Hello friends!
I’ll be back in your inboxes tomorrow with an update on the Philippines’ Maharlika Fund, which is all but a go now.
See you then,
Erin Cook
🇮🇩 Close, but not quite in the Hague
In an address to parliament in the Hague last week, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, conceded “the Netherlands recognizes August 17, 1945, completely and without reservations. We view that proclamation as a historical fact.” The declaration comes 78 years after Indonesia declared itself independent from its coloniser which has viewed December 27, 1949, as the ‘real’ independence day. It’s “a good thing” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in response, but demurred to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
But critics in both countries say the statement does not go nearly far enough, Resty Woro Yuniar reports for SCMP. “Our government must be careful, don’t just accept the recognition, what about [reparations for] the 350 years of Dutch colonisation in Indonesia? We can’t just forget about it,” Jeffry Pondaag, chairman of the Netherlands-based Dutch Honorary Debts Committee Foundation, said.
Jakarta-based historian Bonnie Triyana agrees. Rutte’s statement is all about “avoiding the liability to [return the money] that we paid for war reparations, as well as being labelled as war criminals because they still treated Indonesia as their colony until 1949.”
Jokowi is this week hosting Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako this week. “The visit of the emperor and empress is expected to strengthen the foundation of the friendship of our two peoples, the strong foundation needed for developing the strategic partnership of our two countries in the future, especially on the economy,” Jokowi said at a joint press conference after their arrival on Monday, as per Nikkei.
In much less nice news, a BBC investigation revealed a disgusting global network of patrons paying people in Indonesia to film themselves torturing and killing monkeys. BBC uncovered Telegram groups set up for this purpose and spoke with one US-based distributor, Mike McCartney, on how the ring works: “They had a poll set up. Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver? He called the video “the most grotesque thing I have ever seen.”
Investigations are now underway across the world, including Indonesia, the UK and the US. The reporting is well done but sickening so read more with a fair warning.
Inflation has dropped back down to Bank Indonesia’s target band of 2-4% as of last month and watchers expect the central bank to hold the key interest rate steady at 5.75%. A meeting later today is widely expected to confirm this prediction, Reuters reports.
Police have arrested 532 suspects in a jobs scam crackdown across the country. “Of the more than one thousand victims, 711 were adult women and 86 girls. There were also 731 adult men and 44 boys,” national police spokesman Ahmad Ramadhan said Wednesday, as reported by Benar. Most of the women involved were promised jobs as domestic workers in Singapore or Malaysia.
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