When did Japanese people first come to Indonesia? For most ordinary Indonesians, the answer to that question may well be a clich‚.

Some may be quick to point to the landing of Japanese troops in the country in 1942, bringing to an end the long rule of the Dutch. At least, that is what most history textbooks here say.

However, Des Alwi, from Banda island in Maluku and who now lives in Jakarta, has another answer. Alwi, who has helped resurrect the history of the Banda people in his hometown of Bandaneira, said that some Japanese had traveled to what is today Indonesia as early as the 17th century.

Those Japanese, he said, came along with Dutch expeditions as mercenaries. In his museum in Bandaneira, one of the paintings commissioned by Sofri Rino Hasan Basri, for instance, depicts a Dutchman on the left side with rifle in hand and, on the right side, a Japanese in a loincloth holding a sword. At the feet of the Japanese are beheaded corpses -- the remains of Bandanese noblemen.

Alwi is not the only one who says that the Japanese came here long ago. Japan's deputy ambassador to Indonesia, Shigekazu Sato, quoted documents recording that Japanese people had come to these islands in the 1600s.

"Another document in 1897 also confirms that at least 130 Japanese people resided on Java island," Sato stated in a speech he gave last year at the Asshiddiqiyah Islamic boarding school in Batu Ceper, Tangerang, Banten Province.

Alwi Shahab, a senior journalist familiar with the history of Batavia (the former name for Jakarta), echoed Sato's comments. He said that in the early days of the Dutch presence in the East Indies, there were many Japanese sex workers plying their trade here.

"Even Governor General Jacques Specx (1629-1632), the successor of Governor General Jan Pieterson Coen, had a daughter, named Sara, by a Japanese woman," Alwi said.

He further pointed out that during the colonial period, the Japanese enjoyed equal status and treatment as that accorded to European people.

"They became the only group of non-European people whose legal status was the same as European people thanks to a trade agreement made in 1896. In the 1900s, there were around 500 Japanese people living in the country, mostly sex workers," he said.

He also noted that the number of Japanese people here soared to 8,000 ahead of World War II in 1940.

"Most of them lived in a solitary way, with limited contact with the locals. Reports said that many of them were Japanese spies, who helped expedite the process of toppling the Dutch," he added.

It came as no great surprise, therefore, that Japanese troops were able to land easily in the country's ports without any significant opposition either from the Dutch or native Indonesians. Within only two months, the Japanese, who styled themselves as the "older brothers" of the Indonesians, had forced the Dutch to surrender.

Unfortunately, the three-and-a-half-year Japanese occupation became a long nightmare for Indonesians, leaving bad memories that have burdened the history of both nations to this day.

YB Mangunwijaya wrote in his novel Burung-Burung Manyar, published in 1981, that many Indonesian women were forced to surrender themselves to Japanese military officers as "concubines" in order to survive.

Similarly, Pramoedya Ananta-Toer recorded the tragic fate of Indonesian teenagers, mostly the daughters of civil servants in Prambanan, Subang, Brebes, Purworejo and Kudus -- all in Java -- who ended up in Japanese military brothels.

Pramoedya heard first-hand stories of this from many women he met while incarcerated as a political prisoner on Buru island.

These were some of the reasons why the Japanese government agreed to pay compensation for the damage and suffering Japan caused during the war.

In a 1958 policy statement, the Japanese government agreed to pay US$223 million to Indonesians over 20 years and promised to write off Indonesia's debt to Japan of $117 million. In addition, Japan also vowed to provide $400 million in loans for economic cooperation between the two countries.

Time passes by and now many Japanese people reside here as businesspeople involved in various development projects, joining hands with Indonesians to build up the country's economy.

Cultural and educational exchanges have also been intensively promoted over the last four decades.

"Currently, more than 10,000 Japanese people live here, while around 20,000 Indonesians reside in Japan," Deputy Ambassador Sato said.

Japan is now Indonesia's largest trading partner, as well as its biggest sovereign donor, he added.

Most people hope that the future relationship between Japan and Indonesia will be deepened by the spirit of reconciliation, and that the two countries can build even closer ties in the years to come.