BEHIND THE REVOLT
SOUTH MOLUCCANS
For several days the Netherlands were marked by an atmosphere of state of siege. In flagrant violation of the Constitution, South Moluccans were forcibly "removed" from their homes on orders of the police. Television newscasts were subject to preventive censorship; press photographers were forced to hand in their films; an entire region was subjected to a genuine military occupation. All this was topped off by the clamor of the right demanding the adoption of draconian measures to combat "terrorism"; there were rumors of the implementation of a crisis plan patterned after the infamous "Prometheus Plan, " which served as the scenario for
OF THE by NATHAN WEINSTOCK the Greek military coup in 1967. In view of this situation, it is clear that the action of the South Moluccan commandos provided the Dutch bourgeoisie with an opportunity to psychologically and materially prepare public opinion for the establishment of a strong state. Now, these events occur at a time when the economy of the Netherlands is being hit by the world crisis of the capitalist system and, highly significantly, at a time when the government is preparing to expel a large number of immigrant workers from the 27
country. In this climate, marked by a recrudescence of racism among the population, enlivened by the antiimmigrant campaign being waged by newspapers like De Telegraaf on the subject of the influx of immigrants from Surinam, the events around the action of the South Moluccan commandos took on a sinister resonance. The South Moluccan affair was tailor-made to serve as a dress rehersal for the advocates of a hard line among the bourgeoisie. What is particularly noteworthy in the Beilen affair was that the painstaking preparation and total success of the taking of the hostages was in contrast to the weakness of the "message" that the terrorist action was supposed to support. The quasimilitary action succeeded perfectly, but on the political level there was an almost total absence of any political program, apart from the impact of the action on public opinion. To understand this discrepancy, it is necessary to back up and look at the genesis of this ill-known movement of South Moluccans. This history permits on understanding of the colonial background that throws light on the problem of the South Moluccans and illustrates how their fate confirms the fact that repression in the colonies constitutes preparation for assaults on democratic rights in the metropolis. At first a problem of harkis The uprooting of the South Moluccans has its origin in the colonization of the Dutch East Indies, particularly the island of Amboina, The exploitation of the South Moluccans (in the spice trade dates back to the time of the Dutch East Indies Company and more particularly to the capitalist and western penetration of the Indonesian archipelago. The result of this penetration was the formation of a particular culture combining traditional features and imported potterns. The Christianized Amboinans, whose particularism was carefully preserved, served as the advance guard of Dutch colonialism. The indigenous shock troops for colonial repression (the KNIL) were recruited from among them. They were the instruments of colonial butchery throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Uprooted from their place of origin and alienated from the Muslim Indonesian masses, the Protestant Amboinars became dependent on the colonial power. The participation of "loyal" South Moluccans in the military repression of Indonesion nationalism after 1945 concluded the process of compromising the South Moluccans in the eyes of the masses. Left stranded by the withdrawal of the Dutch forces and the dissolution of the colonial troops (the KNIL), they constituted, with complicity whose source can be easily guessed, an ephemeral neocolonial state, the Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS - Republic of South Moluccans). The South Moluccan soldiers stationed on Java intended to go to the RMS. In the meantime, however, The Hague had worked out a modus vivendi with the Sukarno re28 gime. The forces of the KNIL could not be demobilized in Java, where they would have risked being lynched. The new Dutch policy ruled out their being allowed to go to Ceram in the Moluccan archipelago to continue fighting against the Indonesian Republic. The difficulty was resolved in a typically colonial manner: The KNIL troops were loaded aboard Dutch naval vessels, forcibly disarmed, and deposited in the Netherlands, where no better solution was found than to lodge the South Moluccan ex-fighters and their families in old camps built by the Nazis. That is where the tragedy of the South Moluccans began. They were totally cut off from the Moluccan archipelago, where the South Moluccan republic had meanwhile suffered an inglorious and unlamented demise. They found themselves administratively penned up under frightful conditions, first in camps and later in ghettos built specially for them. Their quite understandable bitterness took the form of an intense aspiration to