese endeavour. Searching for a
new sea route from Europe to Asia, Columbus reached America in 1492.
Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa barely five years later and reached
India in 1498. Although the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 divided the non-
European world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence, Iberian
dominance did not last long. At the end of the 16th century the Republic of
the Netherlands began to fight against Spain and in the 17th century the
Portuguese were driven from parts of Asia. The United East India Company
(Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – VOC) established a trading monopoly
in the Republic for the area stretching from South Africa to Japan. France in
turn occupied parts of North and South America, the Caribbean and India.
But ultimately neither the Republic nor France could withstand the power of
England, which at the end of the 17th century began its colonial rise to
become a global power.
In comparison with the Americas, Asia and the Caribbean, Africa came
relatively late into the ambit of imperial powers. North Africa was for a long
                                                                                        European expansion
time part the Ottoman Empire with few Europeans in East Africa.
Furthermore, the interior of the African continent was largely inaccessible
to Europeans. There was nevertheless a Dutch colonial settlement in South
Africa and European forts and settlements on the West African coast used for
the slave trade. However with the exception of the Cape Colony, Europeans
nations held little power. [15] This changed at the end of the 19th century,
when over a period of 20 years various European powers – including the
imperial latecomers Belgium and Germany – ‘carved up’ and occupied the
African continent.
In the 19th century the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies in large
parts of present-day Indonesia, Great Britain held British India (present-day
India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Myanmar) and France
were in Indochina (currently Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). Europeans
did not remain the only imperial powers in Asia: the United States acquired
the Philippines from Spain, Japan conquered Taiwan and Korea from China
and Russia’s expansion extended to the Pacific Ocean.
Tensions caused by colonial rivalry were resolved through negotiations and
diplomacy. Violence was nevertheless relentless and wars were waged against
colonized peoples to bring them under colonial authority and quell their
resistance. Millions died as a result.                                                     18
But the arrival of the Europeans was not resisted by the entirety of the local
populations. [16] In Indonesia, for example, European colonialism relied
on the cooperation of the elite, particularly of local and traditional rulers. [17]
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<pre>It is revealing that in 1856 the government official Eduard Douwes Dekker
denounced not the colonial system but the exploitation of the Javanese
population by Javanese nobility collaborating with the Dutch. [18]
2.2   Dutch expansion
Privateering in the 16th century and the subsequent trade expeditions at
                                                                                   The Netherlands as a colonizer
the end of the century heralded the Dutch expansion overseas. Between the
16th and 20th centuries the Netherlands had trading posts for shorter or
longer periods and colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas: from Deshima
in Japan to Essequibo in South America. [19]
      The Dutch Empire. Source: Rex Germanus
                                                                                     Dutch expansion
The United East India Company
Dutch trade missions first went to the tropical regions of Asia, where lucrative
commodities such as spices, porcelain, silk, satin, gold and precious stones
could be obtained. In order to avoid competition among traders, the States
General gave the VOC in 1602 the sole right to trade on behalf of the
Republic, establish settlements, conclude treaties and wage war in the area to
the east of the Cape of Good Hope. In 1610 the first VOC settlements were
established in Pulicat and Sadras on the Coromandel Coast in south-east
India. [20] This was followed by other military conquests, the construction of
trading posts and forts and the establishment of plantations. Violence against
the local population was frequently involved. Jan Pieterszoon Coen, for
example, the fourth Governor-General of the VOC, drove out and murdered
the local population around Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1619 to establish the
Company’s headquarters there. [21] The same fate befell the population of the
Banda Islands, where the VOC established a trading monopoly in mace and
nutmeg through military force. On the uninhabited islands Coen established
plantations where colonists were in charge and the Moluccan population
was put to work as enslaved people. A control system with harsh ‘penal
expeditions’ was intended to ensure the population of the Moluccas did not
sell any nutmeg, mace or cloves to competitors.
                                                                                        19
Trading posts were also established on other Indonesian islands. Sumatra was
attractive mainly because of the pepper cultivated there. Malacca (Malaysia)
was also occupied by the VOC in 1641 to secure trade in that commodity.
The west coast of Sumatra was attractive to the VOC for the pepper and gold
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<pre>and Borneo (Kalimantan) was important for trading in pepper, diamonds and
gold. Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the country of cinnamon cultivation and elephant
trading, was captured in 1640 with assistance from the King of Kandy after a
20-year conflict against the Portuguese. [22] In 1765 the palace and city of
Kandy were plundered by Dutch troops after uprisings. Part of the booty,
including the famous cannon of Kandy, is now in the Rijksmuseum. [23]
Ceylon would remain a Dutch colony until 1796.
                                                                                     The Netherlands as a colonizer
The Cape Colony was established by Jan van Riebeeck (1619 – 1677) in 1652
as a replenishment station for VOC ships sailing to and from Asia. [24] A fairly
large number of colonists soon settled with the consequence that the colony
grew into a settlement colony. Around 1795, towards the end of the VOC
period, there were estimated to be 26,000 enslaved persons working in the
Cape, of both Asian and African descent, as well as 15,000 Europeans. [25]
Partly as a result of a monopoly enforced by its own military, the VOC became
the largest trading company in the world. At its height it employed around
40,000 men, excluding enslaved persons. Like the private individuals that had
settled in the territories, it acquired many important objects from Indonesia,
by way of gift, purchase, but equally looting. From 1778 these objects were
largely sent to the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences in Batavia, while
others were shipped to the Netherlands for private individuals and later for
museums. [26] The first official who shipped Javanese cultural heritage objects
to the Netherlands was Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773 – 1854).
                                                                                       Dutch expansion
He focused initially on natural history although subsequently also on cultural
heritage objects such as temple figures. He believed that taking such objects
was only ‘reasonable’ given the long relationship that the Netherlands had
with Java. Reinwardt sent a total of eight ships with cultural heritage objects
from Batavia to the Netherlands. Only four of these ships arrived safely;
the remainder, along with the art treasures they were carrying, were lost
at sea. [27]
At the end of the 18th century the VOC was losing money on trade in Asia.
The decline of Dutch power, combined with corruption, fraud and careless
accounting, led to the bankruptcy of the Company in 1795, after which
the Batavian Republic acquired its remaining assets and liabilities. [28] The fate
of the colonized populations, and of the collections of the Batavian Society,
thus came into the hands of the Dutch state.
The Dutch West India Company
In the Netherlands there were various organizations trading in the Atlantic
region. The combination of these companies led to the foundation in 1621
of the Dutch West India Company (West-Indische Compagnie – WIC),
with the aim of fighting the Spanish and Portuguese in the Atlantic region. [29]
The main objectives were privateering and colonization. However unlike the
VOC, investors were initially not enthusiastic and it took a number of years              20
before the WIC was able to start in earnest. The organization enjoyed brief
success in North America with the establishment of New Netherland.
In 1628 Piet Hein (1577 – 1629), who was employed by the WIC, captured
the Spanish silver fleet in the Bay of Matanzas in Cuba. Two years later the
Company captured the province of Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil from
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<pre>the Portuguese. From there the Portuguese forts of St George d’ Elmina
(known as Elmina) on the African Gold Coast and Fort Aardenburg in
Luanda (Angola) were later captured on the orders of Johan Maurits van
Nassau-Siegen. These conquests secured a supply of enslaved persons to
Dutch Brazil.
Suriname became by far the most important Dutch colony in the Atlantic
                                                                                  The Netherlands as a colonizer
region. It was captured from the British in 1667 and remained in Dutch
possession, albeit intermittently, up to 1975. During the conquest of the
territory the indigenous Carib, Arawak, Trio, Wayana and Akurio peoples were
driven into the rainforests or massacred. Enslaved Africans were then forced
into hard labour on the cotton, sugar and coffee plantations.
On the Caribbean islands too, the Dutch settlement process was anything but
peaceful. Curaçao was colonized in 1634 and the other islands – Aruba,
Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Bonaire – followed soon after. [30]
After a large part of the indigenous population had been murdered a century
earlier during the period of Spanish rule, the remaining population was
obliterated by a combination of murder and European diseases. The colonists
established a new society in which the colonists and enslaved Africans were
the main groups. That gave rise to an Afro-American or Caribbean ‘culture
of resistance’, far from the home countries of these enslaved people.
The coexistence of different cultural communities also gave rise to Creole
culture. The Papiamento and Sranan languages are examples of this, as is
the ladle referred to in the introduction. [31]
                                                                                    Dutch expansion
Unlike Suriname, the Caribbean islands were never fully fledged plantation
colonies. They were too dry, small and mountainous. [32] The importance of
the islands for the Republic lay in their role in trading and smuggling between
Europe and the ‘New World’, and between the islands themselves and with
the American continent. [33] Curaçao became a staging post for the temporary
settlement of enslaved people sold by the WIC to the surrounding Spanish
territories. When the Netherlands’ position of power in the slave trade
declined rapidly after 1713, Curaçao became less important to the Republic.
Between 1721 and 1729 the WIC also used Sint Eustatius to distribute
enslaved people. The island ultimately proved unprofitable for the Company,
however, partly due to competition with the British. [34]
The Dutch Atlantic empire reached its largest size around the mid-17th
century, but in 1654 the Dutch were expelled from Dutch Brazil by the
Portuguese and in the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665 – 1667) the WIC lost
New Netherland to Great Britain. The Company went bankrupt in 1674 and
the subsequently established second WIC was unable to trade profitably for
the Republic. The WIC was dissolved and the management of the Atlantic
colonies was passed to the Batavian government in 1795. [35]
                                                                                       21
Slavery
Enslaved people were used as cheap labour in the settlements and colonies
in both the West and the East. Between 1621 and 1866 an estimated
600,000 enslaved Africans were transported to the Dutch Atlantic territories
in appalling conditions. Some were sold on, while others were put to work
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<pre>in Dutch colonies. [36] In the same period between 660,000 and 1,135,000
enslaved people were transported to the Dutch overseas territories in Asia,
where they were traded as commodities or held as property of the Company
and of private individuals. [37]
Some Europeans opposed the slave trade and the use of enslaved people was
opposed from the beginning. However in part due to the absence of a strong
                                                                                     The Netherlands as a colonizer
abolitionist movement as in Great Britain, the Netherlands was relatively late
in abolishing slavery. Under pressure from the British, the Netherlands
abolished slave trading in 1814, although the possession of enslaved people
remained a generally accepted practice. [38] And while other colonial powers
abolished slavery from the 1820s, it was not until the mid-19th century that it
was abolished in Netherlands’ overseas territories. [39]
Slavery had a major impact on the cultural development of the colonies,
particularly those in the West. For many long-standing Asian communities
the colonial period was part of a longer history in which they preserved their
culture. But for people who were enslaved and transported to other parts of
the world, particularly in the transatlantic context, the situation was different:
they built new cultural forms in a world where cultural expression was
severely restricted. Displacement and prohibition of language and religion
was part of a deliberate strategy of subjugation. [40]
2.3   The Netherlands as a colonial power
                                                                                       The Netherlands as a colonial power
After the VOC went bankrupt in 1795, the colonies were administered by
officials from the Central Secretaries Department and the General Court of
Auditors. [41] The colonial period was characterized by both cooperation with,
and skirmishes between, rival colonial powers. This was particularly the case
with military action against and exploitation of the local populations. Dutch
authority in the Indonesian archipelago was established through wars and
military expeditions. [42] On Java Governor-General Herman Willem Daendels
(1762 – 1818) used harsh methods to impose reforms of the colonial
administration on the Javanese aristocracy. [43] In that period Nicolaus
Engelhard (1761 – 1831), the then Governor of Java’s north-east coast, began
collecting ancient Hindu-Buddhist figures. In 1803 he took three figures from
the temple at Singosari (East Java), initially installed in his residential garden
in Semarang. Dutch colonists had been taking figures, fragments and other
items from the ruins of ancient temples to adorn their homes since the
18th century. Engelhard went a step further shipping three Singosari figures
from his residential garden to the Netherlands with the result that there
are now seven figures from the Singosari temple are in the collection of
Museum Volkenkunde. [44]
After Daendels, the British Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Stamford Raffles
(1781 – 1826) replaced the system of compulsory supplies with land rents –                22
a system similarly characterized by exploitation of the Indonesian
population. [45] During the brief period of British rule (1811 – 1814) the
British followed Engelhard’s example and looted cultural heritage objects
from the archipelago. Raffles sent two Buddha heads from Borobudur
to England, which can now be seen in the Gallery of Indian Religions in the
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<pre>British Museum. [46] But the British also made efforts to conserve heritage
in the archipelago. Raffles, for example, cleared vegetation from Borobudur
in 1814 to restore access to the temple. [47] By showing interest in Javanese
history, customs and literature, Raffles was able to set up cooperative
arrangements with the local aristocracy in the field of heritage and
archaeology. With the ending of British rule on Java and the signing of the
Treaty of London in 1814, the Dutch East Indies became a Dutch colony
                                                                                   The Netherlands as a colonizer
in 1816. [48]
The Netherlands subsequently became actively engaged in archaeological
management and the collection of cultural heritage objects. Heritage was
made an official part of colonial policy. [49] The cleaning, surveying and
maintenance of various mainly Javanese archaeological sites made the heritage
in the Dutch East Indies both visible and accessible. [50] The Netherlands
saw itself as a modern and refined colonial power, the guardian of an ancient
civilization. As a result, the Dutch soon started to see the heritage in the
colony as ‘theirs’. To meet growing demand in the Netherlands, increasing
numbers of cultural heritage objects were taken and sent for study and
entertainment to European countries. [51] Most objects were collected on Java,
but other islands also lost valuable cultural heritage objects. [52]
Many Sumatran objects from the early prehistoric era ended up in Batavia
(Jakarta) and Amsterdam, for example. [53] Missionaries who came to the
Dutch East Indies at the start of the 19th century to bring Christianity to the
local peoples, partly in support of the colonial authority, also collected
objects which later found their way to the Netherlands. [54]
                                                                                     The Netherlands as a colonial power
From 1858 the Batavian Society, which was founded in 1778 partly to prevent
Dutch government officials from sending heritage items to their official
residences or to the Netherlands, was made officially responsible for collecting
and maintaining the heritage of the Dutch East Indies. An exception applied
in the case of those cultural heritage objects that they considered well looked
after. Heritage that was not cared for by the local population was taken into
national ownership. [55] The Netherlands generally viewed non-Islamic heritage
in the archipelago as heritage that was no longer of interest to the local
population. They removed this type of cultural heritage to Batavia or the
Netherlands, a strategy which they considered unobjectionable. [56]
Islamic heritage, and particularly mosques and holy graves, were generally
respected by the Dutch, an exception being the destruction of the mosque at
Banda Aceh during the Aceh War. [57] Writings by the Dutch military
topographer F.C. Wilsen, for example, described the use of Borobudur by
local Muslims as a place for sacrifices and festivities, which showed that non-
Islamic heritage was also important to the local population. [58] The British
Lieutenant-General Alexander Adams (1772 – 1834) wrote that Engelhard’s
urge to collect items from at the temple at Singosari drove the local
population to conceal the temple’s cultural heritage objects in the jungle to
prevent the Dutch looting them. [59]                                                    23
Tensions in the archipelago intensified as the 19th century unfolded.
From 1825 to 1830 the Java War was waged, costing the lives of 200,000
Javanese and 15,000 Dutch and Indonesian auxiliary troops. [60] After the
capture of the uprising’s leader, Prince Diponegoro (1785 – 1855), whose
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<pre>equipment and belonging came into the hands of the Dutch in September
1829 during fighting near the River Progo, Governor-General Johannes van de
Bosch (1780 – 1844) imposed calm in Java. [61] In 1830, under the motto
‘the colonies exist for the motherland; the motherland does not exist for
the colonies’, he introduced the Cultivation System under which the farmer
had to surrender part of their yield from their land. [62] The Cultivation System
brought economic benefits for the government of the Dutch East Indies,
                                                                                    The Netherlands as a colonizer
but the Indonesian population still had to contend with poverty and famine.
As a result, the Cultivation System slowly but surely came under pressure and
in 1870. After 10 years of debate on colonial politics in parliament,
it was abolished. [63]
There were other wars in which art treasures were frequently seized. From
1846 to 1849 a series of military actions took place on Bali, in which the
Balinese were violently forced to submit to Dutch authority. [64] Palaces of
Balinese rulers were looted and rulers who did submit presented gifts
to Dutch colonial officials, often of great cultural value. These gifts were
frequently tribute or symbols of submission. [65]
Between 1850 and 1854 battles were fought against Chinese gold prospectors
and traders in the west of Borneo (Kalimantan) during the so-called Kongsi
Wars. [66] The establishment of Dutch authority over northern Sumatra
ultimately led to the Aceh War (1873 -1914), which cost the lives of more than
100,000 Aceh inhabitants. [67] On Lombok, in 1894, more than a thousand
                                                                                      The Netherlands as a colonial power
gold and silver objects were looted during a Dutch action led by Governor-
General Carel Herman Aart van der Wijk from the palace of the local ruler. [68]
The list of Dutch military actions against the Indonesian population extends
further. The colonial period in the Dutch East Indies was characterized
by local resistance. This prompted repeated military interventions by
the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch
Leger – KNIL).
These military efforts and in particular the Java War, meant there were too few
military forces to maintain Dutch authority in the archipelago, in part due to
a lack of European volunteers. To compensate for this shortfall, from 1830 the
Netherlands press-ganged Africans on the Gold Coast, a tacit form of
enslavement. British protests had resulted in a discontinuation of the slave
trade, however in 1855 it was resumed albeit on a smaller scale, with the
handling of free men. Through this African military personnel came to the
East Indies, who became known as Belanda hitam (black Dutch). [69]
The power of the Dutch on the Gold Coast was waning, however.
Dutch African territories had ceased to be profitable for some time and the
European presence was encountering growing resistance from different West
African peoples. In 1869 a rebellion by different population groups was put
down by Dutch military force. However, such attempts by the Netherlands to               24
restore order cost the lives of hundreds of Africans. Under the Second
Sumatra Treaty of 2 November 1871, the Dutch possessions in West Africa
were ceded to the United Kingdom. In exchange, the Netherlands was given
a free hand in Aceh and permission to use Indians under British rule as
indentured labour in Suriname. [70]
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<pre>Towards the end of the 19th century it became clear that government officials
were unable to develop the economy in the Dutch East Indies further. [71]
The Indonesian population was increasingly impoverished. To meet labour
shortages, imported Asian workers were employed as wage slaves on Dutch
plantations. In 1900 almost 90,000 of these ‘coolies’ worked in pitiful
conditions for the Dutch. [72] It was this forced labour who excavated the Java
Man for the scientist Eugène Dubois (1858 – 1940) now one of the principal
                                                                                   The Netherlands as a colonizer
exhibits at Naturalis in Leiden. [73] It would not be until the 20th century
that the situation improved for these indentured labourers. [74]
The West Indian colonies
In 1816 Commissioner-General Johannes van den Bosch divided the
Dutch colonies in the West into three administrative areas: the government
of Suriname, the government of Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire and the
government of Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten and Saba. Efforts to make the
economies in the West more profitable for the Netherlands were hampered by
the political unrest that followed the ending of the Spanish and Portuguese
colonial administration in the Atlantic region. [75] In 1827 Curaçao was
declared a free port in an attempt to turn the island into a goods exchange in
the Caribbean region, but the island’s location proved too remote.
In Suriname, the Netherlands found it difficult to make an economic profit
after the abolition of slavery due to a shortage of labour and colonists. [76]
In 1865 the Minister of the Colonies, Isaäc Dignus Fransen van de Putte
                                                                                     The Netherlands as a colonial power
(1822 – 1902), reformed the colonial administration in the West once again.
[77] Labour shortage in Suriname was first tackled using indentured workers
from China and Madeira first on a trial basis and later on a permanent basis,
with the forced migration of indentured workers from British India to
Suriname. Ultimately over 34,000 Indian indentured workers settled
permanently in the colony, together with around 33,000 Javanese indentured
workers. [78] The new labourers brought vibrant Hindustani and Javanese
cultures which developed alongside the Marron culture. [79] Nevertheless,
despite its natural resources Suriname remained an impoverished country. [80]
The population were divided by internal tensions and remained poor.
In the former Antilles salt extraction proved lucrative for the colonial
government. [81] Due to the natural conditions and the small size of the
population, there was little other economic potential in the region.
Here too the population was diverse both in terms of ethnicity and culture.
This diversity increased as a result of the influence of Latin American culture,
while the elite adhered strongly to European cultural ideals. [82]
From the late 19th century there was European interest in collecting objects
from the West. In Suriname there was a particular ethnological interest in
indigenous objects and those from Marron culture used as a means
demonstrating the assumed hierarchy in cultures. In Curaçao collecting began            25
midway through the 20th century with a focus on the Dutch colonial lifestyle,
including photographs and objects showing the modernization brought to
the islands from the Netherlands which in so doing provided a European view
of the Afro-Curaçaoan people. [83] Objects were also collected from
archaeological excavations.
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<pre>2.4   Modernization
The 20th century brought greater prosperity to the Dutch East Indies,
but not everyone benefited. The agricultural information service was
established and welfare was introduced for the population. Between 1910 and
1940 rice growing doubled, putting an end to famine. But Indonesian workers
were exploited just as much with the burgeoning industrialization. A thriving
                                                                                    The Netherlands as a colonizer
batik and weaving industry was developed on Java and soap, paper and
cigarette factories were built, but it was mainly the Europeans that
benefited. [84] Electricity, modern means of communication, mass media and
cars also arrived, but again these were largely accessible only to Europeans.
The European population grew rapidly and increasing numbers of European
women came to the colony. [85] Their arrival changed the relationships between
Europeans, Indo-Europeans and Indonesians and widened the gap between
Europeans and the local populations. Men with a European background were
less inclined to start relationships with Indonesian women.
The beginning of the 20th century marked the era of the so-called Ethical
Policy. This was based on the notion that the Netherlands had a ‘debt of
honour’ or even a ‘moral obligation’ to ‘raise’ and bring prosperity to the
Indonesian population. [86] Alexander Idenburg (1861 – 1935), the Protestant
Minister of the Colonies, argued in 1902 that in some cases war in the
colonies was ‘a supreme act of charity’: in order to lift the local population
it had first to be subjugated. [87] Important to the Ethical Policy was the
education of the local population. [88]
From the 20th century a heightened sense of nationalism was evident among             Modernization
the Indonesian elite and among the new highly educated population. [89]
And although the local population gained a greater say in the colonial
administration, particularly on Java, the unwillingness of the Dutch to share
power led to resentment among nationalists. Strikes and boycotts against
Dutch authority were quelled by heavy-handed action by the colonial
government. [90] In 1927 the Indonesian nationalist Sukarno (1901 – 1970)
established his Partai Nasional Indonesia, with the aim of consciousness-
raising among the Indonesian population to make them aware of their
oppression and exploitation. The unrest in the Dutch East Indies increased,
in response to which the Dutch government decided to dissolve the party
in 1929 and to arrest Sukarno and other leaders.
The Netherlands was also trying to revitalize the economy on the other side
of the world, in the Atlantic colonies. In Suriname these efforts were not
successful. [91] However on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire oil refineries were
built, resulting in growing prosperity for the European population and
modernization of the islands. At the same time tensions arose due the
immigration of people from many countries who permanently settled there.
                                                                                         26
The Second World War
The Second World War brought a great deal of change to the colonies, albeit
with differences between the East and the West. In March 1942 the Dutch
East Indies fell into Japanese hands after the loss of the Battle of the Java Sea
and the subsequent fall of Java. The Japanese offensive made a deep
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<pre>impression on the Indonesian population, damaging colonial prestige and
authority. [92] Allied soldiers, with the exception of many Indonesian KNIL
personnel, became prisoners of war. Part of the European population in the
archipelago was interned in Japanese camps and millions of Indonesians
were forced to serve as labourers or auxiliary soldiers to support the Japanese
war effort. [93] Indonesian nationalism received a significant boost during
the Japanese occupation, partly due to the militarization of the Indonesian
                                                                                  The Netherlands as a colonizer
population. [94] The Second World War in the Pacific came to an end on
15 August 1945 after the capitulation of Japan.
In the West the war led to rising prosperity. The bauxite from Suriname and
fuel from the oil refineries of Aruba and Curaçao were very important for the
allied war effort and were the subject of large-scale investments. The West
contributed directly and indirectly to the liberation of the Netherlands by
providing equipment as well as financial and military resources. The presence
of US military personnel in the country during the Second World War led to
the Americanization of Surinamese culture. [95] Political and constitutional
emancipation accelerated. Various political parties were established in
Suriname as well as in the Dutch West Indies. [96] These parties strived for
greater independence. [97]
2.5   Decolonization
Decolonization from European powers is characterized by both peaceful
                                                                                    Decolonization
transfers of power and bloody wars. It can roughly be divided into four
periods. The first, from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the
19th century, saw the United States fighting to gain independence from
Great Britain and the dissolution of Spanish and Portuguese empires in South
and Central America. The second period was the comparatively peaceful
wave of decolonization from the mid-19th century, in which Canada, Australia
and New Zealand gained ‘independence’, first as dominions and from the
20th century as independent states. The decolonization process in South
Africa was an exception due to the violence used. The third wave of
decolonization took place in Asia between 1946 and 1949, and the fourth and
final wave was the decolonization in Africa. The final wave ran roughly from
1960 up to the liberation of Zimbabwe in 1980.
In the Indonesian archipelago, two days after the Japanese capitulation
on 17 August 1945, the nationalists Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta
(1902 – 1980) declared independence. This declaration of independence
marked the start of another bloody war, in which the Netherlands used
violence and diplomacy in an effort to reimpose its authority in the
archipelago, which the Indonesians were able to prevent through both military
and diplomatic means. [98] While the Indonesians saw the return of the Dutch
as an attempt to reassert colonial rule, in the Netherlands the period between
1945 and 1949 is still officially viewed as a period of decolonization. [99]           27
On 27 December 1949 the transfer of sovereignty brought an official end to
the Netherlands’ colonial administration in the archipelago, with the exception
of Netherlands New Guinea. The Netherlands held onto this final possession
until 1962 finally yielding to pressure from the United Nations and
the United States. [100]
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<pre>The colonial past had a long aftermath in the archipelago. KNIL military
personnel who did not want to take Indonesian citizenship declared the
Republic of Maluku Selatan (RMS, Republic of South Maluku) on
25 April 1950. Their Republic was swiftly occupied by the Indonesian army,
after which in 1951 almost 4,000 former KNIL soldiers came to the
Netherlands with their families. They intended to return when RMS became
an independent state, which did not happen. In the period 1945 to 1968
                                                                                  The Netherlands as a colonizer
over 300,000 Indonesian Dutch were ‘repatriated’ in part because they had
not taken Indonesian citizenship and lived in an increasingly dangerous
and hostile environment. Between 1957 and 1964 a further 25,000 so-called
‘penitents’ came to the Netherlands, who despite their Indonesian citizenship
were discriminated against and were unsafe in Indonesia. Due to the major
housing shortage in the Netherlands after the Second World War and
unemployment up to the mid-1950s, these migrants did not receive a warm
welcome. The Moluccans, who hoped to return to the RMS, were also
deliberately excluded from Dutch society.
Unlike the Indonesian archipelago, Dutch colonies in the Atlantic generally
had no strong desire for independence immediately after the Second World
War. [101] In view of the small size of the islands, their populations and
the economies, they were heavily dependent on the Netherlands. In 1948 and
from 1952 to 1954 two round-table conferences took place in The Hague,
which led to the colonies being granted autonomy in domestic policy while
remaining dependent on the Netherlands for a limited number of matters,
                                                                                    Decolonization
including defence and foreign affairs. Suriname also became an autonomous
country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. [102]
The statute by which all this was governed initially functioned well.
From the end of the 1960s, however, racial conflicts, unemployment,
Black Power influences from the United States and political instability led
to strikes and uprisings in Suriname. On 30 May 1969 a popular uprising in
Curaçao was suppressed by Dutch marines. [103] The Dutch government
began to see the overseas territories in the West mainly as burden, including
economically, while their inhabitants seemingly did not want independence.
In 1955 they persuaded the Netherlands to remove them from the United
Nations list of non self-governing territories. [104]
However in due course, particularly in Suriname, the desire for
independence grew, although the population was sharply divided on the form
that independence should take. On 25 November 1975 Suriname became
independent, or – as it is sometimes viewed – was left to its fate as a highly
polarized country. [105] Around a third of Suriname’s population had migrated
to the Netherlands before independence for political or economic reasons. [106]
Due to the tensions in the area, a large group of Antilleans also emigrated
to the Netherlands. [107] In view of the situation in Suriname, the Antillean
islands were not convinced of the benefits of independence and instead                 28
worked to secure a right of self-determination within the Kingdom. [108]
Aruba was the first to feel the desire to separate from the Antilles, which in
1986 led to a status aparte as an autonomous country within the Kingdom. [109]
Curaçao and Sint Maarten then expressed a wish to have the same status.
On 10 October 2010 the Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist as a country.
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<pre>Curaçao and Sint Maarten have since then been independent countries within
the Kingdom. Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba became special Dutch
communities under the name of Caribbean Netherlands. [110]
2.6   Conclusion
Decolonization brought a formal end to centuries of occupation marked
                                                                                   The Netherlands as a colonizer
by inequality, racism and violence. These are characteristics not entirely
consistent with the Dutch self-image as country of tolerance, love of peace
and respect for human rights.
The colonial past is viewed from a number of different perspectives in the
Netherlands: perspectives in which the propaganda that glossed over colonial
conduct is being reassessed and perspectives in which past actions are
understood through the prism of guilt. For the Committee it is about a
readiness to deal with the colonial past in an honest and unbiased way and
to take responsibility for it, in part because such a history can never simply
be consigned to the past and continues to leave its mark on the present day.
Or as the Dutch historian Henk Wesseling says: ‘Decolonization does not want
to be just history.’ [111]
The past is also reflected in the collections of present day museums with
cultural, religious and historical objects from the former colonial territories.
The Committee believes the Netherlands must take its responsibility for
that part of the past. This is particularly the case in regard to those objects
                                                                                     Conclusion
which were surrendered under duress, possessions lost involuntarily, and
which for that reason are now uncomfortable possessions. The past cannot
be undone, but a critical assessment must be made of the way in which
the Netherlands will address those cultural treasures held in Dutch
museums today.
                                                                                        29
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<pre>3.        Colonial collections
The Dutch colonial collections consist of a wide range of cultural
heritage objects, including art objects, religious objects, historical
                                                                                  Colonial collections
objects, jewellery, natural history objects and utensils. In total there
are hundreds of thousands of objects. In addition to museums
that manage large and interesting colonial collections, such as the
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Museum Bronbeek and the
Rijksmuseum, many smaller museums also have colonial collections.
A survey of Dutch museums conducted by the Committee and the
Dutch Museums Association shows that much remains unknown about
the way in which colonial cultural heritage objects came into Dutch
possession. Some museums nevertheless state that they are managing
objects which they know to have been acquired during the colonial
period without the owner’s consent.
In order to obtain a picture of the colonial collections in the Netherlands,
the Committee worked with the Museums Association sending a survey to
its 420 members. [112] The Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency was also
surveyed. 115 respondents completed the survey, which represents a response
rate of 27 percent. [113] Although the number of respondents is relatively
                                                                                   Colonial collections in the Netherlands
limited, they include leading museums with colonial collections. The
Committee then obtained further information about these collections from
the museums. The Committee believes it can thus give a sketch of the
management of colonial heritage objects by Dutch museums. That applies in
particular to those institutions that manage colonial cultural heritage objects
owned by the State. [114]
3.1   Colonial collections in the Netherlands
The survey shows that in addition to a number of larger museums,
including the National Museum of World Cultures, Museum Bronbeek and
the Rijksmuseum, which manage large and important colonial collections,
many smaller museums have colonial collections. Apart from government
bodies, the owners of these collections are frequently shown to be private
individuals, including foundations, associations, businesses, individuals and
families. Indonesia is the most prominently cited country whose cultural
heritage objects are managed by museums. However Suriname, Curaçao,
Aruba, Sint Maarten, the Caribbean Netherlands and other former colonial
territories of the Netherlands and other European powers are as also
identified as the source countries of colonial cultural objects collection.
Museums were asked about their knowledge of provenance: the way in which              30
the colonial objects in their collection were acquired. Around 20 percent of
museum responses stated that they manage colonial collection objects which
they know to have been acquired without the owner’s consent. In addition,
almost 60 percent stated that they managed objects whose acquisition history
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<pre>is unknown. One reason for the size of this response is that provenance
history cannot always be ascertained and, as stated later in this chapter,
not all museums are yet devoting the same amount of attention to provenance
research. Nevertheless, approximately half of the museums with colonial
cultural heritage objects report that the question of colonial heritage is
a current concern for them; one-third stated that they maintained contacts
with source countries. The fact that over three-quarters of the museums
                                                                                                   Colonial collections
with colonial cultural heritage objects state in the survey that they would
like support in dealing with these collections underlines the pertinence
of the topic.
3.2   A closer look at the leading museums
A more detailed picture of colonial cultural heritage objects in Dutch
museums can be obtained by looking more closely at a number of
leading museums.
Museum Bronbeek
Museum Bronbeek is a military colonial museum and manages a large and
diverse colonial collection owned by the State, including objects related to the
KNIL. The collection includes cultural heritage objects from different former
Dutch colonies, including Indonesia, Suriname and Curaçao. These were
acquired in different ways. At the entrance to the museum is the ‘peperstuk’,
for example, a 19-centimetre-calibre cannon decorated with a golden wreath
                                                                                                    A closer look at the leading museums
of oak leaves.
      The 17th-century peperstuk (object number 1875/04-1-2) at the entrance to Museum Bronbeek.
      Photo: Rob Gieling.
This is a cannon with a complex history. It was presented by the Turkish
Empire as a gift to the Sultan of Aceh between 1631 and 1636 and was looted
by the colonial army in the 19th century. In 1875 it was sent as a trophy of
war to Museum Bronbeek, where it was bestowed with a golden wreath by
King Willem III. The peperstuk has historical value not only for Turkey and
Indonesia and due to the addition of the golden wreath also for the
Netherlands. [115]
                                                                                                       31
In addition to those objects involuntarily lost to their source country,
the museum manages many cultural heritage objects which were presented as
gifts to colonial administrators or private individuals or where there is a lack of
clarity surrounding acquisition . An example of the latter is the ‘Slavendans’
diorama produced by the Surinamese artist Gerrit Schouten from 1817.
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<pre>The diorama shows a Du a role play by enslaved people with music and dance
performed on plantations. According to the museum catalogue, it is not
known how this representation of Creole culture was acquired in
Suriname. [116] The Rijksmuseum reports that the Schouten dioramas were
often produced and purchased as souvenirs; Europeans in Suriname would
have been enchanted by expressions of folklore in the colonial period. [117]
Such pieces could have commissioned from Schouten.
                                                                               Colonial collections
                                                                                A closer look at the leading museums
    Diorama ‘Slavendans’, produced by the artist Gerrit Schouten
    (object number 1999/00-113). Source: Museum Bronbeek
For the museum the way forward for dealing with colonial heritage is an
important issue. Cultural heritage objects from the Museum Bronbeek
collection have been returned to source countries in the past, including the
belongings (saddle, bridle, parasol and spear) of Prince Diponegoro.
This followed the agreements signed between the Netherlands and Indonesia
in 1977. [118] Museum Bronbeek works closely with Indonesian cultural
institutions. The museum states that it has never received a request
for return. [119]
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (NMVW)
The NMVW manages a large number of colonial cultural heritage objects,
belonging both to the State and to the Municipality of Rotterdam.
The Tropenmuseum, part of the NMVW, inherited the collection of the
former Colonial Museum in Haarlem. Museum Volkenkunde, a constituent
museum of NMVW, became the repository for the collections of the Royal
Cabinet of Rarities formed from the early 19th century. During the colonial
period Museum Volkenkunde received war loot and collections from the
Netherlands’ Ministry of Colonies. The museum also received military
                                                                                   32
collections from private individuals and cultural heritage objects from
academics and archaeologists. In 1903 it acquired the non-Western antique
collection of the National Museum of Antiquities and in 1958 all collections
from the Royal Military Academy in Breda. The NMVW’s colonial collection
is therefore extensive and diverse. The museum contains antiquarian
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<pre>collections, military collections, commercial collections, missionary
collections, colonial-administrative collections and family collections.
It is a custodian of cultural heritage objects whose original owners lost
possession involuntarily, cultural heritage objects that were acquired with the
consent of the former owner and cultural heritage objects whose provenance
history remains unclear. The bulk of the colonial collection, comes from
Indonesia with more than 100,000 objects coming in during the colonial
                                                                                  Colonial collections
period. The NMVW also manages cultural heritage objects from Suriname,
Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, the Caribbean Netherlands and other former
Dutch colonial territories, including from the former Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
In addition, the museum manages cultural heritage objects from former
colonies of other European colonial powers, including a number of notable
Benin Bronzes from the Kingdom of Edo (Nigeria).
                                                                                   A closer look at the leading museums
    Golden pipe from 1837 (object number RV-360-5211). Source: NMVW
An example of NMVW masterpiece that came to the Netherlands as a gift is
the golden pipe that was presented to King Willem I in 1837 by King Kwaku
Dua of the Asante in Ghana. The pipe was received by Major General Verveer.
Verveer struck an agreement with Kwaku Dua whereby the Dutch
government would be able recruit a thousand men for the East Indian Army
in the Asante Kingdom in exchange for payment. In recognition of the                  33
agreement, the Ghanaian king presented this golden pipe, a gift linked to a
business transaction. The piece first entered the Royal Cabinet of Rarities and
was subsequently transferred into Museum Volkenkunde in the
19th century. [120]
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<pre>The Asante king sent his son and cousin to the Netherlands to receive a
Western education, as author Arthur Japin depicted in his novel ‘De zwarte
met het witte hart’.
                                                                                 Colonial collections
                                                                                  A closer look at the leading museums
    Balinese 19th-century palace doors
    (object number RV-1586-31 Source: NMVW
Another example of significant cultural heritage objects managed by NMVW
are the 19th-century Balinese palace doors formerly belonging the palace of
the ruler of Denpasar. The heavy wooden doors are ornamented with mythical
animal, flower and leaf motifs. They were shipped to the Netherlands from
Bali by the painter W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp as a consequence of his ‘collection
tour’ undertaken for Museum Volkenkunde. He found the doors
at the ruined palace of the ruler I Gusti Gede Ngurah in Badung, which was
the target of a major Dutch military action on 20 September 1906.
This ended in a puputan – a ‘fight to the bitter end’ – in which many hundreds
                                                                                     34
of Balinese committed ritual suicide. The palace was completely destroyed
and the majority of palace treasures were taken as war loot and sent to
Batavia. According to Nieuwenkamp the doors were left behind, because they
were too heavy and too large for the soldiers to carry. Nieuwenkamp sent the
doors to the Netherlands by sea. [121]
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<pre>The NMVW is an active player in the Dutch museum world when it comes to
establishing and maintaining contacts with source countries, conducting
provenance research and developing a vision for the way forward with colonial
cultural heritage objects. The museum published the previously cited report
‘Return of Cultural Objects in 2019: Principles and Process’, which sets out
the procedure adopted by the museum for dealing with claims from source
countries for the return of cultural heritage objects.
                                                                                  Colonial collections
The Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum also manages many cultural heritage objects originating
from former Dutch colonial areas. Although most are in the possession of the
State, the Rijksmuseum also manages many pieces belonging to private
individuals. It manages the cultural heritage objects of the Royal Asian Art
Society in the Netherlands (Koninklijke Vereniging van Vrienden voor
Aziatische Kunst – KVVAK). The museum has cultural heritage objects from
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Suriname and the former Antilles. Some of these were
acquired with the consent of the then owner, while others were acquired
without consent, including the cannon of the King of Kandy. The cannon was
captured on 19 February 1765 in Kandy (Sri Lanka) by the troops of
G.G. Lubbert Jan Baron van Eck, in contravention of a plundering ban
imposed on these troops. In that same year Van Eck sent the cannon to the
Netherlands, where it entered the Royal Cabinet of Rarities of Stadhouder
Willem V in 1769. Soon afterwards it came to be known as the cannon of
Michiel de Ruyter. When French forces invaded the Netherlands in 1795 they
                                                                                   A closer look at the leading museums
presented this cannon and a number of other pieces of national interest from
the former possessions of the stadhouder to the States General. Partly for this
reason some historians see it as an object of importance for Dutch history.
The canon ended up in the Rijksmuseum. [122]
                                                                                      35
    The Cannon of Kandy (object number NG-NM-1015). Source: Rijksmuseum
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<pre>                                                                                   Colonial collections
    ‘De Hemelse Schoonheid’ (object number AK-MAK-185),
                                                                                    A closer look at the leading museums
    from the Lakshmana temple (India). Source: Rijksmuseum
An example of a cultural heritage object from the Rijksmuseum whose
provenance history is not precisely known is the Indian sandstone figure
commonly called The Holy Beauty. The figure has been on loan to the
Rijksmuseum from the KVVAK since 1972. The KVVAK purchased it in
1934 from Charles-Louis Fábri or through an intermediary and it is unclear
how Fábri, or the intermediary on his behalf, acquired the figure. At the time
of acquisition it was believed to come from Bhubaneswar in Orissa, India.
Recent research by the Rijksmuseum, however, showed that the figure came
from the Lakshmana temple in Khajuraho. The Rijksmuseum reports that the
figure was most probably removed by a British official or a local person and
found its way onto the open market when the temple fell into disrepair. [123]
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Natural history museums also manage important objects with a colonial
association. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, for example, manages hundreds of
thousands of objects collected in former colonial territories.
The fossilized skullcap and the thighbone of ‘Java Man’ are significant colonial
cultural heritage objects. These archaeological remains were brought to the
Netherlands in the colonial period by the Dutch doctor and palaeontologist             36
Eugène Dubois (1858 – 1940). The skullcap and thighbone were found to be
the holotype of homo erectus, and therefore the evolutionary link between man
and ape. [124]
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<pre>                                                                                    Colonial collections
    Pithecanthropus erectus or ‘the Java Man’ in Naturalis Biodiversity Center
    (object number RGM.1332450). Photo: Peter Maas.
The fossils were excavated on behalf of Dubois in 1891 by ‘coolies’,
indentured labour who were put to work in the Dutch East Indies by the
colonial government. Java Man tells the history of humanity and the history of
the Javanese civilization and in addition colonial history, in which Indonesian
and Chinese workers were exploited by the colonial power. However, colonial
                                                                                     A closer look at the leading museums
collections are less of a focus of concerning the museum. The museum focuses
mainly on the biogeographical and ethnobiological background of its cultural
heritage objects and less on the colonial context in which they were acquired.
The National Museum of Antiquities
The National Museum of Antiquities manages more than 10,000 colonial
cultural heritage objects, all of them owned by the State. The museum only
possesses cultural heritage objects originating in former colonies of other
powers. It has many cultural heritage objects acquired in Greek, Egyptian,
Assyrian or Phoenician colonies, for example. As far as is known, these objects
were acquired with the consent of the former owner. It appears that some
certificates of purchase for the cultural heritage objects nevertheless appear to
be forgeries. These objects may therefore have found their way illegally into
the open market. In these circumstances the provenance of cultural heritage
objects is often impossible or difficult to fully determine.
In the Committee’s view the above information gives a good illustration of the
diversity of colonial cultural heritage objects in Dutch possession. A precise
estimate of the numbers involved is more difficult to achieve from this data,
however it is likely that there are several hundreds of thousands of colonial
cultural heritage objects. Those museums that did not complete the survey are
                                                                                        37
likely, according to the Committee, to manage some colonial cultural heritage
objects. Equally, not all museums have properly surveyed the nature and
extent of their holdings of colonial objects. In the survey 28 percent of
museums with colonial cultural heritage objects stated they had no proper
overview of the colonial cultural heritage objects in their collections,
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<pre>39 percent said that they were in process of obtaining one, with 33 percent
responding that they did have an overview.
3.3   Provenance research by museums
Of the museums with colonial cultural heritage objects that completed the
survey, only 10 percent already have a good overview of the provenance of
                                                                                  Colonial collections
their collections. 43 percent carry out exploratory research into the
provenance of their collections. 13 percent carry out systematic research and
34 percent do not yet have provenance research fully on their agenda.
      Status of provenance research
      (in percentages)
                                                                                   Provenance research by museums
Two Dutch museums, the NMVW and the Rijksmuseum, are experienced
in provenance research. The NMVW has been active in this field since the
1990s. In view of the varied nature of the collections and the large volume of
colonial cultural heritage objects, this remains work in progress. The NMVW
made a number of new hires in June 2019 specifically to conduct provenance
research and to identify those cultural heritage objects in the NMVW
collection which require further detailed research. Priority is being given to
cultural heritage objects known to be of sensitive or disputed provenance.
The provenance research is carried out in close cooperation with national and
international experts and other museums. An active dialogue is maintained
with museums in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium and the United
Kingdom. The NMVW hosted the Benin Dialogue Group in 2018 and is a
member of the Benin Steering Group, together with state museums from
Berlin, London and Nigeria. The quality of the research is monitored by a
curatorial committee within the NMVW.
In 2018 the Rijksmuseum set up a working group to research the                       38
provenance of their collections, partly with the aim of detecting unlawfully
acquired cultural heritage objects. The working group undertook a pilot
project in which ten cultural heritage objects were selected different in terms
of their acquisition and source country for closer investigation. The pilot
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<pre>demonstrated how complex the history of colonial cultural heritage objects
often is and how complicated and time-consuming it can be to discover this
history. In some cases the provenance of the colonial cultural heritage objects
has therefore remained unclear. The research by the Rijksmuseum has not
as yet resulted in any returns, but has generated requests for return.
In order to combine strength and expertise, the NMVW and the Rijksmuseum
                                                                                    Colonial collections
started a pilot project in 2018 with the Provenance Research Expertise Centre
of the NIOD (Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide
Studies). This project, which began formally in 2019 as the ‘Pilot Provenance
Research on Objects of the Colonial Era’ (PPROCE), is subsidized by the
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and aims to develop a
methodology for the conduct of provenance research. The focus is on objects
from Indonesia.
3.4   Acquisition method
Just as the colonial cultural heritage objects in Dutch collections are diverse,
so are the ways in which they were acquired. Some were looted and some
came to the Netherlands as spoils of war or were taken from temples and
other holy places; others were given to Dutch people as gifts, purchased or
acquired during collecting expeditions. In the case of gifts, purchases and
bartering, it must be kept in mind that in the colonial period there were
unequal power relationships between colonizer and colonized. This can mean
                                                                                     Acquisition method
that in certain cases commercial transactions or gifts were not made with full
consent: cultural heritage objects may have been sold or given away out of
fear, to placate a ruling party, for political reasons or because poverty meant
there was no other way to provide the necessities of life. In the colonial
context there was a thin line between obligation and freedom, and therefore
between voluntary and involuntary loss of possession. In the case of the Dutch
East Indies, for example, it is known that gifts were presented by local rulers
as a token of subjugation. [125]
Colonial cultural heritage objects were acquired by many different people
and bodies: by private individuals, by scientists – for example during scientific
expeditions such as those of Dubois – by government representatives, by
soldiers during colonial army operations and expeditions or by missionaries.
These cultural heritage objects came into Dutch collections in different ways.
Private individuals donated or sold objects to museums. As stated elsewhere in
this guidance, a considerable proportion of the Indonesian cultural heritage
objects entered Dutch museum collections through the Batavian Society of
Arts and Sciences. Other cultural heritage objects came to the Netherlands
through the Dutch East Indies Archaeological Service (1913 – 1949) or
through the Royal Cabinet of Rarities (1816 – 1883). [126] The provenance
history of cultural heritage objects should not be confused with the way in
which they were acquired by museums. The fact that a museum legitimately               39
purchased a cultural heritage object at auction does not imply, for example,
that it could not have been looted during the colonial period. Similarly,
the mere fact that a cultural heritage object was donated to a museum by
the Ministry of Colonies does not automatically make it spoils of war.
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<pre>4.       Past returns
The return of colonial cultural heritage objects by former colonial
powers is not a recent phenomenon; the first examples of returns date
                                                                                      Past returns
from the colonial period itself. The Netherlands has hitherto mainly
returned objects to Indonesia. The reasons for these returns were
varied. In some cases objects were returned as a diplomatic gift, for
example to mark a state visit. In some cases the returns were based on
agreements between countries, such as the joint recommendations
between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the mid-1970s. No return
policy has yet been developed jointly with the source countries,
however.
Former colonial powers have for some time been considering the most
appropriate means to address colonial cultural heritage. A key question being
to whom does this colonial heritage belong. Prior to decolonization
politicians, elites and religious leaders in former colonies territories made their
own calls and demands for the restitution of lost cultural heritage. The Bishop
of Iceland, for example, asked the Danes to return ancient manuscripts from
his diocese in 1830, and in 1919 Tanzania asked the Germans to return the
skull of their Sultan Mkawa under the Treaty of Versailles. [127] Later examples
are the throne and footstall of the last King of Kandy with the crown of King
Sri Vikrama Raja Simha which the United Kingdom returned to Sri Lanka in
1934, and the more than 300 paintings and drawings from the colonial period
which France returned to Algeria in 1969. [128] But there are also more recent
examples. In 2019 France returned the 19th-century sword of Omar Saidou
Tall to Senegal – albeit on loan – and in 2020 Jesus College Cambridge made
the decision to return a bronze cockerel, one of the renowned Benin Bronzes,
to Nigeria.
Indonesia
In the Netherlands returns of objects were focused mainly on Indonesia.
Remarkably, early returns to Indonesia came from Thailand: in 1927 the
Ramayana reliefs from Prambanan were returned to the Dutch-Indonesian
government by King Chulalongkorn of Siam. This was followed the criticism
from Dutch archaeologists, curators in Siam and King Chulalongkorn’s half-
brother Prince Damrong that these and other important cultural heritage
objects had been stolen from Javanese temples and given to the King of Siam.
Not all items received as gifts by the king were returned. Heads and reliefs
from Borobudur, for example, can still be seen in Thailand. [129]
The first Dutch returns predate Indonesian independence. In 1907 and 1938
the Netherlands returned regalia to the Bone and Gowa sultanates. These had             40
been victims of Dutch military actions in South Sulawesi in 1905 and 1906.
These sultans stated that they needed these objects to rule and by returning
the regalia the colonial government gave de facto recognition to the authority
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<pre>of the sultanates. [130] In 1937, for the same reason, two of the four looted royal
krisses were returned to royal families in South Bali. [131]
When it became clear that sovereignty would be transferred in the near term,
negotiations began between the Netherlands, the Republic of Indonesia
and the Federal Consultative Assembly (Bijeenkomst voor Federaal Overleg –
BFO) on the Indonesian on the subject of cultural heritage in Dutch
                                                                                      Past returns
possession. Under discussion werethe Bali and Lombok Treasures,
the belongings of Prince Diponegoro, but also natural history objects such as
Java Man. [132] The Netherlands emphasized that during military actions in the
Archipelago an ‘art protection officer’ has always been present who prevented
the plundering of cultural heritage and ensured that all cultural heritage taken
found its way into the collection of the Batavian Society. In consequence no
significant treasures were technically consigned to the Netherlands or
the world market. The reality was different: Dutch administrators, soldiers,
businessmen, missionaries and scientists had indeed taken objects.
These were often smuggled to the Netherlands and in some instances other
countries as well. [133][134]
The Netherlands did, however, see advantages in returning cultural heritage
objects: the return could be viewed as a token of goodwill and be used to
achieve other purposes. [135]
Jointly with the Indisch Instituut in Amsterdam, the museums drew up
a list of 1456 ‘valuables’ whose provenance should be investigated. [136]
For Indonesian parties the negotiations on the return of cultural heritage
objects were important not only because these objects could tell the national
story; a return was also seen as a gesture of respect from one nation to
the other. [137]
The roundtable conference on the transfer of sovereignty held from 23 August
to 2 November 1949, had an agenda which included culture. This led to a
draft cultural agreement, in which Article 19 related to restitution. The article
specified that cultural heritage objects which were unlawfully acquired should
be transferred to the Indonesian government. [138] With the exception of this
article the Republic of Indonesia was not satisfied with the agreement which it
believed remained too dependent on the Netherlands. Ultimately the treaty
was never ratified. [139] The Batavian Society’s collection was nevertheless
transferred to Indonesia with the handover of power in December 1949.
This is the basis of the collection of the current Museum Nasional in Jakarta.
After independence the negotiations on the return of colonial cultural heritage
objects continued intermittently and mainly on the initiative of Indonesia.
Indonesia raised the issue at the first Africa-Asia conference in Bandung
which, as far as is known, did not lead to restitution requests from any of the
former colonies in attendance. [140]                                                    41
On some occasions Indonesia’s initiatives appeared to be paying off:
for example, in February 1952 it was decided that there should be ad hoc
committees to deal with restitution matters. But the Indonesian efforts had
no tangible results and the ad hoc committees were never established. [141]
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<pre>Tensions on the future of Netherlands New Guinea, disappointment in the
Netherlands on the Republic of Indonesia’s unilateral dissolution of the
Dutch-Indonesian Union and Dutch criticism of the human rights situation in
Indonesia were obstacles to the return of heritage. [142] The establishment of a
coordinating committee in 1963 to develop cultural relations with Indonesia,
also did not result in returns. The committee’s negotiations mainly concerned
archival documents and not cultural heritage objects. [143] It is possible that
                                                                                      Past returns
Indonesia presented a detailed list of Indonesian cultural heritage objects held
in the Netherlands prior to these negotiations, but no further details are at
present known as to the details of this list or its role in the negotiations. [144]
It was only in July 1968, after President Sukarno had been deposed and
President Suharto came to power and cultural relations between the
Netherlands and Indonesia gradually grew stronger, that there was an
agreement also covering cultural heritage objects. [145] A number of returns
then took place. During a state visit by Suharto to the Netherlands in 1970,
two paintings by the Javanese artist Raden Saleh Sjarif Bastaman
(1811 – 1880) were returned. [146] In 1973 Queen Juliana returned the
Nagarakretagama manuscript to the Museum Nasional during a state visit. [147]
The Netherlands generally took a conservative approach to returns
of cultural heritage objects, unless Indonesia lodged specific requests. [148]
The Netherlands was more accommodating with regard to archives,
particularly if there was a corresponding return of Dutch archives in
Indonesian possession. [149]
Meanwhile Indonesia was not waiting to be prompted. In 1970 and 1974
Indonesian experts travelled to the Netherlands to create an inventory of
objects whose return could be requested from Dutch museums. In 1975 the
Netherlands finally expressed a willingness to cooperate in supporting the
building up of museums and archives in Indonesia. The Netherlands returned
as a first gesture 380 ethnographic objects smuggled out in 1962, just before
Netherlands New Guinea became Papua. All parties were in agreement that
this had contravened international law.
Indonesia proposed that a team of Dutch and Indonesian experts should
get to work together. The Indonesian side prioritized objects that could
contribute to Indonesian national consciousness. Indonesia reportedly
presented a list of 10,000 objects that they wished returned. [150]
Negotiations which took place in November 1975 at the Museum Nasional
proved difficult. A report of the negotiations even states that the Netherlands
believed it was pointless to discuss a transfer of objects until such time as
Indonesia had a proper museum infrastructure. [151] The Netherlands
consistently avoided the term ‘return’ used by Indonesia. Instead, it spoke
of ‘transfer’, a term judged to be less risky in terms of legal implications. [152]
                                                                                        42
Nevertheless, the negotiations led to joint recommendations on cultural
cooperation which covered the transfer of objects. [153] In June 1977 a second
meeting was held to discuss an initial phase of restitutions, discussions which
continued a year later. Various returns took place during those years,
including: part of the belongings which Prince Diponegoro lost possession of
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<pre>in 1829 when fighting the Dutch, the Prajñāpāramita figure from Singosari,
approximately half of the Lombok Treasure – 243 objects originating from the
raid on Lombok in 1894 – and the Raden Saleh painting of the capture of
Diponegoro. [154] During this period the Netherlands also maintained its
position that, with the exception of the Lombok and Bali Treasures, all objects
in Dutch possession had been purchased or received as gifts and the Batavian
Society had left all other significant objects in Indonesia. [155]
The topic was less prominently discussed at the end of the 20th century.          Past returns
The issue was not specifically raised during an agreement on cultural
cooperation between the two countries in the period 1982-1983. [156]
Dutch public perception considered the case largely ‘settled’ with the returns
of the 1970s. With the exception of private individuals, there were no official
requests for returns on the Indonesian side. Increasing attention was devoted
to the subject in academia, but this similarly did not result in returns. [157]
Around 1990 research was undertaken into the removal of cultural heritage
items from the archipelago by missionaries during the 19th century.
That research led to the return in 2008 – first on loan and later permanently –
of 18 objects by the Friars Minor Capuchin of the Ordo Fratrum Minorum
Capucinorum for a new cultural centre in Sintang, West Kalimantan.
The Tropenmuseum also returned four ethnographic objects that year to the
same museum. In 2009 the Friars Minor Capuchin donated 33 objects
from their ‘Sumatra Collection’ to the Museum Pusaka Nias in Gunungsitoli
on Sumatra. In 2005 the Municipality of Rotterdam returned 185 wayang
puppets to the Wayang Museum in Jakarta to help strengthen municipal links
between Jakarta and Rotterdam. [158] In 2014 descendants of Governor
General Baud (1789 – 1859) returned the wooden pilgrim’s staff of Prince
Diponegoro. [159] A kris linked to Diponegoro from the collection of the
National Museum van Wereldculturen was returned to Indonesia at the
beginning of 2020.
A special case arose in January 2013 when the Museum Nusantara in
Delft had to close and a new home was needed for the mostly ethnographic
collections, including more than 18,000 Indonesian objects. More than
3,000 objects were designated as worthy of protection and retention for the
Netherlands and transferred to the State collection. Once other Dutch
museums had selected items of interest to them and a further 2,000 objects
were subtracted from the collection because they did not meet museum
standards, the remaining objects were offered to the Museum Nasional in
Jakarta. Initially Indonesia appeared interested in accepting these objects,
but subsequently declined the offer. The collection was then distributed
among museums in Europe and other countries in Asia. At the end of 2016
the Museum Nasional renewed their interest in a selection of objects. On that
basis 1,564 objects were conveyed to Indonesia in 2020. [160] One item from
the Nusantara Collection had already been returned: a Buginese kris which
Prime Minister Rutte presented to President Joko Widodo during his state            43
visit to Indonesia in 2016. [161]
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<pre>Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Caribbean Netherlands
In comparison to Indonesia, those items that came to the Netherlands from
Suriname and the former Netherlands Antilles are relatively few in number.
The return of cultural heritage to these countries has also received
considerably less attention. The Committee is aware of only two cases of
returns to the former Atlantic colonies. The first was the return of
archaeological objects to Aruba on its becoming an independent country
                                                                                   Past returns
within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Aruba received 4,500 pre-Columbian
fragments from the Museum Volkenkunde collection in Leiden.
The second return took place in 2006, when the Tropenmuseum returned
48 artworks to the Nationaal Museum in Suriname. [162] All of them came
from the Dutch STICUSA foundation, which from 1948 to 1991 had the
role of promoting cultural cooperation between the Netherlands, Indonesia,
Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles and stimulating cultural output in
these countries. When the foundation was dissolved, most of the art made
was sold. The Tropenmuseum purchased a selection with a Dutch government
grant on condition that the artworks were returned to Suriname when the
Nationaal Museum there was ready. That happened in 2006. [163] It is not
precisely clear when each of the 48 returned artworks was produced.
It is possible that 27 of the returned paintings were produced during the
colonial period. [164]
Finally
As this brief overview shows, the reasons for returns in the past were quite
varied. In some cases objects were returned as diplomatic gifts to mark special
events, such as the opening of a cultural centre or a state visit. In some cases
there was internal or external pressure to return objects or an agreement was
in place between countries. In a few cases, where it was clear that certain
cultural heritage objects had been removed from the source country illegally,
these were returned to redress the injustice. However, as yet no return policy
has been developed jointly with the source countries.
                                                                                     44
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<pre>5.        Developments in other
          European countries
                                                                                  Developments in other European countries
There are differences among the European colonizing countries in the
way they deal with their colonial cultural heritage objects and requests
to return them. There are countries that take a conservative attitude
towards requests for return and others that are more open to such
requests. There are countries in which the government keeps out of the
debate and countries in which the government has adopted a clear
position. Some countries confine themselves to permanent loans of
objects to source countries, while other countries actually transfer
ownership of cultural heritage objects. These differences reflect the
variety of views among countries, but also have to do with differences
in legislation that may impede the return of objects. There is
nevertheless a growing urgency to tackle the issue in all countries.
This is not only because the source countries and representatives of
diaspora communities are increasingly making their voices heard,
but also, and chiefly, because the countries that previously had
colonies consider it increasingly important to take responsibility for
their colonial past.
                                                                                     France
The influence the colonial period has on today on cultural heritage of
formerly colonized countries differs from country to country. In some
countries the colonial power set up museums whose collections have been
preserved after decolonization for the benefit of the country concerned.
In other countries this was not the case, or to a lesser extent, so that the
current citizens have had to rely on visits to European museums to access
this history and culture heritage. But for almost all of the formerly colonized
countries the return of cultural heritage objects over which they lost
possession involuntarily during colonial times remains a live issue.
In reflection of this, it has also become so for former European colonial
powers. The Committee has focused its investigation on the countries that
are currently devoting most attention to future handling of colonial cultural
heritage objects: France, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
5.1   France
France had dominion over a large colonial empire. From the 17th century
it had overseas colonies, protectorates and dominions in North America,
the Caribbean and India. In the 18th and 19th centuries large parts of that
empire were lost in wars with other major European powers, but the country
was able to rebuild an empire in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Many cultural             45
heritage objects from these colonial territories, especially from the French
colonies in Africa, found their way into various French museums, including
the Louvre and Quai Branly in Paris.
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<pre>President Emmanuel Macron can be credited with reviving the debate on of
the future handling of colonial collections worldwide. In his famous speech
of 28 November 2017 to students at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina
Faso, he stated that he was no longer prepared to see a large part of African
cultural heritage languishing in French museums. His aim was to enable
African heritage to be returned temporarily or permanently within five
years. [165] A few weeks later President Macron commissioned the Senegalese
                                                                                  Developments in other European countries
economist Felwine Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy to
examine ways in which this could be achieved. On 23 November 2018 Sarr
and Savoy published their ‘Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel
africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationelle’. In the report they recommend
returning cultural heritage objects that were obtained unlawfully or immorally
from African colonies if a source country so requests it. An innovative aspect
of the report is the recommendation to reverse the burden of proof: if a source
country requests the return of an object, it should not have to prove that the
object was unlawfully obtained. The museum should have to prove that the
object was obtained lawfully. If they are unable, the object must be returned.
Sarr and Savoy also identify an important obstacle to returns. Most colonial
objects in France are owned by the State and under French law national
cultural heritage objects must not be sold or transferred. Sarr and Savoy
therefore recommend introducing a new procedure for restitutions, based on
bilateral agreements. These agreements should prevail over the domestic
principle of inalienability. [166]
The report was widely seen as a radical move, even within France, particularly
                                                                                     Germany
due to its adoption of the principle of the reverse burden of proof. However,
it was not universally welcomed in France. After presenting the report Macron
announced his willingness to return 26 objects stolen in 1892 by French
soldiers from the palace of the King of Dahomey (the present-day Republic of
Benin) and a sword looted during military action in Senegal. [167] A law has
been drafted specifically for these returns. There will not be an amendment
to allow for general unconditional returns. France wants to be able to judge
each return on its merits and does not wish to commit to an overarching
policy. [168]
In France discussion regarding returns take place at government level.
Certain African countries state that they do not want any cultural heritage
objects returned at present because no adequate museum infrastructure is
as yet in place. There are diaspora communities in France who are, however,
vociferous on this subject. For example, on 15 June 2020 a number of French-
Congolese activists tried to seize African heritage items from the Musée du
Quai Branly to return them to African countries, in part in response to the
worldwide anti-racism protests. [169]
5.2   Germany
                                                                                         46
Germany was in comparison a later colonial power. In the early modern
period a number of German states established various overseas colonies, but
these were soon lost due to competition from other European powers. It was
not until 1884, when Germany had already been a unitary state for 13 years,
that Chancellor Otto von Bismarck decided to accord state protection to
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<pre>trading posts in overseas territories. At the end of the 19th century the empire
under Kaiser Wilhelm II slowly but surely developed into a colonial empire,
with German colonies in parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania. During the First
World War all German colonies apart from those in East Africa were seized by
other European powers and Germany lost the final territories in its colonial
empire under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
                                                                                      Developments in other European countries
Germany acquired extensive colonial collections through looting and
purchase. Many of these ended up in German museums, such as those of the
Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen and the Humboldt Forum
that is due to open in Berlin. And although Germany has so far received few
requests for return, the country is tackling this issue very actively. In July 2018
the Deutscher Museumsbund (German Museums Association) issued
guidelines on the handling of requests for return: the ‘Guidelines on Dealing
with Collections from Colonial Contexts’. In 2019 the association issued an
updated version of these guidelines, entitled ‘Guidelines for German
Museums. Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts’, with more attention
focused on non-European perspectives. The latest version of these guidelines
will be presented in 2021. The guidelines are intended as a basis on which
German museums can develop their own vision and as an encouragement to
tackle this issue actively.
On 13 March 2019 the Staatsministerin des Bundes für Kultur und Medien,
the Staatsministerin im Auswärtiges Amt für Internationale Kulturpolitik
and the Kulturministerinnen und Kulturminister der Länder und der
                                                                                         Germany
kommunalen Spitzenverbände agreed a general framework on dealing with
colonial collections: the ‘Erste Eckpunkte zum Umgang mit Sammlungsgut
aus kolonialen Kontexten’. The framework argues that it is important to create
conditions for the return of objects from former colonies that were taken in a
legally or morally indefensible manner. Such measures should include
digitizing and supplying data, conducting provenance research and developing
international cooperation. In this document the ministers adopt the principle
that ‘identifying cultural heritage objects with a colonial context acquired in a
way that is no longer legally and/or ethnically defensible and enabling them
to be returned is a moral and ethical obligation and an important political
task’. [170]
Museum collections in Germany are generally not owned by the State, but are
usually held by foundations such as the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Decisions with political or diplomatic connotations, however, are often taken
in cooperation with the Minister of Culture and sometimes the Minister of
Foreign Affairs. The Eckpunkte can therefore be construed as a message from
politicians that defines museums’ room for manoeuvre. [171] The museums
welcomed this message. In the ‘Heidelberg Statement’ of 2019 ethnographic
museums called for requests for the return of looted cultural heritage objects
to be honoured. In addition they supported the possibility for cultural heritage             47
objects to be returned on the basis of the strength of their significance to the
communities of origin. [172]
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<pre>5.3   Belgium
Belgium also built up a colonial empire in the past. When the country gained
independence from the Netherlands in 1830, it quickly sought to establish a
colonial empire. After a number of failed attempts under King Leopold I in
Africa and the Americas, King Leopold II was successful in laying claim to the
Belgian Congo from the end of the 19th century, initially making it his own
                                                                                    Developments in other European countries
possession as the Congo Free State (1885 – 1908). Under his successors a
number of other territories were subsequently conquered, including Rwanda-
Burundi. As was the case in other European colonies, cultural heritage objects
of significance were looted and sent to Belgium. King Leopold II ordered
the systematic collecting of cultural heritage objects in the Congo Free State,
which was accompanied by high levels of violence against the local population.
The objects were sent to Belgium for a new AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, where
a large part of these objects can still be seen today. [173] In 1976, 114 objects
looted from Kinshasa were transferred to the Institut des musées nationaux
du Zaïre. This is an example of a return which in a short space of time a
proportion found its way onto the art market, in this instance the Brussels
art market.
The debate on colonial cultural heritage objects in Belgium was galvanized by
the controversy surrounding the reopening of the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren.
The museum was closed to allow for rebuilding work. During this extended
period the museum and the building were to actively focus on decolonization.
The planned reopening however led to calls from African diaspora
                                                                                       Belgium
communities, museum researchers, activists and academics for a more
fundamental decolonization of the museum and the immediate return of
stolen cultural heritage objects. [174] Even a political working group from the
United Nations criticized the museum and the presence of racist sculptures
that remained in place despite the rebuilding work. [175]
In a political response to this uproar the then Belgian Minister of Foreign
Affairs Didier Reynders called for a dialogue with the diaspora and
cooperation in dealing with restitution issues during a conference entitled
‘Sharing Past and Future: Strengthening African-European Connections’
in September 2018. [176] At the reopening of the museum the then Deputy
Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda,
Telecommunications and Post, Alexander Decroo, emphasized the importance
of openness with regard to restitution. [177] A number of initiatives were
implemented to fulfil these declarations of intent, including by the Belgian
Senate, although as yet they have yielded no results. [178] At the end of April
2019 a new and broader revival of the debate surrounding Belgium’s colonial
past led to the Brussels parliament adopting a resolution ‘concerning African
cultural heritage objects and heritage objects and the return of human
remains held on Brussels territory’. [179]
                                                                                           48
The AfricaMuseum presented its views on the return of cultural heritage
objects in January 2020. The museum acknowledged that it holds African
cultural heritage items while the moral ownership lies source countries.
The museum is therefore investing in provenance research and is
endeavouring to make an online inventory of its collections available in
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<pre>short order. The museum undertook to advise the competent minister on
the possibility of physical returns of pieces. For the museum, a precondition
for return is a formal restitution request from a recognized authority
and thorough provenance research conducted by ad hoc working groups with
academics, representatives from Africa and from the African diaspora in
Belgium. There will be a particular focus on pieces of great symbolic value
for the countries concerned. [180]
                                                                                    Developments in other European countries
On 17 July 2020 a Special Commission of the Belgian House of
Representatives was established with the task of ascertaining the facts
concerning the Congo Free State (1885 – 1908) and the Belgian colonial
past in Congo (1908 – 1960), Rwanda and Burundi (1919 – 1962).
This Commission was also asked to make recommendations on dealing with
the colonial past in order to draw up reconciliation proposals. [181] Returns are
a complex matter in Belgium. Belgium has little or no national culture policy:
both Flanders and Wallonia each conduct their own culture policy and a lot
of museum policy is determined locally by the major cities. Belgian law also
prohibits the sale of public cultural heritage objects.
5.4   United Kingdom
The British were the most prominent players in the colonial period from the
beginning of the 18th century. The British Empire, which developed over
300 years, stretched all around the world. Some parts of the Empire had an
                                                                                       United Kingdom
opportunity to develop their own economies, while others were used solely as
a source of raw materials for the British. The United Kingdom’s relations
with its former colonies therefore vary. Like other former colonial powers,
the United Kingdom has many colonial collections. Many of them are
exhibited in national museums such as the British Museum and the Victoria
and Albert Museum, and in academic institutions such as the Pitt Rivers
Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
The United Kingdom presents a mixed picture when it comes to the future
handling of colonial collections. There are national museums, which are
subsidized by the national authorities and whose collections are managed by
trustees. These generally take a conservative view of issues surrounding
returns. Under the museum acts governing their activities, these museums
are in principle prohibited from disposing of any cultural heritage objects,
with the exception of human remains and Nazi looted art. But there are also
regional and university museums that manage their own collections, and
which take a more progressive and proactive stance. Overall the museums’
positions range from a view that colonial heritage from different parts of the
world is best displayed together in ‘universal museums’ and that the debate
on returns will fade over time, to the view that decolonizing collections is
a moral duty that has the important positive effect for museums of improving
relations with the source countries.                                                       49
The British government has so far been fairly silent on this issue and indicates
that it is a matter for the museums and their trustees. They, in turn, refer to
laws that preclude returns, so there is currently little movement on this issue
in the United Kingdom. There are nonetheless national museums that are
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<pre>taking steps despite the legal restrictions. The Victoria and Albert Museum
and the British Museum, for example, use long-term loans as a way of
meeting restitution requests. These loans have no end-date or are renewed
automatically. [182]
The Arts Council, a non-departmental public body responsible for allocating
grants, is expected to issue guidance for museums on dealing with restitution
                                                                                     Developments in other European countries
requests in the autumn of 2020. To what extent the Arts Council’s guidelines
will lead to changes remains to be seen and will depend partly on whether
this body actively addresses issues surrounding the return of colonial cultural
heritage objects as a condition of grants.
In June 2020 the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) published
a report on the restitution issue surrounding African cultural heritage objects
in the United Kingdom. As well as recommendations for the British
government, the report also has recommendations for museums, cultural
institutions, financiers, the UK population and communities within it
(including the African diaspora). These recommendations are mainly aimed
at creating a climate in which it is possible to discuss and negotiate on returns.
AFFORD calls for international collaboration to boost awareness of the issue
among the UK population, in African countries and the diaspora, to take
stock of objects that could be returned and to enable capacity building in
source countries. [183]
      Other countries
                                                                                        Other countries
5.5
The Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom
are not the only former colonial powers with colonial collections in their
museums. Spain and Portugal, for example, were also major powers in
the colonial period. In the 16th century they were even pioneers in
the colonization of territories in Asia, Southern and Central America and
Africa. But the debate in these countries appears considerably less vigorous,
even though they also looted large numbers of cultural heritage objects
from their colonies that are on display in their museums.
                                                                                            50
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<pre>6.       Views in the source countries
The Committee’s discussion partners in former colonized countries
state that they consider it important that their museums can tell
                                                                                      Views in the source countries
the colonial story, including by means of objects that are currently in
the Netherlands. The discussion partners in Suriname and the
Caribbean believe the museum infrastructure must be brought up to
standard before objects are returned to them. The discussion partners
would like regular museum-level cooperation with the Netherlands in
the field of capacity development. The Indonesian discussion partners
emphasize the importance of joint academic provenance research.
The discussion partners state that the return of cultural heritage
objects is a matter to be agreed between states, but that communities
to whose culture these objects belong must also benefit.
The Committee considers that policy on the future handling of colonial
cultural heritage objects can only produce results if it is supported by both
the Netherlands and by the countries in which the Netherlands has exercised
colonial authority. When it comes to the consideration of return to source
countries, it is important that the views, feelings, standards and values that
dominate, are not those of the former colonizing power. For these reasons,
the Committee intended to make working visits to Indonesia, Suriname and
the Caribbean islands to understand better the wishes and opinions in those
territories in detail. As a result of the coronavirus crisis, however, these visits
were unable to go ahead. The Committee nevertheless conducted a number
of exploratory online discussions with experts and government representatives
in these countries. Despite the limitations of this kind of enquiry,
the Committee considers that these discussions have provided a number of
interesting ideas that are important for future policy development. The key
points are set out briefly below.
First, all discussion partners say they consider it important to be able to tell
their history and they see the period of history intertwined with the
Netherlands as an important aspect of this. They say that an ability to tell this
story well is necessary for the development and awareness of their own
identity, particularly among young people. An account of the colonial period
which credits the way in which these multi-ethnic societies came into being is
also important to promote understanding and appreciation for the multiple
ethnicities that constitute contemporary societies, particularly for countries in
the Caribbean.
In order to tell this story, all countries believe it is important to have access
to those cultural heritage objects currently held in the Netherlands.                      51
Some discussion partners stated they no longer had cultural heritage objects
themselves with which to properly tell relevant stories. This is not only a
question of physical return, but also digital access and loans. Countries noted
that in telling such histories they would like the cooperation of Dutch
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<pre>museums, so that the shared history with the Netherlands can be told from
different perspectives and thus understood better.
The countries also stressed that apart from tangible heritage items, intangible
heritage is very important for their communities in order to experience and
appreciate their own identity. That applies particularly to countries that have
little access to tangible heritage or limited scope to make that heritage readily
                                                                                       Views in the source countries
accessible to their populations. It was raised that intangible heritage is viewed
more positively by the population than tangible heritage, which often refers
much more explicitly to the (slavery) past.
The discussion partners say they have a limited understanding of those
communal cultural heritage objects held in the Netherlands. This also holds
true for the ways in which those cultural heritage objects came into Dutch
possession. In some cases they happen upon information on the internet.
In consequence they do not feel sufficiently informed as to which cultural
heritage objects could be of interest to them. A good database would be
important in assisting as would cooperation with Dutch museums which
could proactively tell them about objects that could be of interest to them.
An important point is that the discussion partners in the Caribbean islands
and Suriname note that their own museum infrastructure is not yet, or any
longer, appropriate for the responsible handling of cultural heritage objects.
There is often a lack of museum policy, the management conditions are not
always optimal and the collection inventories are often not sufficient, so it is
not always clear what they hold and who the owner is. Museums also lack
expertise and, especially, financial resources. These countries say that while
the infrastructure remains insufficient, return is undesirable. There would
be too great a risk of heritage items being lost. They also state it is difficult to
bring this infrastructure up to standard with their own resources and they pin
their hopes on cooperation with the Netherlands in this area. These countries
see the field of capacity building as the beginning of the structural cooperation
they desire with the Netherlands and the return of heritage as the final
element of this cooperation.
The Indonesian discussion partners say they wish to intensify their
collaborative work with the Netherlands and with Dutch museums in the
field of provenance research. They refer explicitly to education and the
development of expertise among young museum professionals. The discussion
partners consider the return of objects to Indonesia of importance mainly in
order to tell the entangled history and to repair and strengthen the
relationship between the countries. They see return as a less important goal
in itself.
The discussion partners in the countries with which the Committee has
spoken take the view that agreements on the return of cultural heritage objects             52
are matters to be agreed between states. The importance of this was
emphasized by the official representatives from Indonesia and Suriname.
Discussion partners also said it was important for each state to decide which
returns would be requested from the Netherlands and which would not.
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<pre>Representatives of indigenous communities in Suriname say it is important
that they are part of the cooperation too and that they must also benefit from
the return of cultural heritage objects.
                                                                                 Views in the source countries
                                                                                      53
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<pre>7.        Matters of relevance to the
          handling of colonial collections
                                                                                     Matters of relevance to the handling of colonial collections
A number of aspects play a role when dealing with colonial cultural
heritage objects and particularly requests for their return. The first
