THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will deliver a speech in the coming hours in response to a report on the nation’s historic role in the global slave trade, and there is speculation that he would formally apologize on behalf of of the government.
Rutte has only anticipated that his speech at the National Archives in The Hague will be a “significant moment.”
Some activist groups in the Netherlands and its former colonies protested that he should pronounce it next year on July 1, the 160th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. Activists consider it the 150th anniversary because many enslaved people were forced to continue working on plantations for a decade after abolition.
“What’s the rush?” asked Barryl Biekman, leader of the National Platform on the Slavery Past.
The Dutch government has expressed deep remorse for the nation’s historic role in slavery, though without going as far as a formal apology because, according to Rutte, such a statement would divide society. But currently, there is a majority in parliament in favor of the apology.
The brutal colonial pasts of many nations are under scrutiny due to the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd, a black man, in the US city of Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
The prime minister’s speech follows a report released last year by a government-appointed advisory board. It recommends that the government apologize and acknowledge that the slave trade from the 17th century until abolition “that happened directly or indirectly under Dutch authority were crimes against humanity.”