The Netherlands apologizes for a "crime against humanity" it committed in the past

In The Hague Speech, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made official apologies on behalf of the government for the role of the Dutch state in slavery, considering it a crime against humanity.

"Today, I apologize on behalf of the Dutch government for what the Dutch state did in the past," Rutte said in his speech.

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Sigrid Kaag said during an official visit to Suriname last week that a "process" was about to begin and that "another very important moment" would come on July 1.

On this date, the descendants of Dutch slavery commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery in an annual ceremony known as "Kitty Koti" (breaking the chains) in Suriname.

It is noteworthy that the Netherlands was previously the third largest colonial power in the world, and it enslaved about 600,000 people over more than 200 years, most of whom were kidnapped from West Africa, sold and forced to work on plantations in Suriname, Antilles, South America and the Caribbean.

Slavery financed the Dutch "Golden Age", a period of prosperity through sea trade in the 16th and 17th centuries.

At the height of its colonial empire, the United Provinces now known as the Netherlands had colonies such as Suriname, the Caribbean island of Curaçao, South Africa and Indonesia, where the Dutch East India Company was based in the 17th century.

The Dutch monarchy was one of the last countries in Europe to officially abandon slavery on July 1, 1863, and slavery effectively ended in 1873.

The descendants of those who were enslaved and those who lived in the colonies at that time organized a campaign to demand an apology from the Netherlands, and the Rutte government refused for years to make an apology.

In recent years, the Netherlands has begun to consider the legacy of its role in slavery and its colonial history, without which the Dutch cities and famous museums would not be what they are today.