is the way in which an object came into Dutch possession. A request
for the return of a cultural heritage object that was looted, for
example, requires a different approach than a request to return a
cultural heritage object that was acquired legitimately by way of gift
or purchase or whose provenance history cannot be determined.
The importance of the cultural heritage object, both for the source
country and for the Netherlands, must also be taken into
consideration, together with the storage conditions and accessibility of
the cultural heritage object after any return, as well as the availability
of alternatives to a return. Finally, it is naturally important who the
current owner is: central government, another government authority
or a private individual. These aspects are developed and explained
in this chapter. They make up the ingredients of the policy framework
formulated by the Committee in Chapter 9.
      Method of acquiring colonial cultural heritage objects
                                                                                          Method of acquiring colonial cultural heritage objects
7.1
The way in which a colonial cultural heritage object came into Dutch
possession plays an important role in the future handling of colonial cultural
heritage objects. That applies in the first place to the presentation of these
objects in the museums. The object itself and the social, cultural or religious
significance that it had at the time, and perhaps still does, are only part of the
story. Information on how and when a cultural heritage object came into
Dutch possession, and whether this involved duress, places the story in a
historical context that is instructive for the visitor. This context, when viewed
from different perspectives, can be of significance not only to the Dutch visitor
but for visitors from source countries. Museums can thus contribute to a more
widely shared understanding of the past and a greater awareness of
the different perspectives from which this past can be viewed. Dutch people
with roots in source countries are a significant resource in this regard
for museums.
In the context of policy development an obvious consideration is the means by
which colonial cultural heritage objects were acquired. If return is requested
and it is clear that the cultural heritage objects were the subject of involuntary
loss this requires a different weighing up of moral and ethical considerations
than in cases where it can be shown that cultural heritage objects were                        54
obtained legitimately by way of gift or purchase, or in those instances where
the precise provenance history cannot be determined. Section 3.4 of this
guidance describes the various ways in which Dutch colonial cultural heritage
objects were acquired.
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<pre>For the policy framework for dealing with requests for return, the Committee
distinguishes between three categories of colonial cultural heritage objects:
1.    cultural heritage objects whose owners suffered involuntary loss and which
      therefore came into Dutch possession without the consent of the original
      owner, for example through theft, looting, extortion or seizure of cultural
      heritage objects as spoils of war. An example of such a cultural heritage
                                                                                        Matters of relevance to the handling of colonial collections
      object is the Diamond of Banjarmasin referred to earlier in this guidance;
2.    cultural heritage objects which came into Dutch possession with the consent
      of the owner and which, for example, were presented as gifts or acquired
      by collectors or institutions at a fair price for collections, exhibitions etc.
      An example of such a cultural heritage object is the golden pipe presented
      as a gift to Willem I by the King of Ashanti as referred to in Chapter 4;
3.    cultural heritage objects where it is not clear whether the transfer of
      ownership was voluntary or otherwise, either because the acquisition
      history can no longer be clearly determined or because the cultural heritage
      object did not have a clear owner at the time.
Since the provenance history of a cultural heritage object is a key aspect in
assessing whether to honour requests for return, it is important to determine
the method of acquisition of colonial cultural heritage objects in as full
manner as possible. The Committee makes recommendations on this in
                                                                                             The cultural importance of a colonial cultural heritage object
Chapter 9. For some cultural heritage objects it will be possible (under
current conditions of knowledge or by means of further research) to establish
with reasonable certainly whether the transfer of ownership was voluntary or
involuntary. In many cases, however, there will be a grey area because gifts
and sales, for example, took place in contexts of power inequality. In those
cases it will be necessary to rely on the available information to assess the
degree to which the transfer of possession was voluntary. Finally, there is the
category of cultural heritage objects where even detailed research on the
provenance history is unlikely to show the degree to which the transfer of
ownership was voluntary.
7.2    The cultural importance of a colonial cultural heritage object
The importance of cultural heritage objects lies in the values they embody
and the social functions they fulfil. The aesthetic value of a cultural heritage
object, for example a painting, a figure or an item of jewellery, can give the
viewer a perception of beauty or even happiness. Cultural heritage objects can
move, console, intrigue and surprise. They can also embody spiritual values
and functions, as in the case of religious relics, or possess supposed magical
powers. Cultural heritage objects can have a symbolic function, for example
a crown as a symbol of power or the likeness of an elephant as a symbol of
strength, patience and wisdom. Cultural heritage objects have a scientific                        55
function as carriers of information, for example of an historical event, such as
the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe the declaration in which King Philip II was no
longer recognized as the ruler of the Netherlands. Above all, cultural heritage
objects have a social value and function: they connect people, refer to the
shared aspects of the community – often a common past – and are thus the
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<pre>bearers of national and religious traditions and the identity of a country,
people or community. Finally, cultural heritage objects also have an economic
and representative value: as a sought-after and often valuable item for dealers,
collectors and investors and, displayed in museums (at home and abroad),
as a symbol for a country and its culture and a driver of tourism.
The significance of a colonial cultural item in a Dutch museum will often be
                                                                                    Matters of relevance to the handling of colonial collections
different for the Netherlands than for the source country. A certain cultural
item, for example, can have a particularly informative and scientific value for
the Netherlands because it is a unique representative of a particular time
and place in history. For source countries the object’s interest may lie in its
social function of keeping a tradition alive. Dutch people with roots in source
countries, with a plural sense of identity, also have interest in the presence
of their heritage in Dutch museums. A policy framework for dealing with
requests for return must have scope to take these interests into account when
considering a request. In some cases interests in cultural heritage objects
from the Netherlands and the source countries will overlap: cultural heritage
objects have values that are not always tied to a particular physical place or
owner. Furthermore, cultural heritage objects are not always made to remain
in a particular physical location, and moving creates new dynamics for the
objects and the perception of them. [184] Some objects may have become
politicized over the centuries and thus become emotionally charged items for
one or more communities. [185]
                                                                                         Conditions after return
The source country itself will be able to state the importance that a
cultural heritage object has for it in the reasons for the request to return.
The benchmark for the importance of a cultural heritage object for the
Netherlands can be found in Section 3.7 of the Heritage Act on the criteria
for protection and retention of cultural heritage objects for the Netherlands.
This article describes an object as worthy of protection when it is:
‘a cultural heritage object which is of particular cultural historical or
scientific importance or exceptional beauty and which should be considered
irreplaceable or indispensable for Dutch cultural heritage’. An object is
irreplaceable if there are no (or hardly any) equivalents or similar objects in
good condition in the Netherlands. A cultural heritage object is indispensable
according to the explanatory notes to the Heritage Act if it clearly recalls
persons or events that are of compelling importance to Dutch history and/or
of compelling significance to academic practice (including cultural history)
in the Netherlands, and/or makes an essential contribution to research into,
and knowledge of, other important cultural heritage objects. [186]
7.3   Conditions after return
Expectations regarding the future role and location of object after it is
returned may also be relevant when assessing requests for return. Of primary
importance is that the object is put into ‘safe hands’ and is not, for example,               56
at risk of being destroyed for internal political reasons. A judgement following
a request for return may be different if the request concerns a cultural heritage
object held in store in the Netherlands and which, upon return to the source
country, will be on public display as opposed to a cultural heritage object
removed from a public space in the Netherlands in order to be stored away
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<pre>from view in the source country. The argument above is made in the
acknowledgement that there are certain cultural heritage objects, whose
ceremonial value to the source country or community, would mean that out
of respect they are kept away from public view.
In addition to taking into consideration aspects of accessibility to the public,
and particularly the members of the community to whose culture the object
                                                                                      Matters of relevance to the handling of colonial collections
belongs, other considerations include the permanent availability of the cultural
heritage object for scientific research, together with possibility of entering into
cooperation agreements with the source country. The management conditions
at the location in which the cultural heritage object would be kept after return
may also play a role in the assessment of the request for return.
7.4   Other options in addition to return
From the contacts that museums have with source countries and the
discussions which the Committee has conducted with representatives of
source countries, it is clear that in certain instances source countries are not
fully equipped to accommodate return of cultural heritage objects at the
outset. Recognizing the fact that the cultural heritage object was acquired in
contravention of the will of the original owner is important. From this might
follow academic collaboration, providing support for the training of museum
staff, exchanging knowledge on the history of certain cultural heritage objects,
and include the possibility of loans, replicas and digital access to the
                                                                                           Other options in addition to return
collections and of giving joint presentations. Such collaborations are equally
useful for Dutch museums. They might, in the fullness of time, make
ownership less important and, for a variety of reasons, might ultimately be
more attractive for source countries than a physical return. This may apply,
for example, if the Netherlands has more research facilities, when the source
country already has several similar types of cultural heritage objects or if the
storage conditions in the Netherlands are preferable to those present at the
time in the source country. The physical return of a cultural heritage object to
a source country may also give rise to tensions, for example where contested
claims to ownership arise, and where the source country prefers a solution
other than return. In the contacts with the source countries on dealing with
colonial cultural heritage objects, new forms of cooperation can be additional,
and if desired, can also be an alternative to return.
7.5   Cultural heritage objects not owned by the State
The Minister of Education, Culture and Science has requested this guidance
and its scope is therefore limited to the State’s handling of colonial cultural
heritage objects that it has in its own possession. But the State is not the only
owner of colonial cultural heritage objects. Local authorities, provinces,
universities, foundations and private individuals are also owners of these types
of cultural heritage objects and these all have individual responsibility for the               57
way in which they deal with them in future, including any requests for return.
The Committee can foresee, however, that the policy line proposed in
Chapter 9 and the arguments put forward could provide guidance for these
other owners and that they could also use the proposed facilities to make an
informed judgement upon request for return.
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<pre>At this point the Committee notes that the Minister may wish to make
financial provision to compensate private owners for the colonial cultural
heritage objects which they acquired in good faith and which they return in
accordance with the policy line proposed in this guidance.
                                                                              Matters of relevance to the handling of colonial collections
                                                                                   Cultural heritage objects not owned by the State
                                                                                        58
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<pre>8.         The legal framework
The handling of requests to return cultural heritage objects is not
so much a legal as an ethical question. This is due to the statute
                                                                                   The legal framework
of limitations in Dutch law and the fact that international conventions
relevant to colonial cultural heritage objects do not have retroactive
effect. The standards and principles of international humanitarian law
and the ethical codes of international social organizations can serve
as a useful guide to the ethical handling of requests for return.
They call for an accommodating response to requests for return,
the guiding principle being that what was stolen must in principle be
returned. Unlike a number of other European countries, Dutch law
does not oppose the return of colonial cultural heritage objects by the
State to source countries.
While the previous chapter described the substantive elements of a policy
framework for dealing with requests to return colonial objects, this chapter
addresses the question of whether there are national legal rules, international
treaties and ethical codes drafted by organizations that provide guidance when
dealing with requests for return of colonial cultural heritage objects where
there was involuntary loss of possession.
                                                                                    The law in the colonial territories
8.1   The law in the colonial territories
The first route that the Committee explores here concerns the law applicable
in the colonial territories at the time. The question is whether this law
provides legal grounds to determine those cases in which property rights were
unlawfully infringed at the moment of acquisition and therefore whether past
illegalities can form the basis of return policy.
To answer these questions it is important in the first place to have sufficient
knowledge of legal frameworks in former colonial territories at the time.
It is then important that the current owner can still be held legally
accountable for any violation and finally – and this is a more practical point –
whether there are legal successors to the original owners who can submit a
claim to the current owners for the item to be returned.
The Committee concludes that there are too many barriers to make this route
viable. In the first place legal frameworks in colonial territories over the
centuries during which the Netherlands exercised colonial authority changed
constantly. The colonial regulations were adapted as the situation required
almost entirely in the interests of the colonizer. And in spite of the so-called
‘concordance principle’, the law also differed from colony to colony and from          59
area to area within a colony. Different rules and different levels of legal
protection applied to different population groups. In addition, it was not
always clear who belonged to which population group or who had which
nationality. The local populations were considered in some areas and in some
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<pre>periods to be Dutch nationals – sometimes having the same rights as Dutch
people and sometimes not – whereas in other periods they were not seen as
Dutch nationals. The wide range of rules makes it difficult to determine which
legal provisions applied in specific cases and whether acquisitions were legal
at the time. And in addition to this more practical barrier, there is the more
fundamental question of whether legal rules made by colonial authorities
which were based on a dualistic principle which kept the local populations in
                                                                                   The legal framework
conditions of inequality should be the reference point for requests for return
assessed today. Finally, there is the obstacle that a legal successor of the
original owner is unable in principle to be successful in a claim for return due
to a time-bar under Dutch law. In Dutch law it is the current owner rather
than the original owner who is protected by legal principles such as
acquisition in good faith and the statute of limitations. This is different to
those countries where common law applies – countries such as the United
Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and the United States. There the original owner
has a stronger legal position. [187] Even owners who acquire in bad faith are
protected by Dutch law in the sense that they ultimately also obtain ownership
rights due to the statute of limitations. Moreover the original owner’s ability
to lodge a claim against the current owner based on tort is also time-barred.
However for the sake of completeness, it is important to note that the statute
of limitations is not an absolute barrier. In the first place the current owner
can waive the right to invoke it. This is what the Dutch State does with
regard to cultural heritage objects lost involuntarily during the Second World
War. [188] In addition there are examples, in cases of excessive colonial
                                                                                    International law
violence, when the court has declared the statute of limitations to
be inapplicable. [189]
8.2   International law
The second route explored by the Committee is that of international law:
does that law offer a possible legal grounds for a return policy?
From the middle of the last century a number of international conventions
were signed on the protection of cultural heritage against destruction in the
event of armed conflicts and the combating of illegal trade in cultural heritage
objects. The two most important of these are the Unesco conventions of 1954
and 1970, which are discussed briefly below. But culture and cultural heritage
were also the subject of international agreements before that time. During the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, for example, after Napoleon had finally left the
European battlefield, arrangements were made for the return of the objects
looted under his regime. This did not concern the return by the colonial
powers to the colonized territories, only return among European countries
themselves. The Brussels Declaration of 1874, in which five European
countries entered into agreements on the initiative of Tsar Alexander II on
the laws and customs of war, also contained provisions on the protection
of historic buildings and artworks against seizure and destruction. [190]             60
Not all participating countries accepted these agreements as binding,
nevertheless the Brussels Declaration did form an important basis for the
Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 on the laws of war. These conventions
contain provisions aimed at protecting culture and cultural heritage
during warfare. [191]
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<pre>The first international convention that specifically addressed the protection
of cultural heritage in armed conflict between countries was the Unesco
Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of
Armed Conflict and the associated First Protocol, also known as the Hague
Convention of 1954. [192] This convention, implemented by the Netherlands
in 2007, was drawn up by the international community in response to the
destruction and looting of heritage in the Second World War. The Convention
                                                                                     The legal framework
provides for preventive measures, calls on parties to spare heritage objects in
armed conflicts, and contains provisions for the return of heritage objects
exported illegally from occupied territories and for compensation of owners
who gained possession of such objects in good faith.
The second important international treaty devoted to the protection of
heritage is the Unesco Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and
Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural
Property. [193] This convention, ratified by the Netherlands in 2009, was
intended to halt the sharp rise in the trading of looted cultural heritage objects
in the years following decolonization. It is particularly concerned with illicit
trading of objects looted from museums and archaeological sites in former
colonial territories which found eager buyers among museums and private
collectors around the world. To this day, a number of countries are at a
heightened risk of losing their cultural heritage. The convention seeks to
halt this illicit trade in cultural heritage by means of preventive measures,
international cooperation and the return of illegally imported goods to
                                                                                      International law
countries of origin.
To supplement the Unesco Convention of 1970, the Unidroit Convention
was signed in 1995 with the aim of combating theft and illegal trading in art
objects with a particular focus on the restitution of heritage. [194]
These conventions are based on the principle that cultural heritage objects
deserve special protection, that destruction or looting must be avoided, that
illegal trading in cultural heritage objects must be combated, that illegally
imported heritage must be restituted and that owners must be compensated in
good faith. But they provide no directly applicable legal framework for dealing
with or returning objects in cases of involuntary loss of possession. The laws
of war as set out in the above Hague Conventions provides little guidance
because colonial wars were mainly seen as domestic matters and not wars
between individual states. And even if that had been the case, existing laws do
not offer straightforward solutions. [195] With regard to the two Unesco
conventions of 1954 and 1970, it should be noted that neither Indonesia nor
Suriname have acceded to these conventions, so they do not apply to cultural
heritage originating from these countries. Another common feature is that
these conventions cannot be enforced retroactively. [196] Hence they do not
apply to cultural heritage objects looted from the former colonies before the
implementation of these conventions – for the Netherlands that means before             61
the start of the 21st century. For clarity’s sake, this does not mean that these
conventions legalize acts and transactions that were illegal before they came
into existence. What it mean is that these conventions cannot be invoked as a
legal basis for requests for return. [197]
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<pre>8.3   Soft law
The above observation does not speak to the larger utility of these
conventions. The question is not only whether they are applicable to objects
originally acquired in the colonial territories. It is also about the principles
that underpin these conventions, principles that reflect the way in which the
international community currently thinks about the importance of respecting
                                                                                    The legal framework
culture and cultural heritage and the importance of protecting ownership.
Although these conventions may not offer a legal framework, they do provide
an ethical framework for dealing with objects whose owners suffered
involuntary loss of possession. [198]
Such principles are also found in international humanitarian law and
international declarations on cultural rights and communities’ rights to access
their heritage. Although not legally binding, these declarations also provide
a framework for countries’ handling of culture and respect of communities’
cultural rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples of 2007 is important in this regard. This declaration is intended to
protect the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples in a wide
range of areas, including culture. Article 11, for example, states that
indigenous peoples have the right to protect the manifestations of their culture
and calls on states to offer compensation for cultural property taken against
their will, including by means of restitution. Article 12 of the declaration also
calls on states to allow access to or the return of ceremonial objects and
human remains. [199] This declaration demonstrates the international
                                                                                     Soft law
community’s endorsement of the importance of peoples’ right to access to
their own culture, including past manifestations of it.
In addition to the above named conventions and declarations, there are also
codes and conventions drawn up by social organizations. The International
Council of Museums’ (ICOM) Code of Ethics for Museums, for example,
states clearly that museums should be prepared to engage in a dialogue
regarding the return of cultural heritage objects and that they should
cooperate with a source country or community when requested to return
cultural heritage which was acquired in breach of international or national
provisions. [200]
In line with the ethical code of ICOM, mention should be made of the
Principles for Cooperation in the Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural
Material of the International Law Association (ILA). [201] These principles
promote the ideas behind the Unesco 1970 and Unidroit 1995 conventions
and encourage parties to work together on restitution matters in good faith
through negotiation. They therefore provide guidelines, including for when
parties cannot reach agreement. These non-binding principles also have an
important effect in setting the standard for the handling of requests for return,
since they are supported by an important and relevant community of lawyers             62
working in international law. [202]
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<pre>In conclusion, neither property law nor conventions based on international
law can provide a framework in which a claim for return can be made and/or
honoured on the basis of strictly legal grounds. [203] The principles
underpinning these conventions, as well as the declarations on human rights
and the ethical codes of social organizations, do nevertheless offer relevant
principles for a moral assessment of requests for return. In the international
community, and the legal literature this is referred to as ‘soft-law’ recognizing
                                                                                    The legal framework
that these standards are set by authoritative international organizations.
Unlike ‘hard law’, this does not constitute enforceable law. However it does
serve as a guide for countries on dealing with requests for return. Due to
the inadequacy of the ‘hard law’ noted above, the question of return of
cultural heritage objects is increasingly approached from the perspective of
‘soft law’. [204] This approach does not place the legal argument of the
lawfulness or unlawfulness of acquisitions as a central concern. Instead it
approaches the question by assessing whether the original circumstances of
acquisition would be judged as acceptable on the basis of present-day views,
standards, values and legal provisions. It presumes that depriving a
community of access to objects essential to its culture is a violation of human
rights and therefore constitutes an argument in favour of return. ‘Soft law’
calls for an accommodating approach to requests for return. It is based on the
principle that what was stolen must be returned, and that decisions taken on
these requests should not be by means of legal proceedings but through
alternative extrajudicial procedures in which considerations of reasonableness
and fairness have an important role. [205][206] For some time, Unesco has had a
procedure for supporting member states who are dealing with requests
                                                                                     Soft law
for return. [207]
Comparison with Nazi-looted art
Here a comparison can be made with the handling of Nazi-looted art during
the Second World War. The international guidelines are set out in the well-
known ‘Washington Principles’, adopted in 1998 during the Washington
Conference on Holocaust Era Assets. [208] These principles similarly do not
include enforceable rights and obligations, but are authoritative rules of
conduct which are internationally accepted and by which countries agree to
be bound. The handling of Nazi-looted art is therefore also based on ‘soft law’
and here too – in Principle 11 – countries are encouraged to set up ‘alternative
dispute resolution mechanisms for ownership issues’.
The Committee comments that there are important differences between
Nazi-looted art and cultural heritage objects acquired under duress in colonial
territories. The looting of Jewish-owned art by the Nazis took place in a
relatively short period – between 1933 and 1945 – as part of a genocide.
In most cases original owners of the Nazi-looted art and their successors are
known. Reconstructing the manner in which they lost possession is
comparatively straightforward. The position regarding cultural heritage objects
looted from colonial areas differs. Involuntary loss of possession took place          63
through varied means, globally, over a period of more than 400 years.
The original owners and their successors are often difficult to trace and the
acquisition history is much more difficult to ascertain due to the long lapse
of time and the often inadequate sources. [209]
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<pre>8.4   Legal impediments to returns
Whereas the question of whether an object qualifies for return is primarily
an ethical matter, the question of whether an actual return can be effectuated
is a legal matter. National regulations may impede such a return. In countries
such as France, Belgium and the United Kingdom, for example, there are
legal provisions whereby objects are not allowed to be alienated from public
                                                                                      The legal framework
collections and therefore in principle cannot be subject to return.
In the Netherlands too, legal provisions apply to the alienation and disposal
of objects in public ownership. These can be found in Section 4.2 of the
Heritage Act. [210] Briefly, this section states that if the Minister of Education,
Culture and Science, the Provincial Executive or the Municipal Executive
plans to alienate a cultural heritage object, this must be publicly disclosed.
The reasons for transferring it out of the collection must also be stated.
If the intended new owner is a private (non-public) legal entity and it can also
be reasonably assumed that the cultural heritage object has a special cultural-
historical or scientific significance, and is assumed to be irreplaceable and
indispensable part of Dutch cultural heritage, an independent expert
committee must provide a judgement as to whether such assumptions are
correct. This judgement can then be included in the final assessment of
whether or not to proceed with plans for alienation. The public legal entity
might not seek an opinion, however anyone can submit views to the legal
entity concerned. The legal entity must then take these into account when
                                                                                       Legal impediments to returns
assessing whether or not to proceed with alienation. Such views may be
grounds to involve the independent expert committee in order to obtain a
judgement on the importance of the cultural heritage object. However the
public legal entity that owns the object is then free to disregard any views and
the independent committee’s guidance. In consequence, unlike in many other
countries, the Netherlands has no legal provisions that impede the return of
objects by the Dutch State to source countries.
                                                                                         64
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<pre>9.          Guidance submitted to the Minister
            on the handling of colonial collections
                                                                                           Guidance submitted to the Minister
1.   The Committee considers that the first step in developing a policy on
     dealing with colonial collections is the recognition that an injustice was
     done to the indigenous population of the colonial territories when cultural
     heritage objects were taken against their will.
2.   The second step is expressing a readiness to rectify this historical injustice,
     which is still perceived as an injustice today, where possible and to make
     this readiness a key principle of the policy on dealing with colonial
     collections.
3.   The Committee recommends adopting that policy after agreeing it with the
     countries where the Netherlands exercised colonial authority for a long
     period, including in any case Indonesia, Suriname and the Caribbean
     islands. These countries’ views must be respected and accommodated,
     with a bespoke approach being taken to each country where possible.
     Only a shared policy on dealing with colonial cultural heritage objects can
     lead to satisfactory outcomes for all parties. In other words, care must be
     taken to avoid a neocolonial repetition of the past in which actions are
     driven primarily by the views, feelings, standards and values of the
     former colonizer.
4.   To contribute to this joint policy development the Committee recommends
     conveying to the countries in which the Netherlands exercised colonial
     authority a readiness to return unconditionally all cultural heritage objects in
     respect of which it can be demonstrated with a reasonable degree of
     certainty that the source countries did indeed lose them involuntarily and
     that they then came into the possession of the Dutch State. This should
     naturally apply to the extent that the source country also desires
     such return.
5.   The readiness to return objects unconditionally means it is important
     that the redress of a historical injustice through a request for return is not
     weighed against other interests, however relevant these may be in
     themselves. In the Committee’s opinion the redress of an injustice is not
     achieved only through an actual return but also particularly by making the
     acknowledgement and redress of this injustice a fundamental principle of
     the policy.
6.   The Committee recommends informing the source countries in which the                        65
     Netherlands exercised colonial authority that the Netherlands is also
     prepared to consider requests for return for state-owned cultural heritage
     objects whose provenance history cannot be determined or does not
     indicate involuntary loss of possession. This should apply in cases where
     these cultural heritage objects are of particular cultural, historical or religious
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<pre>     importance for the source country. Unlike the case of cultural heritage
     objects that were lost involuntarily, the Committee considers that when
     such requests are assessed, the importance of a return for the source
     country should be weighed against other relevant interests on the basis of
     reasonableness and fairness. After all, in the case of these requests the
     fundamental argument is not one of rectifying an injustice, but of
     honouring a particular interest of the source country. Examples of interests
                                                                                        Guidance submitted to the Minister
     to be weighed are the importance of a cultural heritage object for the
     Netherlands, the storage conditions and accessibility after a possible return
     and the availability of alternatives to a return.
7.   The Committee also recommends considering requests to return cultural
     heritage objects owned by the Dutch State from countries that were
     colonized by other powers. Since such requests may require wider
     consideration, the Committee recommends taking a decision on the basis
     of reasonableness and fairness and on the basis of a weighing of interests.
     Nevertheless, if the request concerns a cultural heritage object that was lost
     involuntarily, the Committee considers that here too the guiding principle
     must be the possibility of rectifying an injustice. This is because regardless
     of whether the Netherlands itself played a part in causing the injustice in
     these countries, as the current owner of the cultural heritage object it is the
     only party able to rectify that injustice.
8.   In cases where a cultural heritage object is owned by the State, a decision
     on a request for return from the source country must be taken by the
     Minister of Education, Culture and Science. The Committee recommends
     that the Minister take a decision on such requests on the basis of a public
     opinion of an independent advisory committee appointed for the purpose.
     This means that the Minister’s decisions are based on an expert judgement
     arrived at independently of the ownership interest.
9.   The Committee recommends establishing an Expertise Centre on the
     Provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects with the tasks of verifying the
     provenance of cultural heritage objects in the event of requests for return,
     conducting or commissioning additional provenance research as necessary,
     establishing, managing and generally providing access to a database on
     the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects in Dutch museums,
     and promoting expertise among museums.
10. A  necessary prerequisite for the policy line recommended by the
     Committee is knowledge of the colonial cultural heritage objects held by
     Dutch museums and the means by which they were acquired.
     This knowledge is essential for source countries to be able to request the
     return of cultural heritage objects. The Committee recommends that
     the Minister draw museums’ attention to their responsibility to research
     the provenance history of their colonial cultural heritage objects and make              66
     their knowledge of it accessible to the source countries.
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<pre>11. The     Committee’s discussions with representatives of the source countries
      consistently showed that they were concerned not only about the return of
      cultural heritage objects. Support in establishing a museum infrastructure
      with good storage conditions, training of expert staff, the possibility for
      students to serve internships in Dutch museums, the conduct of joint
      research and exchange of knowledge were repeatedly cited as important
      matters by the source countries. These discussions brought the Committee
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
      to the view that appropriate handling of requests for return was not an end
      in itself, but should be part of cooperation between the Netherlands and
      the source countries in which they work together to tell the story of the
      colonial period from different perspectives. The Committee therefore
      recommends that the Ministers of Education, Culture and Science, Foreign
      Affairs and Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation make museum-
      level cooperation between the Netherlands and the source countries a
      subject of their international cultural policy. The Committee also
      recommends that the Minister of Education, Culture and Science devote
      attention to such museum-based cooperation in the policy with regard to
      the BES islands.
12. Finally, other European former colonial powers are also currently
      considering how to deal with colonial cultural heritage objects.
      The Committee therefore recommends, possibly through Unesco, investing
      in the exchange of knowledge, ideas and views between these countries and
      seeking opportunities for more international cooperation and coordination
                                                                                       The policy framework
      with like-minded countries.
9.1    The policy framework
The Minister of Education, Culture and Science requested that the Council
for Culture outline a future framework for ways forward with colonial heritage
and international cooperation in this field. She further requested advice for
a procedure for dealing with claims or requests for returns. The Committee
notes that first it is important to enter into agreements with source countries
on the future policy with regard to colonial cultural heritage objects. A policy
can only produce satisfactory results if it takes into account the perspectives
of both the Netherlands and the countries formerly colonized by the
Netherlands. The following should therefore be read as guidance to the
Minister with regard to the Dutch perspective that can be taken into account
in the discussions with the source countries.
The Committee recommends drawing a distinction in the policy between
colonial cultural heritage objects which are sensitive as regards provenance and
cultural heritage objects with have cultural, historical and/or religious
sensitivities. [211] The Committee considers that cultural heritage objects which
are sensitive as regard provenance are those in the acquisition categories
referred to in Section 7.1: cultural heritage objects whose original owners               67
suffered involuntary loss and which therefore came into Dutch possession
without proper consent, for example due to theft, looting, extortion or seizure
of cultural heritage objects as spoils of war. The Committee considers that
objects with cultural, historical and/or religious sensitivities are objects held
in Dutch collections and which, regardless of the way in which they came into
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<pre>Dutch possession, hold especial value for the source country. To be clear:
these categories are not mutually exclusive, cultural heritage objects can
belong to both.
For reasons elaborated in Section 8.1, the Committee does not consider the
colonial laws and views prevailing at the time of acquisition to be useful in
assessing whether a cultural heritage object is sensitive as regards provenance.
                                                                                       Guidance submitted to the Minister
Such law is not readily knowable and – more importantly – did not offer local
populations legal protection equivalent to that afforded to Dutch people.
In the Committee’s opinion, a law prevailing at a time of injustice cannot
serve as a guide for assuming responsibility for the past. Assuming
responsibility means measuring the action at the time in accordance with
current standards, values, legal rules and internationally-held views and taking
action on that basis. The Committee believes that also applies to the future
handling of cultural heritage objects acquired during the colonial period.
The Committee believes the basic principle must be whether loss of
possession would be qualified as unlawful or unethical in the present day.
Return of objects with sensitive provenance
The Committee recommends that the Minister first focus her policy on the
future handling of colonial collections primarily on those cultural heritage
objects with sensitivity as regards provenance. In the Committee’s view
cultural heritage objects whose cultural role is vital in the past or in the
present should not remain in Dutch museum collections if their return is
                                                                                          The policy framework
sought by source countries who have involuntarily lost possession.
With such cultural heritage objects there should be a ‘redress of historic
injustice’; a ‘historic injustice’ which to this day is still perceived as a ‘living
injustice’. The Committee is of the view that when it can be demonstrated
with a reasonable degree of certainty, through provenance research, that the
colonial cultural heritage objects came into Dutch possession against the
owner’s will, these must be returned to the source country, if that country
so requests.
The Committee considers that the key principle of a future policy is that
requests for return of cultural heritage that has sensitivity as regards
provenance should be honoured unconditionally. This means, for example,
that neither the object’s cultural nor its scientific value for the Netherlands,
nor the source country’s future plans for the object should have influence on
the assessment concerning the return. It is not the object, its cultural interest
nor what the requesting party wishes to do with the object that is of
paramount concern, but the principle of redress of a historic injustice and
the potential restoration of a link involuntarily severed between the source
country and its heritage. The Committee considers it inappropriate to invoke
conditionality, i.e. the redress is not dependent on a balance of interests,
however relevant these interests might be. Ultimately, the redress of historic
injustice is not only achieved through return, but also, and most significantly              68
by adopting a policy that recognizes this injustice and sees its redress as an
unconditional principle.
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<pre>When a request for return of a cultural heritage object with sensitive
provenance is made, it follows that the object is of great importance to the
requesting country who will therefore manage it appropriately. If the
Netherlands believes retention for the national collection to be of great
importance, due to the cultural heritage object being of exceptional
importance to the Netherlands or necessary for academic research, a request
may be made to the source country by the Netherlands to loan the object or
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
to relinquish it for financial or other compensation. However it is the decision
of the source country as to whether or not to accept such a proposal.
The Committee considers that a return must be based on a request made by
the source country. The Committee does not expect such a wish to exist for all
those objects that are subject to involuntary loss. Certain categories of objects
may exist in large quantities in the source country and may be of better
quality. The source country or community may also attach greater importance
to the exchange of knowledge and scientific cooperation with regard to an
object than to a return. This may apply in instances where there are
inadequate museum facilities or collections management infrastructure.
To date requests for return have been limited and made for specific items.
The publication of the previously cited principles for return of the National
Museum of World Cultures has not so far led to an official requests for return
of cultural objects.
Crossing a threshold by actually making a request, with the possible risk of
                                                                                       The policy framework
a negative result, may be one reason for the limited number of requests
for return. Moreover as became clear from the Committee’s discussions with
representatives from source countries, it is not always clear to them where
cultural heritage objects is housed and what the provenance history is.
The Committee is mindful of these concerns. They can be addressed by
means of an independent and transparent return procedure (see Section 9.3)
and by clarity at the outset on those cases which qualify for an unconditional
return and those where balance of interests will be assessed. However in
all cases a claim or request for return will be necessary, so that the source
country identifies which objects are in Dutch possession against its will.
If a request is not made, there are no grounds for return.
The Committee also acknowledges that accessible data on colonial objects
held in Dutch museums and their provenance history are essential if source
countries are to present substantiated requests. The Committee refers to
Section 9.4 of this chapter for its recommendations on this point.
The Committee does not anticipate that a return policy along the lines that it
recommends will jeopardize the survival of Dutch museums with colonial
collections. It has formed this view given the history of requests for return up
to the present day, and the discussions with representatives from source
countries, while arguing for an independent and transparent return procedure              69
and accessible data on the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects.
The Committee wishes to make two further comments on its
recommendation for unconditional return of objects with a sensitive
provenance. In their report, Sarr and Savoy adopt the principle that the loss
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<pre>of possession of colonial cultural heritage objects must be understood as
involuntary, unless the opposite can be proven. [212] The Committee considers
that this ‘reversal of the burden of proof ’, which argues that cultural heritage
objects with unresolved provenance (the third acquisition category in
Section 7.1) should also be returned unconditionally, is unworkable.
Research into the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects has too
many limitations: sometimes the history of the transfer of possession is too
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
remote to be properly traceable, and often the only sources still available
are Dutch sources. A reversal of the burden of proof would therefore not do
justice to the fact that many colonial cultural heritage objects were also
acquired legitimately[iii]even if this can no longer be evidenced.
It does not follows, however, that the only cultural heritage objects eligible
for return are those where involuntary loss of possession can be ascertained
with certainty, as with spoils of war. Since in many cases provenance research
cannot definitively ascertain this, this would be an overly rigid interpretation
in the context of wishing to redress a historic injustice. The Committee
proposes that an object should be unconditionally returned if it can be
demonstrated with a reasonable degree of certainty that involuntary loss of
possession has taken place. That means that even if a lack of consent cannot
be conclusively established, there must be sufficiently concrete and convincing
indications that it occurred. [213] It should also be borne in mind that the
gifting and selling of objects during a period of fundamental inequality can
also be an expression of subjugation and do not necessarily indicate voluntary
                                                                                       The policy framework
transfer of ownership.
A second observation is that Dutch museums, as was demonstrated by
the museum research, do not only hold cultural heritage objects acquired
from Dutch colonies. Many cultural heritage objects from colonial territories
of other colonial powers are held in Dutch museums and these include
cultural heritage objects whose original owners relinquished them
involuntarily. The Committee experiences a dilemma here. Regardless of
whether the Netherlands was, or was not, jointly culpable for the involuntary
loss of possession of a particular cultural heritage object, as the current owner
it is the only entity that can actively redress the injustice. Nevertheless the
multilateral context may give grounds for a broader assessment for this
category of request. The Committee can therefore imagine that in the first
instance the Minister would limit the policy of unconditional return to
cultural heritage objects with sensitive provenance coming from former
Dutch colonies. In her letter of 10 April 2019 to the House of
Representatives, the Minister stated that in dealing with requests for return
she wished to prioritize this category of objects and these countries. [214]
Decisions regarding those cultural heritage objects from territories that were
not formerly under Dutch colonial rule, whose owners suffered involuntary
loss of possession, should be made on the basis of reasonableness and fairness
and on the basis of a weighing of interests. Nevertheless, the Committee                  70
considers that the weighing up of interests must here too be guided by the
principle of redress.
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<pre>Return of objects of particular cultural, historical and/or religious importance
Among those cultural heritage objects where there is no demonstrable
involuntary loss of possession, are items of exceptional historical, cultural and/
or religious importance to the source country. These may have been purchased
or presented as gifts. The Committee recommends that consideration be given
to any requests for return of such objects, regardless of whether the source
country was a Dutch colony or a colony of another European power.
                                                                                     Guidance submitted to the Minister
The applicable principle in these cases is not the redress of historical injustice
but recognition of the extraordinary importance that an object may have to
the source country. It could, for example, refer to an important historical
event, it may be a unique representation of the culture or could be vital to
cultural or religious rituals.
Here the Committee does not believe that unconditional return is the obvious
choice. In this instance, the paramount objective is that of responding to a
significant interest in the source country not redressing an injustice.
The Committee considers it reasonable in all cases to weigh those interests
against other interests involved, as described in Chapter 7, including the
importance of retaining the object for the Dutch collection. This assessment
could also include the storage conditions in the source country, the scope for
academic research there and the way in which the object will be made
publicly accessible.
With regard to the special cultural interest that could be served by retaining
                                                                                        The policy framework
an object for the Netherlands, the Committee wishes to make the following
comments. It is of course important that colonial history can continue to
be told in Dutch museums through engaging objects, from the perspectives of
both the former colonizer – colonial history is unquestionably an aspect of
Dutch history – and those who were formerly colonized. It is therefore
necessary to include the importance of retaining an object for the Netherlands
in the assessment of requests for return. The Committee would also note that
it does not share the view that cultural heritage objects from the former
colonies are shown to their best advantage by being exhibited in settings
alongside those from all other parts of the world. This is sometimes used as
the grounds for a conservative return policy, sometimes expressed by
European proponents in the idea of ‘universal museums’. The Committee’s
view is that ‘universal museums’ are not always readily accessible to the
population of countries whose key cultural heritage objects are there on
display. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that an object will be shown to better
advantage among objects from other cultures and periods than in the source
country among objects which together amount to a comprehensive and
historically meaningful presentation of its culture. [215]
The Committee believes that the weighing of interests should be carried out
by an advisory committee that is independent of the current owner (Dutch
government) and the custodian (museum). This expert advisory committee                     71
would be expected to make a critical assessment of all the interests involved
and to show an unbiased and open attitude in answering the question as to the
country which would ultimately show the object to best advantage. It will then
be up to the owner, and in the case of an item from the Dutch national
collection that would be the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, to
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<pre>take a decision based on the advisory committee’s opinion. This might include
whether to return the object and whether to attach conditions to such return.
9.2   To whom the return takes place
Much time has usually elapsed since cultural heritage objects have left their
source countries. During that time national boundaries may have shifted, new
                                                                                       Guidance submitted to the Minister
states may have developed, communities may have moved, merged or
disappeared, and the rights of the rulers may have passed to others.
There may, therefore, be differences of view in source countries between the
State on the one hand and communities or individuals on the other about
who, generally or specifically, is entitled to request or receive a returned
cultural heritage object. It is also possible that a request for the return of a
cultural heritage object may support the unique cultural identity of a
particular community and that this may be perceived as conflicting with
initiatives to unify the State.
Nevertheless, the return of colonial cultural heritage objects and the
submission of claims is normally a matter for agreement between
governments. States may not have been the owners of the objects, however
they have sovereignty with regard to cultural heritage items originating from
their current territory. [217] States are also party to international conventions on
this subject and are the central actors in those conventions. [218] The French
report by Sarr and Savoy quoted earlier explicitly argues that it must be for
                                                                                          To whom the return takes place
states to consider procedures for the return of objects, with ownership being
transferred from state to state. [219] The Guidelines of the German Museums
Association also raise the question of who the appropriate parties are in the
source country and advise that in conditions of uncertainty, government
representatives should always be involved so that return does not to become
implicated in domestic disagreements in the source country. [220]
In line with this, the Committee considers that with regard to cultural heritage
objects owned by the State the return policy is, in principle, a matter to be
agreed between states. In the case of returns of cultural heritage objects, the
Dutch State’s ownership passes to the State which has authority over the area
from which the cultural heritage object originated. If the argument for a
return is the redress of historic injustice, that redress is thus directed towards
state representatives of the source country. The State is subsequently
responsible for ensuring that the cultural heritage object reaches the
appropriate place.
But here too the Committee experiences a dilemma. Colonial cultural heritage
objects often belonged to a particular community within the source country.
If a State or source country does not request the return of a community’s
cultural heritage object for particular reasons, or if it denies that community
access to a cultural heritage object once it has been returned, the community                72
concerned does not benefit, or does not benefit fully, from the intended
redress of the injustice or the honouring of a particular interest. Nevertheless
and without wishing to overlook potential grievances, the Committee
considers that respecting the sovereignty of existing States in these matters is a
conditio sine qua non for the basis of trust between countries necessary to a
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<pre>successful return policy. Nonetheless, the Committee advises the Minister to
take this point explicitly into account in agreements to be made with source
countries. Discussion between the Committee and representatives of
communities in source countries underlines the importance of ensuring this.
As already stated in Section 7.3 where it concerns cases for return where
interests must be weighed up, the importance of the accessibility of the
cultural heritage object to the community to which it originally belonged will
                                                                                     Guidance submitted to the Minister
always be important.
The principle that return is a matter for agreement between States does not,
of course, alter the fact it is very important for Dutch museums to enter into
dialogue. Dialogue undertaken with other parties in the source countries
and with the diaspora communities as regards the way in which objects came
into Dutch possession and on the possibility of return. They are, after all,
the parties who know about the location of colonial cultural heritage objects
and the provenance history of those objects.
9.3   Assessment of requests for return
Where the object is owned by the State, a decision on whether to honour a
request from the source country to return an object will be taken by the
Minister of Education, Culture and Science. She has sole authority under the
Heritage Act to conduct private legal acts with regard to museum-based
cultural heritage objects owned by the State. [221] The Committee recommends
                                                                                        Assessment of requests for return
that the Minister take such decisions on the basis of independent and public
advice, as currently occurs in the case of requests to return Nazi-looted art.
The importance of such a procedure lies in the fact that the Minister’s
decisions are then based on expert judgement that is arrived at independently
from the ownership interest and that all parties involved can be informed of
the judgement.
Although there are important differences between Nazi-looted art and
cultural heritage objects acquired in the colonial territories – these are set out
in Section 8.3 of this guidance – the Committee considers that the procedure
designed for the restitution of Nazi-looted art can be followed when dealing
with requests for the return of colonial cultural heritage objects. The central
players in that procedure are:
– an independent advisory committee who will advise on requests for return
  on the basis of the policy to be determined by the Minister;
– an expertise centre that will undertake an examination of the facts where
  necessary or desirable;
– the Expert Review Committee on Protection and Retention
  (Toetsingscommissie Beschermwaardigheid), which gives a judgement
  on the importance of a cultural heritage object to the Netherlands under
  the Heritage Act.                                                                        73
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<pre>The Advisory Committee on Requests for the Return of colonial
cultural heritage objects
The Committee advises the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to
establish an independent Advisory Committee on Requests for the Return of
colonial cultural heritage objects. The first task of this Advisory Committee is
to advise the Minister as to whether to honour requests for the return cultural
of heritage objects owned by the State and to specify any conditions attached
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
to such a return. This advice must be based on the policy to be determined by
the Minister on the basis of the present guidance for dealing with such
requests. In the Committee’s view, therefore, this policy should – in summary
– honour unconditionally those requests for cultural heritage objects which
have sensitive provenance from Dutch colonial territories, while in all other
requests the interests should be weighed up on the basis of reasonableness and
fairness, with the possibility that conditions may be attached to any return.
Requests that require a weighing of interests necessitate an initial assessment
of what is known about the acquisition history. Where cultural heritage objects
originate from Dutch colonies and it has not been ascertained with a
reasonable degree of certainty that there was involuntary loss of possession,
the assessment of the request for return may nevertheless include a
consideration of the provenance history. When giving its opinion the Advisory
Committee must also take into account any suspicions of involuntary loss of
possession, for example in the case of gifts exchanged in an unequal power
relationship, or in the case of uncertainty concerning the degree of consent
                                                                                       Assessment of requests for return
because the provenance history can no longer be fully reconstructed.
In the case of cultural heritage objects from non-Dutch colonies too,
the Committee considers that being able to redress of a historic injustice must
be the starting point. The advice must aim for redress, unless other interests
weigh more heavily.
Other interests which the Advisory Committee should take into account
in its assessment and which are outlined in more detail in Chapter 7 of this
guidance are: the cultural importance of an object to the Netherlands,
the importance of the object to the source country, future storage conditions,
public accessibility after the return, the scope for academic research in the
source country and the readiness to cooperate at museum level with the
Netherlands.
A judgement on the cultural importance of an object to the Netherlands will
be made on request by the Expert Review Committee on protection and
retention(Toetsingscommissie Beschermwaardigheid) considered later in this
section. The source country can provide information that the Advisory
Committee needs for its advice including: regard to the cultural, historical or
religious importance of the object; the storage conditions, public accessibility
after return, scope for academic research and the readiness to cooperate at               74
museum level. To ensure support for its findings, it is important that, as far as
possible, the Advisory Committee arrives at a joint view with representatives
from the source country on these matters.
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<pre>The Committee is aware that in weighing up interests the Advisory
Committee will face difficult choices, partly because interests may be of a
different nature. The Committee proposes that that the principles of clarity,
transparency and consistency should be leading and therefore the Advisory
Committee should draw up an assessment framework for the weighing of
interests, which will be adopted and published by the Minister.
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
The Advisory Committee will submit an advice to the Minister based on a
reasonable and fair assessment of these interests. With the exception of cases
for unconditional return, the opinion provided may include conditions for the
return, for example in relation to storage conditions and accessibility, or the
condition that the cultural heritage object must return to the original owner or
community in the source country, or a rejection of the request. If the Expert
Review Committee on protection and retention (Toetsingscommissie
Beschermwaardigheid) advises that a cultural heritage object with a sensitive
provenance from a Dutch colony has a particular cultural-historical or
scientific significance in the Netherlands, the Advisory Committee may
recommend that the Minister try to reach an agreement with the source
country on a possible loan or purchase by the Netherlands. It is, however,
up to the source country to agree or decline.
As noted earlier in this guidance, local and provincial authorities, foundations
and private individuals are free to deal with requests for return as they see fit
and they can choose their own advisers. The Committee considers, however,
                                                                                       Assessment of requests for return
that the ethical arguments applicable to the way forward with colonial cultural
heritage objects owned by the State also apply to other owners. By extension,
therefore, the policy line to be adopted by the Minister in these matters can
also provide guidance for them.
The Committee recommends that the Advisory Committee on the Return of
colonial cultural heritage objects should be accessible to owners other than
the State, together with the requesting party. Both should be able to call on its
assistance. However when the parties choose to do so, there is an obligation.
This means that the requesting party and the current owner consent to the
policy adopted by the Minister on the basis of which the Advisory Committee
issues its opinion and that they accept that the opinion is binding on both
parties. The Committee does note, however, that in the case of other
government authorities and private individuals the State in the source
countries will not always be the party who makes the request for return or the
party who becomes the owner of the cultural heritage object once returned.
That can also be another party, such as a museum, community or
private individual.
The Advisory Committee’s opinion must be binding not only on the parties
concerned but also on the Minister, namely that she will not use the means
at her disposal to impede its implementation. That means she will not annul               75
a decision by the government authority or public law body concerned and
will not designate the cultural heritage object as protected heritage under
Section 3.7 or 3.8 of the Heritage Act. In the case of an opinion in favour of
the return of a cultural heritage object that was already protected,
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<pre>the Minister would be required to withdraw the protection in accordance
with Section 3.12(1) of the Heritage Act.
Composition of Advisory Committee on Requests for the Return of colonial
cultural heritage objects
The Committee proposes that the Advisory Committee on Requests for the
Return of colonial cultural heritage objects should in all instances consist
                                                                                  Guidance submitted to the Minister
of a lawyer, an art historian, a colonial historian, a museum expert and an
ethnologist. Specific experts can also be co-opted onto the Advisory
Committee for the specific case under consideration. These may also be
experts from the country from which the cultural heritage object originates,
who may assist in gathering information to assist the advice of the Advisory
Committee. The Minister will appoint a secretary to the Advisory Committee
who is accountable solely to the Advisory Committee.
The Expertise Centre on the Provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects
A central element underpinning the Advisory Committee’s opinion on a
request is the provenance history of that object. When and by whom was it
produced? What was the significance of the cultural heritage object at the time
of its production and at the time when possession was lost? How did the
cultural heritage object come into Dutch possession and – most importantly –
how voluntary or involuntary was the loss of possession?
According to the Ethical Code for Museums in the Netherlands, which all
                                                                                     Assessment of requests for return
members of the Museums Association and all museums registered with the
Museum Register Foundation have endorsed, museums are required to
document the context and provenance of their cultural heritage objects. [222]
As custodians, museums thus have primary responsibility for researching the
provenance of the cultural heritage objects from the colonial territories.
As the museum survey demonstrated, this responsibility is taken seriously by
many museums, although significant progress remains to be made.
Apart from the museums, the source countries and diaspora communities
in the Netherlands will have knowledge and documentation pertaining to
the cultural heritage objects held in Dutch museums which can be used to
provide supportive evidence and which the Advisory Committee can include
in its opinions.
Research into the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects is complex
and thus requires expertise that is not available to all museums.
The Committee therefore recommends establishing an Expertise Centre on
the Provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects. This Expertise Centre
should be given two tasks. First, it would be responsible for developing and
providing general knowledge on methods of provenance research and
promotion of expertise among museum researchers. The centre’s second task
would be to conduct research into the provenance history of a specific cultural
heritage object. Such research is required if neither the current owner nor             76
the custodian of the cultural heritage object, nor the source country has
sufficient information to provide a clear explanation of the provenance history
or if there are grounds to have the available information assessed by
independent experts and complemented where necessary. The request for
such research, which would not discharge a museum from its obligation to
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<pre>conduct its own research, could be made by the Advisory Committee,
or by the source country and the current owner/custodin of the cultural
heritage object.
Expert Review Committee on protection and retention
As set out in Chapter 7 of this guidance, in the case of disposal of cultural
heritage objects under their ownership the State and other government
                                                                                           Guidance submitted to the Minister
authorities must comply with the provisions of Section 4.17 of the Heritage
Act. This applies to requests for return. Section 4.17 of the Heritage Act states
that if it can be reasonably assumed that the cultural heritage object requested
has a particular cultural-historical or scientific significance and is irreplaceable
or indispensable for Dutch cultural heritage, an independent expert
committee must give a judgement as to whether this assumption can be
upheld. The government authority must then consider that judgement in its
decision upon a request for return.
As explained earlier, in the case of cultural heritage objects with sensitive
provenance from the Dutch colonial territories that are currently in the State’s
possession, this judgement must not impede the return of the cultural heritage
object. To the extent that other government authorities adhere to the policy
line recommended here, the same will apply to cultural heritage objects
of which they are the owners. The judgement of the Expert Committee may,
however, be grounds for the Minister or directors of other government
authorities, in consultation with the requesting source country, to assess
                                                                                              The assessment procedure
whether, and under what conditions, the cultural heritage object can remain
in the Netherlands on loan or can be purchased.
In all cases other than those involving cultural heritage from former Dutch
colonial territories where there is evidence of involuntary loss of possession,
the Expert Committee’s judgement will be a factor in the Advisory
Committee’s weighing of interests and in the final decision by the authority
concerned. The judgement of the Expert Committee thus constitutes an
element in the weighing of interests and does not compete as an independent
judgement with the result of this weighing of interests.
9.4   The assessment procedure
The procedure proposed by the Committee in the case of requests to return
cultural heritage objects owned by the State has similarities and differences as
compared to the procedure followed for cultural heritage objects owned
by other authorities or private individuals. Both procedures are outlined here
point by point.
Procedure in the case of requests to return cultural heritage objects owned by the State
– The State representative of the source country lodges a request with the                       77
  Minister of Education, Culture and Science to return a cultural heritage
  object. It presents the reasons for the request (involuntary loss of
  possession in the colonial period and/or cultural, historical or religious
  interests) and provides all the information it holds on the cultural
  heritage object.
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<pre>– The request is forwarded to the Advisory Committee.
– If the cultural heritage object is assumed to be worthy of protection within
  the meaning of the Heritage Act, the Expert Review Committee on
  protection and retention is requested to issue a judgement which is also
  forwarded to the Advisory Committee.
                                                                                     Guidance submitted to the Minister
– The Advisory Committee asks the museum managing the cultural heritage
  object for all the information it has at its disposal on the provenance and
  the method of acquisition of the cultural heritage object.
– If the information supplied by the source country and the museum provide
  insufficient clarity on the provenance history and the acquisition method,
  the Advisory Committee can instruct the Expertise Centre to investigate it.
– The Advisory Committee provides an opinion to the Minister of
  Education, Culture and Science on the request. In the case of a cultural
  heritage object from the Dutch colonial area where it can be ascertained
  with a reasonable degree of certainty that the loss of possession was
  involuntary, the recommendation is to return the cultural heritage object
  unconditionally. In other cases the Advisory Committee gives an opinion
  based on reasonableness and fairness.
– The Minister of Education, Culture and Science then takes a decision on
                                                                                        The assessment procedure
  the request and announces any decision to alienate publicly in accordance
  with Section 4.17 of the Heritage Act. [223]
The Committee advises the Minister to also allow for the possibility that
a source country can request the Expertise Centre on the Provenance
of colonial cultural heritage objects to initiate research into the provenance
history of a cultural heritage object outside of a request to return. On the basis
of the results of that research, the source country may then decide whether to
make a request for return.
Procedure in the case of requests to return cultural heritage objects owned
by other parties
– The requesting party lodges a request to return with the owner of
  the cultural heritage object.
– If the parties fail to reach agreement on this request and wish to have an
  independent and binding recommendation, they can request the Minister
  to obtain an opinion from the Advisory Committee.
– Both parties give the Advisory Committee all available information on
  the cultural heritage object and the provenance history. The Advisory                    78
  Committee can instruct the Expertise Centre to conduct a more detailed
  investigation.
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<pre>– If the owner is a provincial or municipal authority or another public legal
  entity, and it suspects that the cultural heritage object is worthy of
  protection under the Heritage Act, the owner concerned may request the
  opinion of the Expert Review Committee on protection and retention
  and forwards it to the Advisory Committee.
– The Advisory Committee gives its opinion on the request. In the case of
                                                                                      Guidance submitted to the Minister
  a cultural heritage object from the Dutch colonial area where it can be
  ascertained with a reasonable degree of certainty that the loss of possession
  was involuntary, the recommendation is to return the cultural heritage
  object unconditionally. In other cases the Advisory Committee gives an
  opinion based on reasonableness and fairness.
– The recommendation from the Advisory Committee is binding on
  all parties.
– If the owner is a provincial or municipal authority, it announces
  any decision to alienate publicly in accordance with Section 4.17
  of the Heritage Act. [224]
9.5   Provenance research
A necessary prerequisite for the policy line recommended by the Committee is
knowledge of the colonial cultural heritage objects held by Dutch museums
                                                                                         Provenance research
and the way in which they were acquired. The question of whether a cultural
heritage object was acquired with or without the consent of the original owner
is particularly important in that regard. This knowledge is important for the
source countries to arrive at a judgement on which objects they would like
returned and on what grounds they can base a request for return. In the
Committee’s discussions with representatives from source countries there
were repeated calls for greater clarity as to which objects are held in the Dutch
collections and how they arrived there. This knowledge is also relevant to
museums, to enable them to present visitors with all perspectives on the
colonial story. This story is not only about the cultures of the communities in
the previous colonial territories, but also about the role which the Netherlands
played in those territories at the time. Indeed, it was that power imbalance
that created the conditions for Dutch museums to acquire the wealth of
colonial cultural heritage objects now on display there.
The museum survey shows that a number of museums are already carrying
out proactive provenance research, but also that many still have a lot of work
to do. Just under 10 percent of the museums with colonial collections already
have a good picture of the provenance of their colonial cultural heritage
objects. 13 percent state that they are systematically investigating their colonial
collection to determine the method of acquisition. Just over half of the
museums are carrying out exploratory research into the provenance of their                  79
colonial cultural heritage objects, while one-third do not, as yet, have plans for
such research.
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<pre>Provenance research is often a complex matter that requires specific expertise
not available to all museums. For many museums, particularly those with
extensive colonial collections originating from multiple territories and time
periods. It is also an extensive task in which realistic priorities and
expectations must be set against the amount of time such research will take.
In the museum survey 20 percent of museums said they would like support
with provenance research.
                                                                                   Guidance submitted to the Minister
The Committee has already stated that provenance research and giving source
countries access to information is the primary responsibility of museums
themselves. The Committee believes it is important to support the museums
with this provenance research by developing and promoting expertise in this
area and, where possible, by making resources available.
The pilot being conducted by the National Museum of World Cultures, the
Rijksmuseum and the NIOD with a subsidy from the Minister of Education,
Culture and Science is an important first step, which in the Committee’s view
could be followed up with the establishment and financing of the Expertise
Centre previously referred to in this chapter.
That Expertise Centre could also be entrusted with collecting and providing
access to information on the provenance of colonial cultural heritage objects.
An important prerequisite for open and transparent ways forward for colonial
collections is that the data obtained from provenance research is also available
                                                                                      International cooperation
without restriction to source countries and museums and communities there.
The Committee recommends the creation of an easily accessible database.
On the basis of this information the source countries can form a picture of
what is held by Dutch collections from their country and the means by which
it was acquired. The database documentation can also be supplemented with
knowledge available in source countries on the objects concerned, for example
memories and records of how they left. This database can thus become an
important basis for future cooperation between museums in the Netherlands
and those in the source countries. The Committee recommends that
cooperation and support for source countries in terms of capacity-building in
the field of provenance research becomes part of the Minister’s international
cultural policy.
9.6   International cooperation
In her request for guidance the Minister of Education, Culture and Science
requested a specific focus on international cooperation. That is a pertinent
request, since the future handling of colonial cultural heritage objects is an
issue in almost all former colonial powers, as is referred to in previous
chapters. The former colonized countries are also increasingly making their
views and wishes heard. It is an issue which governments, museums,
academics, opinion formers, international organizations and representatives              80
of indigenous groups around the world are trying to navigate.
The Committee sees two particular international arenas where cooperation
can take place. First, the cooperation between the Netherlands and the
countries whose cultural heritage objects came into Dutch hands during the
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<pre>colonial period. Policy development on future handling of colonial cultural
heritage objects, particularly with regard to the question of return, cannot be a
‘supply-driven’ policy developed and adopted unquestioningly by the former
colonial power. That would amount to neocolonial mimicry of what occurred
during the colonial period, albeit in the reverse direction, but similarly
channelling Western views, feelings, standards and values. The principles of
the return must be developed as a common policy that is supported by both
                                                                                    Guidance submitted to the Minister
the Netherlands and the source countries. Furthermore it must be clear what
different countries can expect from each other and what they have to offer
each other. The Committee therefore recommends that the Minister include
the policy principles proposed in this guidance in discussions with the most
relevant source countries, in any event with Indonesia, Suriname and
the Caribbean islands. These could lead to memoranda of understanding.
Depending on the wishes and views of the source countries, these memoranda
could also include agreements on:
– the procedures to be adopted by both countries when returns
  are requested;
– provenance research and possible cooperation in this field;
– provision of the results of the provenance research to the source country;
– scientific and museum cooperation between the Netherlands and the
  source country, including cooperation in training of museum staff.
These agreements may have a different emphasis depending on the source
country. As noted earlier, the Committee would have liked to garner first-hand
                                                                                       International cooperation
the views and opinions held in these countries, but that was not possible due
to the coronavirus crisis. In the online discussions with representatives of
the source countries the Committee did nonetheless gain a clear impression
that the countries concerned would like to enter into agreements with
the Netherlands.
The second arena for international cooperation is with countries where similar
colonial cultural heritage issues are being debated due to their role as former
colonial powers. As set out in Chapter 6, these countries differ in the way in
which they address these issues. These differences can be attributed in part to
differences in legislation within countries that allow or prevent returns, but
also reflect cultural and historical particularities amongst them. There are
countries where calls for ‘a coming to terms with the past’ prevail and those
where taking responsibility for colonial heritage is viewed primarily in terms of
managing it and making it visible in that country’s own museums. There are
countries in which the government is pro-active in the debate, whether for
ethical or geopolitical reasons, and countries where the government maintains
silence and it is mainly the voices of museums that are heard. There are
countries whose former colonies and their diaspora populations are active
participants in the debate and countries where that is less the case. There are
countries that have good relations with their former colonial territories and             81
others who have more contested relationships.
The Committee believes it is both interesting and instructive to bring these
differences and similarities into the open. The Committee is aware that the
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has also taken steps in this
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<pre>regard. In the Committee’s judgement, hearing and learning from each other’s
views and methods, in part to reflect one’s own ideas and standpoints, are the
objectives that should be pursued in the short term. The Committee’s believes
that Unesco is a natural host for such an exchange because it includes former
colonized countries and also because for it, as an organization, this is a
familiar topic.
                                                                                  Guidance submitted to the Minister
At this stage the Committee does not consider likely that international
cooperation will lead to unanimity of perception of the colonial past shared by
all former colonial powers. It appears that a common ethical consensus with
regard to the future handling of colonial cultural heritage objects is a not
realistic ambition for this international cooperation in the short term.
Nevertheless, the Netherlands and like-minded countries – the Committee
cites Germany as an example – could take the lead in exploring the route
towards more international cooperation and coordination on this matter.
                                                                                     International cooperation
                                                                                        82
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<pre>10.      Concluding remarks
The Committee has worked with great enthusiasm on a request for guidance
from the Minister of Education, Culture and Science on this issue, which is
                                                                                    Concluding remarks
so very pertinent at this time. The discussions within the Committee itself and
those it was able to conduct with the many academics, authorities, officials
and curators in the Netherlands, other European countries and the source
countries were without exception candid and inspirational. These discussions
also gave the Committee confidence that its guidance would find support both
within and outside the Netherlands.
There is no possibility of undoing the historical injustices that took place
during the colonial period. However a contribution can be made to redress
injustices by taking responsibility for the legacy of that past when dealing with
colonial cultural objects. The Committee trusts that on the basis of this
guidance the Minister will be able to enter into productive agreements with
source countries. That this will lead to a policy on return that emerges in
dialogue with these countries and will result in effective return of cultural
heritage objects to them.
                                                                                       83
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<pre>     Endnotes
 1
Rijksmuseum, ‘The Banjarmasin Diamond, anonymous, c. 1875’,
inventory number NG-C-2000-3, Rijksmuseum Collection (n.d.),
accessed at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/zoeken/objecten?
q=diamant&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=2#/NG-C-2000-3,2
on 27 August 2020.
                                                                        Endnotes
 2
Unpublished internal preliminary investigation
‘Koloniale herkomst’, Rijksmuseum (2018).
 3
Rijksmuseum, ‘Curaçaose waterschepper, anonymous,
1700 – 1799’, inventory number NG-1944-29, Rijksmuseum
Collection (n.d.), accessed at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/
zoeken/objecten?p=1&ps=12&f.objectTypes.sort=waterschepper
&st=Objects&ii=0#/NG-1994-29,0 on 22 March 2020.
 4
Unpublished internal preliminary investigation ‘Koloniale
herkomst’, Rijksmuseum (2018).
 5
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, ‘Banjo’,
object number RV-360-5696, Collection of the Nationaal
Museum van Wereldculturen (NMVW) (n.d.), accessed at
https://collectie.wereldculturen.nl/#/query/75e5bd3c-
e2b1-4889-9ff4-00c79bbacdb7 on 27 August 2020. John Gabriel
Stedman, ‘Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the
Revolted Negroes of Surinam’ (London 1796), Volumes I & II.
 6
Rijksmuseum, Spear Rack of Governor-General J.C. Baud,
anonymous, 1834’, object number NG-BR-554, Rijksmuseum
Collection (n.d.), accessed at http://hdl.handle.net/10934/
RM0001.COLLECT.337418 on 23 March 2020.
 7
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, ‘Ganesha’,
object number RV-1403-1681, Collection of the Nationaal
Museum van Wereldculturen (hereinafter: NMVW) (n.d.),
accessed at http://collectie.wereldculturen.nl/#/query/95384072-
cb44-4f4e-bf3f-6e04aaec36a3 on 20 March 2020.
 8
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, ‘Return of Cultural
Objects: Principles and Process’ (7 March 2019), accessed at
https://www.tropenmuseum.nl/en/about-tropenmuseum/press/
dutch-national-museum-world-cultures-nmvw-announces-
principles-claims on 25 March 2020.
 9
Deutscher Museumsbund, ‘Guidelines on Dealing with
Collections from Colonial Contexts’ (July 2018), accessed at
https://www.museumsbund.de/publikationen/guidelines-on-dealing-
with-collections-from-colonial-contexts-2 on 23 March 2020;
Felwine Sarr; Bénédicte Savoy, ‘Rapport sur la restitution du
patrimoine culturel Africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationelle’    84
(November 2018), accessed at http://restitutionreport2018.com on
23 March 2020; Élysée, ‘Emmanuel Macron’s speech at the
University of Ouagadougou’ (28 November 2017), accessed at
https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2017/11/28/emmanuel-
macrons-speech-at-the-university-of-ouagadougou.en
on 15 June 2020.
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<pre>  10
Dutch Government, letter from the Minister of Education,
Culture and Science to the President of the Lower House of the
States General (10 April 2019), Parliamentary Paper 32820,
no. 282 (15 April 2019 version), accessed at https://zoek.officiele
bekendmakingen.nl/kst-32820-282.html on 12 April 2020.
  11
See Annex 2. In her request for opinion the Minister uses the term
‘return’. In the literature the terms ‘restitution’ and ‘repatriation’
                                                                            Endnotes
are used in addition to ‘return’, depending on the provenance
history of the object (looted, illegally exported, legally acquired)
and the recipient of the object (the State, a community, an
individual). In the case of restitution, the definitions usually refer to
an unlawful loss of possession combined with a specific requester,
whereas return is more focused on the territory, while the term
repatriation is often used in claims by indigenous communities.
See for example: M. Cornu; M. Renold, ‘New Developments in the
Restitution of Cultural Property: Alternative Means of Dispute
Resolution’, International Journal of Cultural Property (2010)
17:1, 1-31, specifically 31.
  12
According to Section 1.1 of the Heritage Act, a cultural heritage
object is: an item of movable property forming part of cultural
heritage, in which the latter is deemed to be: tangible and intangible
sources inherited from the past, created over time by man or
resulting from the interplay of man and the environment, which
people, regardless of its ownership, identify as a reflection and
expression of the continuously evolving values, convictions,
knowledge and traditions, and which provide them and future
generations with a reference framework. See the Heritage Act,
accessed at Overheid.nl (n.d.), https://wetten.overheid.nl/
BWBR0037521/2020-04-01 on 13 August 2020.
  13
Cultural heritage objects were also brought from the respective
territories to the Netherlands after that time.
  14
Valika Smeulders, Slavernij in Perspectief (thesis at Erasmus
University Rotterdam 2012).
  15
Piet Emmer; Jos Gommans, Algemene Geschiedenis van Nederland.
Rijk aan de rand van de wereld. De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee
1600 – 1800 (Amsterdam 2012), 143.
  16
H.L. Wesseling, Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren: en andere opstellen
over de geschiedenis van de Europese expansie (Amsterdam 1988),
11-12; 21-23; 68.
  17
Ronald Robinson, ‘Non-European Foundations of European
Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration’,
in: Wm. Roger Louis (ed.), Imperialism – The Robinson and Gallagher
Controversy (New York 1976), 128-51, specifically 130.
  18
Multatuli, Max Havelaar of de Koffij-veilingen der Nederlandsche             85
Handelsmaatschappij (Amsterdam 1860).
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<pre> 19
See Annex IV & Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld,
402-407; 425-433; National Archives; Rijksdienst voor het
Cultureel Erfgoed; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, Online databank Atlas of Mutual Heritage, accessed at
www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl on 3 July 2020.
 20
Fieke Krikhaar, Jacob Eilbracht 1738-1804. Een leven in dienst van
de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Leiden 1996), 83; Emmer;
                                                                         Endnotes
Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 28; 32-35; 281-282.
 21
Kees Zandvliet, De Nederlandse ontmoeting met Azië 1600 – 1950
(Zwolle 2002), 31-33; 134; Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand
van de wereld, 32-33; 290-291; Gerrit Knaap; Henk den Heijer;
Michiel de Jong, Oorlogen overzee. Militair optreden door compagnie en
staat buiten Europa 1595 – 1814 (Amsterdam 2015), 75-76;
114-121.
 22
Els M. Jacobs, Koopman in Azië. De Handel van de Verenigde Oost-
Indische Compagnie tijdens de 18e eeuw (Zutphen 2000), 24; 67-71;
Emmer, Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 51-53; 67-71;
304; 311-312; Knaap; Den Heijer; De Jong, Oorlogen overzee,
140-142.
 23
Historiek, ‘Het Kanon van de koning van Kandy’, Historiek
(30 November 2019 version), obtained from http://historiek.net/
het-kanon-van-de-koning-van-kandy-10/18808 on 14 April 2020.
 24
Ron Guleij; Gerrit Knaap (ed.), Het Grote VOC boek (Zwolle 2017),
50-54; Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 48-50.
 25
Martine Gosselink; Maria Holtrop; Robert Ross (ed.), Goede Hoop.
Zuid-Afrika en Nederland vanaf 1600 (Amsterdam 2017), 121;
Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 244; Robert
Ross, ‘The ‘White’ Population of South Africa in the Eighteenth
Century’, Population Studies 29:2 (1975), 217-230, specifically 221.
 26
Hans Groot, Van Batavia naar Weltevreden. Het Bataviaasch
Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 1778 – 1867
(Leiden 2009).
 27
Ewald Vanvugt, Roofstaat.Wat iedere Nederlander moet weten
(Amsterdam 2015), 396-398.
 28
Henk den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC (Zutphen 2011),
107; Wim van den Doel, De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee.
Zo ver de wereld strekt. De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee
vanaf 1800 (Amsterdam 2011), 20; Emmer; Gommans,
Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 42; 45-47.
 29
                                                                          86
Wim Klooster, ‘The Northern European Atlantic World’
in: Nicholas Canny; Philip Morgan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook
of the Atlantic World, 1450 – 1850 (Oxford 2011), 164-180,
specifically 168.
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<pre> 30
Gert Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee. De Nederlandse Caraiben
en Nederland (Leiden 2000), 13-14.
 31
J.E. Tunbridge; G.J. Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage: the Management
of the Past as a Resource in Conflict (Chichester 1996); B.J. Graham;
G.J. Ashworth; J.E. Tunbridge, A geography of Heritage: Power,
Culture & Economy (London 2000); G.J. Ashworth; B.J. Graham;
J.E. Tunbridge, Pluralising Pasts: Heritage, Identity and Place in
                                                                         Endnotes
Multicultural Societies (London 2007).
 32
Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 26-27.
 33
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 13-14; 19; 33.
 34
Ibidem; Victor Enthoven, ‘’That Abominable Nest of Pirates’
St. Eustatius and the North Americans, 1680 – 1790’
in: Early American Studies, vol 10., no. 1 (2012), 239-301,
specifically 295; Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 15-17;
Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American
Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia 2000), 213.
 35
Emmer; Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld, 38-50.
 36
Ibidem; Idem, 167.
 37
Matthias van Rossum, Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij
in Azië onder de VOC (Hilversum 2015), 26.
 38
Vanvugt, Roofstaat, 391.
 39
M. Kuitenbrouwer, ‘De Nederlandse afschaffing van de slavernij
in vergelijkend perspectief ’, BMGN. Low Countries Historical
Review, 39 (1), 69-100, specifically 72; Gosselink; Holtrop;
Ross (ed.), Goede Hoop, 128-129; National Archives, ‘Zoekhulp
Slavernij en slavenhandel in Nederlands-Indië (1820 – 1900)’
(23 May 2019 version), accessed at http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/
beleven/nieuws/zoekhulp-slavernij-en-slavenhandel-in-nederlands-
indie-1820-1900-online on 24 January 2020; Hans Buddingh’,
De geschiedenis van Suriname (Amsterdam 2012), 183-204.
 40
Sidney W. Mintz; Richard Price, De geboorte van Afrikaans-
Amerikaanse cultuur (Leiden 2003).
 41
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 30-33.
 42
Idem, 46-52.
                                                                          87
 43
Idem, 30-34.
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<pre> 44
Marieke Bloembergen; Martijn Eickhoff, The politics of heritage
in Indonesia. A Cultural History (Cambridge 2020), 22; Vanvugt,
Roofstaat, 396-398.
 45
C. Fasseur, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’ in: E.B Locher-
Scholten (ed.), Overzee. Nederlandse koloniale history 1590 – 1975
(Haarlem 1982), 166-193, specifically 167.
                                                                         Endnotes
 46
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage in Indonesia, 94.
 47
Idem, 3.
 48
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 37-38; 44-45; Fasseur,
‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 172; 175.
 49
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage in Indonesia, 38.
 50
Idem, 26.
 51
Vanvugt, Roofstaat, 396-398.
 52
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage in Indonesia, 22; 168.
 53
Idem, 186.
 54
Jos van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, Negotiating the Future
of Colonial Cultural Objects (Leiden 2017), 45-46.
 55
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage in Indonesia, 42.
 56
Idem, 25.
 57
Idem, 14-15.
 58
Idem, 46.
 59
Idem, 25.
 60
Piet Hagen, Koloniale oorlogen in Indonesië (Amsterdam 2018), 333.
                                                                          88
 61
Mark Loderichs, ‘The Prince on Horseback: The Origins and
History of Diponegoro’s saddle and reins’, lecture given during the
seminar Objects, Museums, Histories. The Case of Prince Diponegoro
at Museum Nasional, Jakarta (18 May 2016).
</pre>

