Terrorist Organization Profile:
South Moluccan Suicide Commando

Unlike the rest of Indonesia, which is 88% Muslim and 45% Javanese, the people of South Molucca are predominantly Christian and Melanesian. Following Indonesia's independence from the Netherlands in 1949, residents of South Molucca, including former Dutch colonial soldiers and civil servants, feared that their interests would not be adequately represented by the newly-created nationalist (and majority Muslim) Republic of Indonesia. Thus, on April 25, 1950, the Republic of the South Moluccas, or Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS), declared its independence. Later that year, Indonesian forces moved into South Molucca to reassert control and forced the RMS leadership to create a government-in-exile based in the Netherlands. Remnants of a new RMS, which has since taken the form of a Christian extremist group, exist in very small numbers today, largely due to a concerted effort by Jakarta to root out all secessionist elements in South Molucca.

In its history, the South Moluccan Suicide Commando group has only carried out one confirmed terrorist attack, resulting in one fatality and four injuries. In 1978, the group took 70 civilians hostage inside a Dutch government building in Assen. After Dutch marines assaulted the building, all three South Moluccan Suicide Commandos were captured alive. During the 1970s, other similar attacks were carried out on Dutch targets by Moluccan secessionist groups, lending credence to the idea that perhaps the South Moluccan Suicide Commando group was an alias (or at least a close ally) of other groups such as the Free South Moluccan Youths, who seized control of a train and took 38 hostages in 1975, or an unidentified Moluccan secessionist group that simultaneously took 100 hostages at a school and 50 more on a train in 1978.

Learn more about these U.S. Department of State classifications:

Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)

Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL)