Graffiti on the wall of Borsumij, one of the five major Dutch companies in Indonesia, 1957 (Bettman/CORBIS)
After the Dutch left Indonesia in 1949, some of their legacy remained. Apart from Dutch citizens who could not be fully transported to the Netherlands, there were also many Dutch companies operating in Indonesia.
The proclamation of Indonesian independence and the revolutionary war that followed was indeed a political revolution which immediately overturned the national political order. However, the national economic order cannot be overhauled that fast. The economic structure that was formed after hundreds of years of colonialization was not so easy to overhaul.
Hasty nationalization that only relies on enthusiasm can have fatal consequences for the decline in national economic output. However, in the end it was the same path that Indonesia took after there was no resolution of the conflict over West Papua.
When the political situation heated up, President Soekarno called for the expulsion of Dutch people who had settled in Indonesia and the forcible takeover of Dutch companies in Indonesia.
The photo above is one of the recordings of the situation at that time, which shows graffiti of the anger of the Indonesian people towards the Netherlands over the seizure of West Papua at the Borsumij office, one of the top five Dutch companies in Indonesia, with the words 'Banish the Dutch from West Irian'.