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<pre> 62
Ellen Henzen, ‘De dekolonisatie van Nederlands-Indië’,
Geschiedenis.nl (1 January 2005 version), accessed at
http://www.geschiedenis.nl/nieuws/artikel/184/de-dekolonisatie-van-
nederlands-indie on 16 March 2020.
 63
Fasseur, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 168-169.
                                                                      Endnotes
 64
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 96-98.
 65
Jos van Beurden, The return of Cultural and Historical Treasures.
The case of the Netherlands (Amsterdam 2012), 34.
 66
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, Fasseur, ‘Nederland en
Nederlands-Indië’, 174.
 67
Fasseur, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 175-176.
 68
Van Beurden, The return of Cultural and Historical Treasures, 34.
 69
C. Fasseur, ‘Suriname en de Nederlandse Antillen’ in: Locher-
Scholten (ed.), Overzee, 194-200, specifically 198; Van den Doel,
Zo ver de wereld strekt, 106-108.
 70
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 106-108
 71
Idem, 129-152.
 72
Idem, 88-92.
 73
Caroline Drieënhuizen; Fenneke Sysling, ‘Jongensverhalen in
Naturalis? Die tijd is voorbij’, De Volkskrant (12 August 2019),
accessed at https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/jongensboek
verhalen-in-naturalis-die-tijd-is-voorbij~b4cc655e/?
utm_campaign=shared_earned&utm_medium=social&utm
_source=email on 17 March 2020.
 74
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 88-92.
 75
Idem, 64-68
 76
Idem, 105-106
 77
                                                                       89
Idem, 162-163; Fasseur, ‘Suriname en de Nederlandse Antillen’,
199-200.
 78
Leo Dalhuisen; Maurits Hassankhan, De geschiedenis van Suriname
(Zutphen 2018), 102-132.
</pre>