concretize the totally artificial dream of the RMS. (In their time, the Jewish camps for "displaced persons" after 1945 also served as hotbeds for the diffusion of Zionist ideology.) Moreover, this secular messianism drew clear encouragement from the Dutch right, which had not given up hope of stimulating separatism in West Irian, the Moluccan islands, and elsewhere in order to bring about the fall of Sukarno, or at least to weaken the Indonesian regime. Penned up in their quarters and fixated on the ideal of the RMS, the South Moluccans found themselves completely cut off from the Dutch community. The rigid and military ambiance that permeated their families, in which paternalist power was colored by an "NCOlike" atmosphere, completed the disorientation of the youth. These youth were rejected by the population (the South Moluccars are even more unpopular than the immigrants from Surinam) and deprived of Dutch nationality. (the parents maintained their fictitious South Moluccan nationality); they sought psychological compensation in aggressiveness, criminality, suicidal behavior, and flight reactions (nostalgia for the RMS somewhat resembles o sort of daydream). When the generals putsch overthrew the Sukarno regime in an unprecedented bloodbath, the Dutch right lost all interest in the separatist aspirations of the South Moluccans. But it was not enough to simply dismiss the Moor who had finished his job. More than 30,000 South Moluccans were languishing in their quarters, clinging with frenetic tragedy to their mythical South Moluccan Republic. The youth, caught between the reactionary and authoritarian nostalgia of their parents and the hosfility of their Dutch surroundings, were suffocating. They were no longer in the mood to docilely follow the old models. They suffered from this difficult situation. They had bitterly endured the forced dispersions, the deprivation of military pensions suffered by their fathers, and the brutal repression of the internment camps for Moluccans. In return, they experienced colonial repression.
SOUTH MOLUCCA The revolt This collective frustration exploded with the occupation of the home of the Indonesian ambassador in Wassenaar in 1970. (Other spectacular actions followed.) But this action was not merely a break with passivity. It cannot be understood without taking account of the repercussions within the South Moluccan community of the campaign waged by the Dutch left against the Suharto regime. Thus, the appearance of political activism among the South Moluccan youth is explained by a curious combination of colonial nostalgia and sensitivity to the rise of the colonial revolution Thus, E. Virecht, writing in the December 19, 1970, issue of De Groener Amsterdammer, stressed that the South Moluccans were manifesting a "black power" mentality. Young South Moluccan militants in prison were asking to read Eldridge Cleaver, Che Guevara, and Mao. In 1971 some released militants, along with other South Moluccan youth, founded the South Moluccan Liberation Front, which emphasized their group particularism and called on the Dutch and Indonesian masses to join them in a common anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggle against both the Suharto regime and the Dutch government, for the liberation of the South Moluccans, but also for the liberation of all the peoples of Indonesia. (See De Groener Ansterdammer, December 18, 1971.) The entrance of the South Moluccans onto the Dutch political scene was met by a severe repression. The police savagely clubbed demonstrators and leaflet distributors. Police raids conducted at bayonet point took place in the South Moluccan neighborhoods, especially in Isseloord. The discovery of a plot to kidnap the queen sowed panic among the "forces of order." When 5,000 Moluecans met to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the stillborn Republic of South Moluccans, 2,650 policemen showed up and helicopters circled the assembly. The surrounding of South Moluccan communities by police accompanied by dogs and equipped with armored vehicles became a constant occurrence - Ulster in the Netherlands. In short, a genuine state of war inside their quarters unfolded, amidst general indifference among the Dutch. Such is the background to South Moluccan terrorism. We may add that this hybrid movement was sensitive to the "profitability" of the terrorist actions of the Palestinians from the standpoint of their impact on the mass media. It remains to be seen whether the combativity of the
South Moluccans and their collective frustration will be susceptible to being integrated into the class struggle in the Netherlands, if their inclination for revolutionary action can be channeled by the revolutionary vanguard toward realistic objectives, if their movement can articulate itself around Indonesian and/or Dutch reality. Obviously, a precondition for this would be the rise of critical consciousness among them about the ahistorical and profoundly reactionary character of the hope of seeing the rebirth, or rather the birth, of the
Republic of South Moluccans. D
SRI