RMS

by Amalia

… continuation from the previous post.

Mbak Linda told me about the Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS) which was a self-proclaimed republic in the South Moluccas. After the Indonesian independence day, the Maluku people who were part of KNIL demanded their island to be an independent country which turned to be unsuccessful. So most of them went to the Netherlands (which supposed to be temporarily) and were promised by the Dutch government that they would solve this matter. They set up a government-in-exile. Yet, years went by and the Dutch government hadn’t fulfilled their promise yet. So these Maluku people went rebellious, attacking two Indonesian embassies and hijacking train (this hijacking story didn’t get into Indonesia by the way!) to get the attention of the Dutch government. They were quite fanatic — even to these days, according to mbak Linda, they still celebrated the 25th of April (the day when the RMS was formed), put up their own RMS flag, and regarded themselves as Moluccans rather than Indonesians.

Honestly I had no idea about this until she told me!!! Wow! 😀 It was very interesting indeed!!!

*There was a movie about this hijacking thing. You can see its trailer here.