Word: moluccans
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...hold out indefinitely despite the exhausting psychological toll on their unwilling prisoners, the Dutch government decided to end the hostages' agony. In the most dramatic rescue operation since Entebbe, a Dutch military team mounted a commando-style dawn assault on both train and school. Six of the 13 Moluccan terrorists and two of the hostages were killed. One terrorist, two marines and nine of the prisoners were wounded. It was a heavy toll, but at least the long ordeal had ended...
Indeed, the 13 Moluccan terrorists -all members of leftist-radical youth organizations-never wavered from their key blackmail demands. They wanted the release of 21 other young Moluccans now in Dutch prisons for previous acts of terrorism, safe conduct and a 747 jet to carry them to an undisclosed destination outside The Netherlands. In addition, they insisted that the Dutch government cut all links with the Indonesian government...
...there was no question of the hostages being transported somewhere else. And the demand for safe conduct, if granted, is an invitation to renewed blackmail actions." As for the political demands, Den Uyl said, "we have seen from earlier experience in the relationship between the Dutch society and the Moluccan community that the awakening of illusions, the making of concessions, punishes itself, leading to bitterness and disappointment...
Reprisal Fear. Still, the impossible Moluccan illusion is unlikely to fade, even in defeat. The terrorists are children or grandchildren of 4,000 Moluccan soldiers and their dependents who left their Indonesian archipelago in 1951 out of fear of reprisals for supporting the Dutch against the Indonesian independence movement. The Moluccan exiles in The Netherlands (they now number 40,000) cling fanatically to the dream of a future free "Republic of the South Moluccas" in the Indonesian archipelago. Angered by the refusal of the Hague government to support their cause, seven of the young Moluccans now in prison hijacked...
Meanwhile, the Dutch government's crisis team was getting nowhere in its attempts to negotiate the hostages' release. A government psychiatrist, Dick Mulder, made daily contacts with the Moluccans; increasingly, he found himself being either mocked or scolded by the tough young terrorists. Two mediation attempts by respected leaders of the Moluccan community failed completely. Mrs. Josephine Soumokil, 64-year-old widow of the resistance hero executed by the Indonesians, visited the train along with Hassan Tan, 56, a former education and welfare minister in the Moluccan government in exile. Their presence encouraged the terrorists, who greeted them...