Dutch dicker on getaway

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 1

Dutch dicker on getaway

NZPA-Reuter Assen Negotiations in the Netherlands’ eight-day twin hostage sieges apparently centred yesterday on the South Moluccan gunmen’s demand for a getaway plane. The 14 South Moluccans dropped their demand that their hostages —55 people held aboard a hijacked train near Assen and four in a school at Bovensmilde, 16km away — must leave the country with them. “The question is h.ow much weight can you attach to this concession,” said the Minister of Justice (Professor van Agt). No clear way out of the negotiating deadlock was yet in sight, he said.

The South Moluccan extremists were continuing to insist that 21 of their jailed comrades should be freed and allowed to leave

with them aboard a Boeing 747 from Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. But Mrs Toos Faber, the Justice Ministry’s spokesman at the crisis coordination centre atAssen, told journalists the gunmen would not reveal their intended destination. The Dutch authorities could not commit themselves to providing an aircraft until they knew its flight plans she said. Officials said Monday’s negotiations with the two groups of gunmen were hard and difficult. Professor van Agt said the latest contacts had an “emotional character,” although the South Moluccans were showing more flexibility. He recalled that arrangements for the release last Friday of 105 children originally taken hostage at the school had almost broken down when South

Moluccans had a lastminute change of mind. The gunmen’s latest concession—which raised the possibility of an airport exchange' of hostages for the 21 jailed South Moluccans—followed some stolid stonewalling tactics by the Dutch Government.

Since the two groups of hostages were seized in a synchronised • guerrilla move on the morning of May 23, the Government has given way on some minor points but has consistently stalled on major issues.

A telephone line linking the guerrillas in the train and in the school was cut soon after the schoolchildren w-ere freed on Friday. Officials blamed a technical fault, but the gunmen would clearly have to pay a price to have the line restored—possibly the release of a pregnant

woman, aged 23, who is among the train hostages.

The Government used the same tactics 18 months ago when South Moluccan extremists staged a similar double hostage operation. On that occasion, the train hijackers held out for 12 days before surrendering. The South Moluccan gue.rillas now demand freedom for 14 persons jailed as a result of that operation, together with seven South Moluccans imprisoned after the police foiled a plot to kidnap Queen Juliana. An Associated Press report yesterday said the Dutch' Government was asking the terrorists to give up their guns as well as the hostages in exchange for transport out of the country.

Why Moluccans* cause is hopeless.—Page 8