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<br><br>====================================================================== Pagina 90 ======================================================================

<pre> 79
Fasseur, ‘Suriname en de Nederlandse Antillen’, 198-199;
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 105-106; 164; Oostindie,
Het paradijs overzee, 13; 118-120; Buddingh’, De geschiedenis
van Suriname, 262-278.
 80
Buddingh’, De geschiedenis van Suriname, 64-68; 103-109;
Dalhuisen; Hassankhan, De geschiedenis van Suriname, 126-133.
                                                                         Endnotes
 81
Leo Dalhuisen; Ronald Donk; Rosemarijn Hoefte, De geschiedenis
van de Antillen. Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius,
Sint Maarten (Zutphen 2019), 72-73.
 82
Idem, 77-80.
 83
Smeulders, Slavernij in Perspectief; Van Striptiaan; Smeulders,
Traveling Caribbean Heritage, academic project by the Royal
Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies
(KITLV), Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Aruba,
the University of Curaçao Dr. Moises da Costa Gomez and
FUHIKIBO on Bonaire (n.d.).
 84
S.L. van der Wal, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’
in: Locher-Scholten (ed.), Overzee, 201-222, specifically 211-212.
 85
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 150-161.
 86
Fasseur, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 170; Van den Doel,
Zo ver de wereld strekt, 159.
 87
Vanvugt, Roofstaat, 472; Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in
fragmenten.Vijf studies over koloniaal denken en doen van Nederlanders
in de Indonesische archipel 1877 – 1942 (Tuurdijk 1981).
 88
Van der Wal, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 208-210; 216-219;
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 242-246; 266.
 89
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 271-291.
 90
Van der Wal, ‘Nederland en Nederlands-Indië’, 203-206.
 91
Van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt, 270.
 92
Petra Groen, ‘The War in the Pacific’ in: Peter Post (ed.),
The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Second World War (Leiden,
Boston 2010), 6-10; Emma Keizer, ‘De Tweede Wereldoorlog in               90
de Oost. Wat er ondertussen in Nederlands-Indië gebeurde’
(June 2019), accessed at https://75jaarvrij.nl/cms/view/57980064/
indie-06-2019-inleiding on 6 February 2020.
</pre>

