The South Moluccan Suicide Commando group was created to coerce the Dutch government into supporting the secession of the South Molucca Islands from Indonesia. The term "suicide" in "South Moluccan Suicide Commando" is misleading, as neither this group nor any group affiliated with it has ever carried out suicide attacks. All reported Moluccan secessionist actions in the Netherlands have involved hostage situations and resulted in low civilian casualties. Demands for the release of their comrades from prison, safe passage out of the Netherlands, and South Moluccan independence are usually made. Moluccan secessionist militants were usually relatively young, second-generation Indonesians, most of who had never lived in Indonesia or South Molucca. <P><br />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. <P><br />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. <br />