Dutch colonialism has traditionally focused on the East Indies,
rather than the West Indies. Thus when Queen Wilhelmina, while
in exile in London, declared in 1942 that the colonies should
become autonomous with the words ‘relying on one's own strength,
with the will to support each other,’ she was thinking of the
East and not so much about Suriname and the Netherlands
Antilles. Yet as it turned out, all constitutional plans,
culminating into the Statuut or Charter of the Kingdom of 1954,
even though conceived and drafted with the East in mind, was
ultimately only applied to the West. The Netherlands East
Indies, occupied by Japan during World War II, opted for
independence after the War. The Hague did not accept this step
and waged both hot and cold wars to fight against Indonesia's
independence. This, for the Netherlands traumatic, experience
left its traces in Dutch policy regarding its Caribbean
territories. Rosemarijn Hoefte is Head of the Department of
Caribbean Studies of the KITLV/Royal Institute of L