Weeping and firing in Dutch school as death deadline nears

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 1

Weeping and firing in Dutch school as death deadline nears

NZPA-Reuter

Assen, The Netherlands

Gunfire and sobbing were heard yesterday from the primary school where South Moluccan guerrillas are holding 105 children and six teachers hostage.

Six shots were heard from the buidling in the village of Bovensmilde, soon after the sound of weeping. The last shot hit a firstfloor window in a nearby house. There was no explanation for the sudden firing. The guerrillas in the school and another group, holding about 50 train passengers hostage a few kilometres away, have demanded a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to take them and 21 jailed South Moluccan

extremists out of the country. A letter from one of the two groups, read over Dutch radio, warned the Government that if it sent in persons to mediate with them they would be shot dead. A Justice Ministry spokesman said that food, beer, tobacco, and cigarettes were taken into the school. Lunch packets for 60 people were also placed near the train. The gunmen said they would pick them up later.

The spokesman said the train hijackers also asked for a stethoscope and medicine, but he could not give further details. The guerrillas demanded two buses, with seats removed and windows blacked out, to take them and their hostages to Eelde Airfield, just outside Assen. They said two groups of Moluccan prisoners should be brought to the airfield, and demanded two 40-seat aircraft to take them to Schiphol Airport, just south of Amsterdam, where a third group of freed pri-

soners should be waiting for them.

The double attack by South Moluccan terrorists living in the Netherlands was similar to a pair of actions 18 months ago. It apparently was another attempt to make the Dutch Government help separate the South Moluccan island chain in the Pacific from Indonesia, a former Dutch colony that won independence in 1949. The Prime Minister (Mr Joop den Uyl) and other senior Government Ministers broke off campaigning for the General Election, scheduled for today, New Zealand time, to race back to The Hague to set up a crisis centre.

Saying “This is a terrible crime,” the Justice Minister (Mr Andreas van Agt) ordered a special 30-man squad of police, trained in anti-terrorist tactics, and a crack team of Royal Marines to the crisis zone.

The raids stunned the •people of Assen and surrounding farrffTands. The locals, who rigidly observe the Sabbath, gathered together in their homes throughout the night in prayer sessions for the hostages. A Government psychiatrist warned Dutch residents not to seek reprisals against the 300 South Moluccan families living near the school because of the terrorist activity of their countrymen. “I tell them that I fully realise their anger, but organising lynching parties or trying to storm the school won’t accomplish a thing,” said the chief of the anti-terror squad’s psychological division. A farmer, Mr Jan Karels, stared towards the modern one-storey brick and glass building where terrorists had covered many windows with newspaper. “If they were men and would come out like men, then I would strip off their pants and give them what they should have had 20 vears ago — a good thrashing.” A local policeman on patrol near the school was even blunter. “Now that they are grabbing kids, let us just hang them in public.”