Word: moluccans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Creating Trouble. The kidnapers were South Moluccan rebels with a history of creating trouble in The Netherlands. In December 1975 another group of terrorists seized the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam and a train on the Utrecht-Groningen rail line (TIME, Dec. 15, 1975). Before that 15-day ordeal ended with the surrender of 14 Moluccans, three train passengers had been executed and a fourth hostage fell to his death from a consulate window...
Dutch society. Most are stateless, refusing Dutch citizenship. They keep largely to themselves, living in 63 government settlements. One of those ghettos is on the outskirts of Bovensmilde, a tidy, archconservative community in The Netherlands' "Bible belt." Young Moluccan radicals, many of whom have never seen their homeland, organized a government-in-exile for "the Republic of the South Moluccas" and demanded support to regain their islands. Dutch refusal to recognize their republic has led to increasing Moluccan terrorism...
Until the children were released, Van Agt announced, the government would not consider Moluccan demands, which included freedom for 21 comrades imprisoned for earlier plots and a 747 jet to take them all to safety. The Moluccans warned of "many deaths" if their demands were not met within two days, but that deadline passed without murder. At one point, however, terrified children were herded to schoolroom windows at gunpoint and forced to chant "Van Agt, we want to live...
...think that now the South Moluccan terrorists have killed innocent people [Dec. 22], they should be admitted to the United Nations as Yasser Arafat...
Shortly after noon last Friday, the bright flag of the self-proclaimed South Moluccan Republic-red, with green, white and red bars-was pulled back inside a window of the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam. Minutes later, 25 hostages-ten women and 15 men, most of them Indonesian-walked out of the building, cheering, waving and smiling. Soon afterward their seven captors surrendered to Dutch police. Thus ended one of the most bizarre episodes of terrorism in recent years...