On 23 May 1977, a train was hijacked near the village of De Punt, Netherlands. At around 09:00 that morning, nine armed Moluccan nationalists pulled the emergency brake and took over 50 people hostage. The hijacking lasted 20 days and ended with a raid by Dutch counter-terrorist special forces, during which two hostages and six hijackers were killed.
The same day as the train hijacking, four other South Moluccans took over a hundred hostages at an elementary school in Bovensmilde, around 20 km (12 mi) away.
The train hijacking was only the second such hijacking to take place in the Netherlands; the other, a 1975 train hijacking in Wijster, had also been perpetrated by Moluccans.
Background
After fighting for the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies, thousands of South Moluccans were forcibly exiled to the Netherlands. The Dutch government promised they would eventually get their own independent state, the Republic of South Maluku (RMS). However, after spending nearly 25 years in makeshift camps, many of which were former Nazi concentration camps, the South Moluccans grew disillusioned, feeling that the Dutch government had not honored its commitments. It was then that some members of the younger South Moluccan generation started a series of radical actions to bring attention to their cause.
Developments
While the train hijacking was taking place, four other South Moluccans took 105 children and five teachers hostage at a primary school in the nearby village of Bovensmilde. Both of these actions were carried out to force the (recently resigned) Dutch government to keep its promises about the RMS, break diplomatic ties with the Indonesian government and release 21 Moluccan prisoners involved in separate 1975 hostage-taking actions. An ultimatum was set for 25 May at 14:00, after which the hijackers threatened to blow up both the train and the school.
The hostages on the train were forced to help cover all the windows, preventing authorities from ascertaining what was happening inside the train; only near the end of the crisis were electronic eavesdropping devices installed by Dutch Marines. About 2,000 Marines and soldiers were stationed both at the train and school.
Dutch parliamentary elections were planned for 25 May 1977. Given the ongoing hostage crisis, leaders of the different political parties agreed to cancel their election campaigns, but the elections themselves took place on the planned date.
After their ultimatum expired, the hijackers announced new demands: an airplane at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport was to fly out all the hijackers, the 21 Moluccan prisoners, and the five teachers. Thanks to the eavesdropping devices, Justice Minister Dries van Agt (under resignation) knew that the hostages were not in danger, so the government let the second ultimatum deadline pass as well.
Negotiation
J.A. Manusama, president of the RMS at the time, and Reverend Metiarij acted as negotiators during the crisis.
Due to an illness that broke out in the school, likely caused by the food distributed there, the hijackers decided to release the children, but keep the teachers hostage. According to Doctor Frans Tutuhatunewa (later Manusama's successor as RMS president), there were no health issues with the hostages in the train, but the health of the hostages was nevertheless invoked to justify the raid on the train.
Attack
On 11 June 1977 at 05:00, almost three weeks after the start of the hijacking, six F-104 Starfighter jet fighters of the Royal Netherlands Air Force overflew the train three times at low altitude, using their deafening afterburners to disorient the hijackers and make the hostages drop to the floor of the train for greater safety. One of the Starfighter pilots was Dick Berlijn, who would go on to become Chief of Defence of the Netherlands Armed Forces.
Then, Marines of the counter-terrorist BBE special forces started firing rifles and machine guns at the train, shooting approximately 15,000 bullets in all. The Marines aimed at the first class compartments and vestibules (the sections equipped with doors between train cars) because they knew the hijackers were located there. One of the two hostages killed was located in one such compartment, after having been allowed to stay there by the hijackers. Six of the nine train hijackers were killed in the assault.