THE HAGUE, Oct 10, Reuter: When Dutch troops march off to training exercises next year, they will have a choice of regular, curried or pork less battle rations.

This is just one way the Dutch Army is trying to adapt to an increasing influx of Moslem and Hindu conscripts swelling its ranks from the Netherlands ethnic minority communities,

The military estimates that between five and eight per cent of the Dutch standing army will be Moslem or Hindu by 1995, up from about half a per cent now. In actual number, Hindus and Moslems are expected to increase from about 200 new recruits a year now to 5,000 a year in less than a decade.

Deputy Defense Minister Jan Van Houwelingen last month announced a program to ensure that minorities get a fair chance in the army, which has a long tradition of trying to make life as easy on soldiers as possible without sacrificing quality. The military has launched a drive to educate officers about minority groups.

“We want these people to take part in the army. They are part of our society and the army is part of their education in Dutch Society,” Lieutenant Colonial Jan Van Der Beek, Chief of Military Social Services told Reuters in an interview.

Earlier this year, the Military introduced vegetarian battle rations in part to accommodate observant Hindus, who do not eat meat from cows, and religious Moslems who eat no pork and may consume other meat only if it is ritually slaughtered.

The vegetarian rations came because vegetarians wanted it. But we wouldn’t have done it if it ‘weren’t necessary for religious minorities,” said Van Der Beek.

Curried battle rations for Hindus, many from the former Dutch colony of Surinam, and separate rations for Moslems, who come mostly from Morocco, Turkey and the former Dutch colony of Indonesia, will be the next innovations, he said.

There are 360,000 Moslems and 75,000 Hindus in the Netherlands, out of a total population of 14.4 million.

Already, Moslem and Hindu recruits are given 13.90 guilders (seven dollars) a day to buy their own food if it cannot be provided for them in their barracks.

Moreover, officers are being taught how to be sensitive to the religious and cultural background of their troops.

“Commanders must learn that there is a difference, because that is the reality,” said Sergeant Major Harold Rack, an Army Social Worker who immigrated to the Netherlands from Surinam.

Moslems and Hindus are likely to be much more humiliated than the average Dutch solider by being reprimanded in public because of their culture’s high value on keeping face, he said.

“If a solider must be reprimanded, we suggest doing it in private,” said Rack,

Regulations which had long given Jews in the army their day of rest on Saturdays were expanded in 1981 with new provisions to allow Moslems to mark their day of rest on Fridays.

But the army has its limits, a Moslem solider that went absent without leave earlier this year to observe Ramadan, a month long holiday of dawn to dusk fasting, was court martialled and received a three week suspended sentence.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 14, 1988