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<pre> 93
Emma Keizer, ‘Dwangarbeiders in ruil voor vrijheid’, Romusha
in de Indonesische Archipel’ (September 2019), accessed at
https://75jaarvrij.nl/cms/view/57981827/indie-09-2019-romusha
on 6 February 2020; Emma Keizer, ‘Van Heiho tot PETA.
Militarisering van de Indonesische bevolking’ (February 2020),
accessed at https://75jaarvrij.nl/cms/view/57987521/indie-02-2020-
van-heiho-tot-peta%20op%206%20februari%202020;
Emma Keizer, ‘Burgergeïnterneerden en Buitenkampers.
Over leven in de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederlands-Indië’
                                                                        Endnotes
(January 2020), accessed at https://www.75jaarvrij.nl/cms/view/
57986401/indie-01-2020-burgergeinterneerden-en-buitenkampers
on 6 February 2020.
 94
Keizer, ‘Dwangarbeiders in ruil voor vrijheid‘; Keizer,
‘Van Heiho tot PETA’.
 95
Ellen Klinkers, De troepenmacht in Suriname. De Nederlandse
defensie in een veranderende koloniale wereld 1940 – 1975
(The Hague 2015), 49.
 96
P.J. Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’
in: Locher-Scholten (ed.), Overzee, 229-258, specifically 253-254;
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 157; Buddingh’, De geschiedenis van
Suriname, 279-284.
 97
Dalhuisen; Donk; Hoefte, De geschiedenis van de Antillen, 97.
 98
Rémy Limpach, De brandende kampongs van Generaal Spoor
(Amsterdam 2016).
 99
See for example: Kayleigh Goudsmit, ‘Verslag publieksbijeenkomst:
dekolonisatie of rekolonisatie?’ (4 October 2018), organized by the
research programme Onafhankelijkheid, dekolonisatie, oorlog en geweld
in Indonesië 1945 – 1950, accessed at http://www.ind45-50.org/
verslag-publieksbijeenkomst-dekolonisatie-rekolonisatie
on 5 February 2020; Anke Hoets, ‘Dekolonisatie, rekolonisatie?
Het is bezetting en herbezetting.’ Bewogen bijeenkomst Indië-
onderzoek’ (26 September 2018), accessed at
http://www.militairespectator.nl/thema/geschiedenis/artikel/
%E2%80%98dekolonisatie-rekolonisatie-het-bezetting-en-
herbezetting%E2%80%99 on 5 February 2020.
 100
Gert Oostindie; Henk Schulte Nordholt, ‘Nederland en zijn
koloniale verleden. Moeizame overgang van dekolonisatie naar
buitenlands beleid’, Internationale Spectator, volume 60, no. 11
(November 2006), 573-577, specifically 573.
 101
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 145-146.
 102
Idem, 155; Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’,
254.                                                                     91
 103
Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’, 256;
Oostindie; Schulte Nordholt, ‘Nederland en zijn koloniale
verleden’, Internationale Spectator, Volume 60, no. 11
(November 2006), 573-577, specifically 575.
</pre>

