ABSTRACT

More than twenty-five years ago I missed the first terrorism conference in the Netherlands because I was studying in Stockholm. The step to organize a conference on this topic in 1979 was very controversial and the organizing professor, Hylke Tromp, had to defend himself in the university newspaper. He convincingly argued that terrorism was an important topic that could be studied in an academic way. He considered terrorism as a form of irregular warfare. The idea for the conference was triggered by developments in the Netherlands. The country was faced for the first time with terrorism on its territory by the Moluccan community. Moluccans came to the Netherlands in the 1950s. The second generation became more militant and was involved in several terrorist attacks, including an occupation of an embassy, a train hijacking and a hostaging of a school. For the first time the Dutch government had to decide to use military force (3 for and 2 against) to end a hostaging situation. Later it was revealed that the Moluccan militants had also planned an attack on the Royal Palace which was disrupted by our police and domestic intelligence service.