11 Dec 2012
This year we like to grant the first Linggajati Award to Mrs. Joty ter Kulve – Van Os, Ibu Joty, for her pioneering efforts and her ability to connect persons and people to one another.
It is Mrs. Ter Kulve’s accomplishment that in the Netherlands as well as in Indonesia, the Indonesian village Linggarjati now is seen as a Lieu de Mémoire. Ten years ago she started this endeavor with her brother Willem van Os, who passed away in 2011. Before the outbreak of World War II, Linggajati, a little village at West-Java at the foot the Cerimai volcano, was part of the Dutch-Indies under Netherlands colonial governance. After the war, in November 1946, a Dutch commission-general and an Indonesian delegation gathered at Linggajati for a couple of days to negotiate independence and a relationship between both countries under international law. Bringing about the Linggajati Agreement was a key achievement for both delegations. The House where the negotiations took place, once built by Koos van Os, now is a national museum of Indonesia.
Linggarjati has become a Lieu de Mémoire because it is there, that in a sphere of mutual respect and mutual recognition, the conditions were laid for reconciliation, friendship and future cooperation between the Netherlands and Indonesia. The international community would later on support the way in which the Netherlands and Indonesia embarked at Linggajati in peace diplomacy. It is also fitting to commemorate the role of the secretary of the commission-general, Piet Sanders, who deceased this year at Schiedam, shortly after his hundredth birthday.
In the fields of economics, knowledge and culture the Netherlands and Indonesia nowadays still have much to offer to each other. Representing our respective Asian and European backgrounds, cultures and potentials, we could by working together strengthen our identities by reconciliation, friendship and cooperation. This is the message that Mrs. Joti ter Kulve, Ibu Joty, time and again conveys to younger generations with force and with her great charisma.
The Hague, 11 December 2012
Jesse Kuiper, Chairman INS Board
Willem F. van Eekelen, Chairman INS Board of Trustees