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<pre> 104
Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’, 256;
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 160-164; Oostindie,
Het paradijs overzee, 157-158
 105
Oostindie; Schulte Nordholt, ‘Nederland en zijn koloniale verleden.
Moeizame overgang van dekolonisatie naar buitenlands beleid’,
575 -576; Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’,
256; Buddingh’, De geschiedenis van Suriname, 297-305.
 106                                                                   Endnotes
Drooglever, ‘Dekolonisatie van Oost- en West-Indië’, 256;
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 160-164.
 107
Dalhuisen; Donk; Hoefte, De geschiedenis van de Antillen, 120-121;
132-133; 175.
 108
Oostindie; Schulte Nordholt, ‘Nederland en zijn koloniale verleden.
Moeizame overgang van dekolonisatie naar buitenlands beleid’,
576.
 109
Oostindie, Het paradijs overzee, 170-171.
 110
Dalhuisen; Donk; Hoefte, De geschiedenis van de Antillen, 120-121;
132-133; 175.
 111
Wesseling, Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren, 252.
 112
See Annex ‘Survey results’ for the results of the survey.
 113
See Annex ‘Survey results’ for the museums that completed
the survey.
 114
The items most relevant to this opinion are the colonial cultural
heritage objects in the possession of the State because the policy
recommendations are focused particularly on them. Public-law
legal entities such as national universities and water authorities
as well as private individuals also own colonial cultural heritage
objects. These are not included in the survey if they are not
managed by museums.
 115
Museum Bronbeek, ‘Topstukken’ uit de Collectie Museum
Bronbeek, Ministerie van Defensie, accessed at https://www.defensie.
nl/onderwerpen/bronbeek/over-bronbeek/collectie-bronbeek/
topstukken on 21 April 2020.
 116
Museum Bronbeek, ‘Slavendans’, inventory number 1999/00-113,
Museum Bronbeek Collection (n.d.), accessed at
                                                                        92
http://museumbronbeek.nl/#4ec06fc2-e073-4fb5-
bc24-27a98e13c7a3 on 20 April 2020.
</pre>

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<pre> 117
Rijksmuseum, ‘Diorama van een slavendans, Gerrit Schouten,
1830’, object number NG-2005-24, Rijksmuseum collection
(n.d.), accessed at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/
NG-2005-24 on 6 May 2020.
 118
Van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, 147; 170.
                                                                       Endnotes
 119
Discussion between the secretariat of the Advisory Committee on
Colonial Collections and Pauljac Verhoeven (Head of Museum
Bronbeek) by Zoom on 26 March 2020.
 120
Museum Volkenkunde, ‘Vaste tentoonstelling Afrika’, accessed at
https://www.volkenkunde.nl/nl/zien-en-doen-0/tentoonstellingen/
afrika on 21 April 2020.
 121
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, ‘Paleisdeuren’, inventory
number RV-1586-31(n.d.), NMVW Collection, accessed at
https://collectie.wereldculturen.nl/#/query/fbd0c73f-b54f-4720
-8cf5-302bdb8a600f on 4 May 2020.
 122
Unpublished internal preliminary investigation
‘Koloniale herkomst’, Rijksmuseum (2018); Rijksmuseum,
‘Cannon, anonymous, before 1745’, object number NG-NM-1015,
Rijksmuseum collection (n.d.), accessed at
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=kandy+kanon&
s=chronologic&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=1#/NG-NM-1015,1
on 4 May 2020.
 123
A. A. Slaczka: ‘Temples, inscriptions and misconceptions:
Charles-Louis Fábri and the Khajuraho apsaras’, The Rijksmuseum
Bulletin, 60 (2012), 213-233; Rijksmuseum, ‘Hemelse Schoonheid’,
object number AK-MAK-185, Rijksmuseum Collection (n.d.),
accessed at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=AK-
MAK-185&s=chronologic&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=0#/AK-
MAK-185,0 on 20 April 2020.
 124
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, ‘Schedelkapje van Dubois.
Homo Erectus’, registration number RGM.1332450 (n.d.),
Collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, accessed at
https://topstukken.naturalis.nl/object/schedelkapje-van-dubois
on 20 April 2020.
 125
Susan Legêne, De bagage van Blomhoff en Van Breugel – Japan, Java,
Tripoli en Suriname in de negentiende-eeuwse Nederlandse cultuur van
het imperialisme (Amsterdam 1998), 273; Van Beurden, Treasures in
Trusted Hands, 41.
 126
R. Effert, ‘The Royal Cabinet of Curiosities and the National
Museum of Ethnography in the nineteenth century: from the
belief in the superiority of Western civilization to comparative
ethnography’ in: E. Bergvelt; D.J. Meijers; L. Tibbe; E. van Wezel      93
(eds.), Museale Specializierung und Nationalisierung ab 1830.
Das Neue Musem in Berlin im internationalen Kontext, Berliner
Schriften zur Museumforschung, band 29, G-H (Berlin 2011),
153-164.
</pre>

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<br><br>====================================================================== Pagina 94 ======================================================================

<pre> 127
Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures
(Cambridge 1996), 19-21; Van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands,
87; 106; 191.
 128
Van Beurden, Treasures in trusted hands, 88.
 129
                                                                           Endnotes
Marieke Bloembergen; Martijn Eickhoff, ‘Exchange and the
Protection of Java’s Antiquities: A Transnational Approach
to the Problem of Heritage in Colonial Java’, The Journal of
Asian Studies, Vol. 72, No. 4 (November 2013), 893-916,
specifically 899-903.
 130
Ibidem.
 131
H. Budiarti, ‘The Sulawesi Collections – Missionaries, Chiefs
and Military Expeditions’ in: E. Sri Hardiati; P. ter Keurs,
Indonesia: the Discovery of the Past (Amsterdam 2005), 168.
 132
Drieënhuizen; Sysling, ‘Jongensverhalen in Naturalis?’
(12 August 2019).
 133
Van Beurden, The return of Cultural and Historical Treasures, 31.
 134
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, ‘Exchange and the Protection of Java’s
Antiquities’, 899-903.
 135
Cynthia Scott, ‘Renewing the ‘Special Relationship’ and Rethinking
the Return of Cultural Property: The Netherlands and Indonesia,
1949 – 79’, Journal of Contemporary History 52 (3), 646-668,
specifically 650; National Archives, The Hague, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs: Archive Code 45-54, access number 2.05.117, inventory
number 13008, Eventuele teruggave van Indonesische
kunstschatten, welke zich in Nederland bevinden, 1949 – 1950,
see for example the document entitled ‘Denkbeeld Teruggave
Indonesische Kroonschatten’ (G.S.4816, n.d.) and letter from
D. Schurink to Minister J.H. van Maarseveen (n.d.).
 136
Idem, see NL-HaNA, Buitenlandse Zaken/Code-Archief 45-54,
access number 2.05.117, inventory number 13008 for these lists.
 137
H.A.J. Klooster, Indonesiërs schrijven hun geschiedenis: De ontwikkeling
van de Indonesische geschiedbeoefening in theorie en praktijk,
1900 – 1980 (Dordrecht 1985), 55-62.
 138
Van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, 126-127; Susan Legêne;
Els Postel-Coster, ‘Isn’t it all culture? Culture and Dutch
development policy in the post-colonial period’,
in: J.A. Nekkers; P.A.M. Malcontent (eds.), Fifty Years of Dutch            94
Development Cooperation, 1949 – 1999 (The Hague 2000), 271-288,
specifically 272; 358.
 139
Legêne; Postel-Coster, ‘Isn’t it all culture?’, 272; Van Beurden,
Treasures in trusted hands, 127.
</pre>

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<pre> 140
Cynthia Scott, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire
(London 2019), 75, 78; V. Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s
History of the Third World (New York 2007), 45.
 141
Legêne; Postel-Coster, ‘Isn’t it all culture?’, 274; Van Beurden,
Treasures in trusted hands, 123; 158-159.
                                                                         Endnotes
 142
Van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, 127-130.
 143
Van Beurden, The return of Cultural and Historical Treasures, 32.
 144
Consul-General J.G. Kist refers to such a list on the basis of a
report by Antara from Jakarta on 4 September 1963. It is unclear
whether Kist saw this list himself. See inter alia: National Archives,
The Hague, Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work,
access number 2.27.19, inventory number 4193, Art treasures and
archival materials, 1963 – 1975, postal telegram from D.G. Kist to
the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Singapore, 7 September 1963).
 145
Van Beurden, Treasures in trusted hands, 129-132; National Archives,
The Hague, Ministries of General Warfare of the Kingdom and
General Affairs: Prime Minister’s Office, access number 2.03.01,
inventory number 4512, Documents relating to the agreement with
Indonesia on cultural cooperation, 1967 – 1968, in particular
Memorandum on automatic parliamentary approval of the
agreement signed in Jakarta on 7 July 1968 concerning cultural
cooperation between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the
Republic of Indonesia (19 May 1969).
 146
Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, 138; 170.
 147
Idem, 131-132; 138.
 148
Idem, 134-135.
 149
Idem, 147-148.
 150
Scott, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire, 1-3.
 151
Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage in Indonesia, 261.
See also the pieces in: National Archives, The Hague, Ministries for
General Warfare of the Kingdom and General Affairs: Prime
Minister’s Office, access number 2.03.01, inventory number 9221,
Documents on cooperation with Indonesia in the field of museums
and archives, 1978.
 152
                                                                          95
Van Beurden, The return of Cultural and Historical Treasures,
168-169; 142-143.
 153
Van Beurden, Treasures in Trusted Hands, 137-144.
</pre>

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<pre>  154
Idem, 144-149; 170.
  155
Idem, 99; 137-144; Van Beurden, The Return of Cultural and
Historical Treasures, 32.
  156
Legêne; Postel-Coster, ‘Isn’t it all culture?’, 284.
  157
                                                                        Endnotes
Scott, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire, 170-171.
  158
Van Beurden, The Return of Cultural and Historical Treasures, 38; 47.
  159
Van Beurden, Treasures in trusted hands, 160; Harm Stevens,
Gepeperd Verleden, Indonesië en Nederland sinds 1600
(Nijmegen 2015), 161.
  160
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen; Museum Prinsenhof Delft,
‘Herplaatsing Collectie voormalig Museum Nusantara Delft.
Lering en vragen. 2013 – 2018’ (2018) accessed at
https://issuu.com/tropenmuseum/docs/voormalig_museum_nusanta
ra_delft__-/2?ff&e=1823887/63072013 on 21 July 2020.
  161
Linawati Sidarto, ‘Historic Dutch-Indonesian Collection Seeks
New Home’, Tempo (9 October 2016), 46-47; Lecture by Janelle
Moerman during the knowledge afternoon on colonial heritage on
2 March 2020 at Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden, organized by the
Dutch Museums Association and the Advisory Committee on the
National Policy Framework for Colonial Collections.
  162
Ibidem.
  163
Van Beurden, The Return of Cultural and Historical Treasures, 35.
  164
Of the 48 artworks returned, at least 21 certainly date from the
period in which Suriname was an independent country in the
Kingdom, i.e. between 1954 and 1975. In addition, in the case of
26 paintings it is known only that they were produced before a
certain date (ranging from 1968 to 1990) and hence not whether
they were acquired in the colonial period. The production date of
one painting is completely unknown. Only 27 of the 48 possible
paintings can therefore have been produced in the colonial period.
– Overview of Sticusa collection of the NMVW, obtained in e-mail
from Maria op de Laak (Curator Information Officer of the
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen) to Emma Keizer
(Secretary of Advisory Committee on Colonial Collections)
on 28 February 2020.
  165
Élysée, ‘Emmanuel Macron’s speech at the University of
Ouagadougou’ (28 November 2017), accessed at                             96
https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2017/11/28/emmanuel-
macrons-speech-at-the-university-of-ouagadougou.en
on 15 June 2020.
</pre>

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<pre>  166
Felwine Sarr; Bénédicte Savoy, ‘Rapport sur la restitution du
patrimoine culturel Africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationelle’
(November 2018).
  167
Élysée, ‘Submission of the Savoy/Sarr report on the restitution of
African heritage’ (23 November 2018), accessed at
https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2018/11/23/submission-of-
the-savoy-sarr-report-on-the-restitution-of-african-heritage.en
                                                                        Endnotes
on 15 June 2020.
  168
Discussion with Claire Chasatanier, Caroline Gaultier-Kurhan
(Ministère de Culture), Hélène Doub (Institut Français),
Anne-Emmanuelle Grossi (cultural attaché of the French embassy
in The Hague) and Gala-Alexa Amagat (French embassy in
The Hague) on 7 June 2020 via Webex.
  169
Theresa Machemer, ‘Activists Try to Remove African Artifact From
Paris Museum’, Smithsonian Magazine (12 June 2020), accessed at
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/protesters-remove-
african-artifact-exhibit-paris-museum-180975110 on 13 June 2020.
  170
‘Erste Eckpunkte zum Umgang mit Sammlungsgut aus kolonialen
Kontexten der Staatsministerin des Bundes für Kultur und Medien,
der Staatsministerin im Auswärtiges Amt für internationale
Kulturpolitik, der Kulturministerinnen und Kulturminister der
Länder und der kommunalen Spitzenverbände’ (2019), accessed at
https://www.kmk.org/aktuelles/artikelansicht/eckpunkte-zum-
umgang-mit-sammlungsgut-aus-kolonialen-kontexten.html
on 12 August 2020.
  171
Discussion with Moritz Schmid-Drechsler (German Embassy in
The Hague), Robert Peters (Auswärtiges Amt) and Thomas
Schroeder (BMK – Colonial Collections Division) on 4 May 2020
(by telephone).
  172
Universität Göttingen, ‘Dekolonisierung erfordert Dialog, Expertise
und Unterstützung – Heidelberger Stellungnahme’ (6 May 2019),
accessed at https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/statements+-
+transparency/617641.html on 7 July 2020.
  173
Maarten Couttenier, ‘Between Regionalization and Centralization:
the Creation of the Musée Léopold II in Elisabethville
(Musée national de Lubumbashi), Belgian Congo (1931 – 1961)’,
History and Anthropology, 25/1:80 (London 2014).
  174
Lies Busselen, ‘De tijd haalt ons in – Hoe het restitutiedebat
een lens biedt op een verschuiving in de ‘ontkenning van
gelijktijdigheid’, Volkskunde. Tijdschrift over de cultuur van het
dagelijks leven, Volume 20, no. 3 (September 2019), 261-388,
specifically 369.
  175                                                                    97
Office of the High Commissioner, United Nations Human Rights,
‘Statements to the media by the United Nationals Working Group
of Experts in People of African Descent, on the conclusion of its
official visit to Belgium, 4-11 February 2010’, accessed at
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?
NewsID=24153&LangID=E on 16 June 2020.
</pre>

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<pre>  176
Royal Museum for Central Africa; Egmont – Royal Institute for
International Relations, Concluding Press Release of the conference
‘Sharing Past and future: strengthening African-European
Connections’ (17 September 2018), accessed at
http://www.egmontinstitute.be/events/sharing-past-and-future-
strengthening-african-european-connections on 17 June 2020.
  177
Alexander Decroo, Address at the reopening of the AfricaMuseum
                                                                      Endnotes
Tervuren on 8 December 2018, accessed at
https://alexanderdecroo.be/heropening-koninklijk-museum-
centraal-afrika on 16 June 2020.
  178
Busselen, ‘De tijd haalt ons in’, 369-373.
  179
Brussels Parliament, ‘Resolutie betreffende de Afrikaanse
cultuurgoederen en patrimoniale goederen en de teruggave van de
menselijke resten die zich op het Brussels grondgebied bevinden’,
session of 30 April 2019, 5-6.
  180
AfricaMuseum, ‘Restitutiebeleid Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-
Afrika’ (February 2020), accessed at https://www.africamuseum.be/
nl/about_us/restitution on 8 July 2020.
  181
Belgian House of Representatives, ‘Bijzondere commissie belast
met het onderzoek over Congo-Vrijstaat (1885 – 1908) en het
Belgisch koloniaal verleden in Congo (1908 – 1960), Rwanda en
Burundi (1919 – 1962), de impact hiervan en de gevolgen die
hieraan dienen gegeven te worden’, Second session of the 55th
legislative period, doc. 55 1462/001 (17 July 2020), accessed at
‘Nieuws’, DeKamer.be, https://www.dekamer.be/kvvcr/index.cfm
on 10 August 2020.
  182
Discussion with Jacques Schumacher, provenance researcher at
the Victoria and Albert Museum, on 11 March 2020 in London.
  183
African Foundation for Development, ‘Return of the Icons.
The restitution of African Artefacts & human remains project
mapping report’ (June 2020), accessed at https://www.afford-
uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/RoIMappingReportFinal.pdf
on 10 July 2020.
  184
A. Salomons; I. van der Vlies (ed.), Kunst, recht en beleid
(The Hague 2017), 128.
  185
See for example: Bloembergen; Eickhoff, The politics of heritage
in Indonesia, 12-13.
  186
The explanatory notes to the Heritage Act describe these criteria
for indispensability and symbolism as the linking function and         98
calibration function of a cultural heritage object.
  187
E. Campfens, ‘Restitution of Looted Art: What About Access to
Justice?’, Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2 (4) (2018),
185-220, specifically 190.
</pre>

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<pre> 188
Dutch Government, Letter from the State Secretary for Education,
Culture and Science to the President of the House of
Representatives of the States General (Zoetermeer, 14 July 2000),
Parliamentary Paper 25839, no. 16 (28 July 2000 version), accessed
at https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-25839-16.html
on 7 July 2020.
 189
See the judgement of the Court of The Hague on the so-called
                                                                         Endnotes
“Rawagedeh case”: District Court of The Hague, case number
354119 / HA ZA 09-4171, NJ 2012/579 on 14-09-2011, accessed
at https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?
id=ECLI:NL:RBSGR:2011:BS8793&showbutton=true&keyword=
NJ+2012%2f578+verjaring on 7 July 2020. This case revolved
around the State’s liability for the use of excessive violence, a mass
execution on West Java on 9 December 1947. The court found that
for the widows of the executed men invoking the statute of
limitations would be unacceptable on grounds of reasonableness
and fairness.
 190
International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘Project of an
International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of
War’, Brussels Declaration (Brussels 27 August 1874), Article 8,
accessed at https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/135
on 27 March 2020.
 191
See Article 27 of the Hague Convention of 1899 and Article 56 of
the Hague Convention 1907 – Yale Law School, ‘Convention with
respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II)’
(29 July 1899), accessed via Yale Law School,
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp#art27
on 2 July 2020; Yale Law School, ‘Convention respecting the Laws
and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV) (18 October 1907),
accessed via Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/
20th_century/hague04.asp#art56 on 2 July 2020.
 192
Unesco, ‘Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the
Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the
Convention 1954’ (The Hague, 14 May 1954), accessed via
Unesco, https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20151224135224/http://
portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html on 2 July 2020.
 193
Unesco, ‘Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing
the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural
Property’ (Paris, 14 November 1970), accessed at Unesco,
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=
DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html on 2 July 2020.
 194
The Netherlands has not ratified this convention, but opted for the
Unesco convention of 1970. Various reasons were put forward for
this, but the main argument was the broad and vague definition of
the term ‘cultural heritage object’. See Salomons; Van der Vlies
(ed.), Kunst, recht en beleid, 130.
                                                                          99
 195
E. Campfens, ‘The Banga Queen: Artifact or Heritage?’,
International Journal of Cultural Property 26 (1) (2019) 75-110,
specifically 95.
</pre>

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<pre> 196
Countries such as China and Peru did argue for that on the
adoption of Unesco 1970, but to no avail.
 197
It should be noted for the sake of completeness that EU regulations
have also been introduced on the circulation of cultural heritage
objects (EC Regulation 116/2009 and Directive 2014/60/EU).
These regulations are disregarded here, since they do not provide a
basis for the return of colonial objects to source countries.
                                                                         Endnotes
The aforementioned Regulation states that certain cultural
heritage objects must not be removed from the customs area of
the Community without a licence from the member state and the
aforementioned Directive concerns the return of cultural heritage
objects which have been removed unlawfully from the territory of a
member state.
 198
See for example also section 103 of the Operational Guidelines
for the Implementation of Unesco 1970: “For items of illegally
removed or stolen property imported into another State Party
before the entry into force of the Convention for any of the States
Parties concerned, States Parties are encouraged to find a mutually
acceptable agreement which is in accordance with the spirit and the
principles of the Convention, taken into account all relevant
circumstances.” – Unesco, ‘Operational Guidelines for the
Implementation of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting
and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of
Ownership of Cultural Property’ (Paris 1970), accessed via Unesco,
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-
cultural-property/operational-guidelines on 2 July 2020, 23.
 199
Nederlands Centrum voor Inheemse Volkeren (NCIV),
‘VN Verklaring over de Rechten van Inheemse Volken’
(7 May 2009), accessed at https://www.cmo.nl/vncanon/pdf/
verklaring_inheemse_volken_nciv.pdf on 2 April 2020.
 200
International Council of Museums (ICOM), ‘ICOM Code of
Ethics for Museums’ (2017), accessed at the Dutch Museums
Association, https://www.museumvereniging.nl/ethische-code-voor-
musea on 5 April 2020, Section 6, 33-34.
 201
International Law Association, ‘Report of the Seventy-second
Conference’ (2006), Annex to James A.R. Nafziger, ‘The Principles
for Cooperation in the Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural
Material’, Chicago Journal of International Law (2007), Vol. 8: No. 1,
147-167.
 202
A. Taşdelen, The return of Cultural Artefacts, Hard and Soft Law
approaches (Cham 2016), 184.
 203
The same conclusion is drawn, for example, by the German
Museumsbund in its Guidelines. Deutscher Museumsbund,
‘Guidelines on Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts’
(July 2018), 71. See also: M. Cornu; M. Renold,
‘New Developments in the Restitution of Cultural Property:
Alternative Means of Dispute Resolution’, International Journal           100
of Cultural Property (2010) 17:1-31, 1-31, specifically 15.
 204
See inter alia Nafziger, ‘The Principles for Cooperation in the
Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural Material’ & Campfens,
‘Restitution of Looted Art’.
</pre>

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<pre> 205
See for example Article 3 (1) of the UNIDROIT Convention.
Unidroit, ‘UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported
Cultural Objects’ (Rome, 24 June 1995), accessed at
https://www.unidroit.org/instruments/cultural-property/1995-
convention (5 June 2014 version) on 2 July 2020.
 206
See for example Campfens, ‘Restitution of Looted Art’ & Conru;
Renold, ‘New Developments in the Restitution of Cultural
                                                                         Endnotes
Property’.
 207
Unesco, ‘Statutes of the Intergovernmental Committee for
Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of
Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation’, Unesco
(28 November 1978).
 208
Department of State, ‘Washington Conference Principles on
Nazi-Confiscated Art’ (3 December 1998), accessed at
https://www.state.gov/washington-conference-principles-on-nazi-
confiscated-art on 5 March 2020.
 209
Jos van Beurden; K.M. Adams, P. Catteeuw, ‘Teruggave ontrafeld,
Reflecties over museumobjecten in tijden van repatriëring en
restitutie’, Volkskunde. Tijdschrift over de cultuur van het dagelijks
leven, Volume 20, no. 3 (September 2019), 305-323, specifically
317-319.
 210
Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands,
‘Wet van 9 december 2015, houdende bundeling en aanpassing van
regels op het terrein van cultureel erfgoed (Erfgoedwet)’, accessed
at https://www.cultureelerfgoed.nl/onderwerpen/erfgoedwet/
documenten/publicaties/2015/01/01/erfgoedwet on 2 July 2020.
 211
It does this by adopting a distinction similar to that used by
the Deutscher Museumsbund in the ‘Guidelines on dealing with
colonial contexts’ between historically sensitive and culturally
sensitive objects. – Deutscher Museumsbund, ‘Guidelines on
Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts’ (July 2018).
 212
Sarr; Savoy, ‘Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel
Africain.’ (November 2018).
 213
Pieter ter Keurs, Verzamelen, Inaugural lecture given on acceptance
of the post of Professor of Museums, Collections and Society at
Leiden University (2 December 2019).
 214
See also the Guidelines of the Deutscher Museumsbund, which
conclude that ‘Due to the wide range of circumstances, however,
it is not possible to make a general statement as to when a wrongful
act has been committed which should result in repatriation’.
– Deutscher Museumsbund, ‘Guidelines on Dealing with
Collections from Colonial Contexts’ (July 2018), 95.                      101
</pre>

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<br><br>====================================================================== Pagina 102 ======================================================================

<pre> 215
Dutch Government, Letter from the Minister of Education,
Culture and Science to the President of the Lower House of the
States General (10 April 2019), Parliamentary Paper 32820,
no. 282 (15 April 2019 version), accessed at https://zoek.officiele
bekendmakingen.nl/kst-32820-282.html on 12 April 2020.
 216
G. Robertson, Who owns history? Elgin’s Loot and the Case for
Returning Plundered Treasure (London 2019), 12.
 217                                                                    Endnotes
Cornu; Renold, ‘New Developments in the Restitution of Cultural
Property’, 4.
 218
See for example the recitals of the Unesco Convention of 1970:
Considering that the protection of cultural heritage can be effective
only if organized both nationally and internationally among states
working in close co-operation. – Unesco, ‘Operational Guidelines
for the Implementation of the Convention on the Mans of
Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer
of Ownership of Cultural Property’ (Paris 1970), accessed at
Unesco, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-
trafficking-of-cultural-property/operational-guidelines
on 2 July 2020.
 219
Sarr; Savoy, ‘Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel
Africain’, 83.
 220
Deutscher Museumsbund, ‘Guidelines on Dealing with Collections
from Colonial Contexts’ (July 2018), 99.
 221
Lower House of the States General, ‘Bundeling en aanpassing
van regels op het terrein van cultureel erfgoed (Erfgoedwet)’,
Explanatory Memorandum (2014 – 2015), Parliamentary Paper
34109, no. 3 (15 December 2014 version), accessed at
https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-34109-3.html
on 7 July 2020, 12.
 222
‘Ethische Code voor Musea’ (2006), accessed at
http://www.ethischecodevoormusea.nl on 22 April 2020, 11
(Section 2.20).
 223
If the request for return is honoured and no opinion was requested
from the Expert Committee as part of the opinion procedure,
any party can submit views under Section 4.18 on the protection
worthiness of the cultural heritage object for a period of six weeks.
Once any submitted views have been assessed and, if required,
after the opinion of the Expert Committee has been sought, a final
decision is taken. In the case of objects whose possession was lost
involuntarily in Dutch colonial territories, that decision will be
taken in accordance with the previously intended decision to return
the cultural heritage object.
 224                                                                     102
On the understanding that the procedure prescribed in
Section 4.18 of the Heritage Act will not lead to a different
decision by the authority concerned than that recommended
by the Advisory Committee. It is after all a binding opinion.
</pre>

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</pre>

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</pre>

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<pre>Annexes       Annexes   114
    Annexes
</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Letter to Parliament 115</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Letter to Parliament 116</pre>

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<pre>Annexes The Minister’s request for opinion 117</pre>

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<pre>Annexes The Minister’s request for opinion 118</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Overview of discussions undertaken by the Committee 119</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Overview of discussions undertaken by the Committee 120</pre>

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<pre>Annexes List of Dutch former colonies and trading posts 121</pre>

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<pre>Annexes List of Dutch former colonies and trading posts 122</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 123</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 124</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 125</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 126</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 127</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Survey results 128</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Historic returns of colonial cultural heritage objects 129</pre>

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<pre>Annexes Historic returns of colonial cultural heritage objects 130</pre>

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<pre>De Raad voor Cultuur/Council for Culture is a
body established by law to advise the Dutch Government
and Parliament on the arts, culture and media.
The Council provides recommendations regarding
the cultural policy in the Netherlands, whether it is
requested of them or not.
                                                                        Publishing details
‘Colonial Collections and a Recognition of Injustice’
is a publication of the Raad voor Cultuur.
This is an English translation of a Dutch text. In case of any
difference between the translation and the Dutch original,
the original prevails.
Advisory Committee on the National Policy
Framework for Colonial Collections
Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You (Chairperson)
Leo Balai
Brigitte Bloksma
Martine Gosselink
Henrietta Lidchi
Valika Smeulders
Hasti Tarekat Dipowijoyo
Joris Visser
Sander Bersee (Secretary)
Emma Keizer (Secretary)
Raad voor Cultuur
Kristel Baele (Chairperson)
Brigitte Bloksma
Lennart Booij
Erwin van Lambaart
Cees Langeveld
John Olivieira-Siere
Thomas Steffens
Liesbet van Zoonen
Jakob van der Waarden (Director)
Raad voor Cultuur
Prins Willem Alexanderhof 20, 2595 BE Den Haag
070 – 3106686, info@cultuur.nl, www.raadvoorcultuur.nl
The information in this publication may be reproduced, in part or
in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission
from the Raad voor Cultuur, provided that due diligence is exercised       132
in ensuring the accuracy of the information reproduced and that
the Raad voor Cultuur and this publication are identified as sources.
No rights may be derived from this publication.
The Hague, January 2021
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