John Wattilete (born ''Johannes Gerardus (John) Wattilete'' in

Bemmel Bemmel is a town in the eastern Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is located in the Betuwe region, and falls under the municipality of Lingewaard. The town is situated between the major cities of Arnhem and Nijmegen, and is bordered b ...

Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, January 25, 1955) is the fifth and incumbent president in exile of the

Republic of South Maluku South Maluku, also South Moluccas, officially the Republic of South Maluku, was an unrecognised secessionist republic that claimed the islands of Ambon, Buru, and Seram, which make up the Indonesian province of Maluku. Dutch conquest exer ...

(or South Moluccas, id, Republik Maluku Selatan, RMS) and has been in office since 2010. He was preceded by Frans Tutuhatunewa.Frans Tutuhatunewa's obituary

Biography

Wattilete was born in the Netherlands to a South Moluccan father and a Dutch mother. He grew up in Bemmel and studied law in the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now renamed

Radboud University Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century ...

). He graduated in 1983 and became a lawyer in the Amsterdam law firm Wattilete Advocaten. He was involved in the Moluccan youth movement ''Collectief '91'', which found the policies of the Republic of South Maluku in exile (RMS) government too soft. At their first meeting, then-exile president Johan Manusama unexpectedly entered to hear their criticisms. Shortly thereafter, John Wattilete became his executive. From 1995, he managed the General Affairs position within the RMS cabinet in exile. In 1999 he travelled to Indonesia twice with Reverend Otto Matulessy as an RMS delegate. They met Indonesian president

B. J. Habibie Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (; 25 June 1936 – 11 September 2019) was an Indonesian engineer and politician who was the third president of Indonesia from 1998 to 1999. Less than three months after his inauguration as the seventh vice preside ...

and then with his successor

Abdurrahman Wahid Abdurrahman Wahid ( ; born Abdurrahman ad-Dakhil; 7 September 1940 – 30 December 2009), though more colloquially known as Gus Dur (), was an Indonesian politician and Islamic religious leader who served as the 4th president of Indonesia, fr ...

. During that period, there were great tensions in the South Moluccas between the Christians and Muslim populations of the region and as a result of the civil strife, there were many people killed and injured on both sides. The then RMS president Frans Tutuhatunewa was not so happy with these delegations spearheaded by Wattilete and Matulessy. In retrospect, the more pragmatic Wattilete also admits that the conversations were futile and led to nothing. Around 2003, Wattilete succeeded Pieter Thenu as Prime Minister / Vice President of the RMS. In April 2009, it was announced that President Tutuhatunewa would retire soon and that Wattilete would be a possible successor of the now 85-year-old president Tutuhatunewa. Wattilete became president of the RMS and was sworn in on 17 April 2010. Almost the entire management of the RMS consists of Moluccans who were born or were resident in the Netherlands. He made statements in an interview with the ''

Nederlands Dagblad ''Nederlands Dagblad'' (; "Dutch Daily") is a Dutch daily newspaper, available nationwide, with a daily circulation of 23,800 issues (in 2020). History The paper was founded in 1944 as a semi- resistance paper during World War II called ''Refor ...

'' saying that the Moluccan people should be able to speak freely about the political future of their islands and that both the Indonesian government and the RMS government in exile should adhere to that outcome. Should the Moluccan people indicate that they no longer strive for their own state, Wattilete would be prepared to attach consequences to it, as he said. If outright independence is not desired, he opined that his government would accept autonomous status but as part of the Indonesian state for the time being (a situation similar to Aceh), with bigger say by the Moluccan people in their own Moluccas affairs.

References

1955 births Living people Presidents of the Republic of South Maluku Moluccan independence activists Indonesian politicians People from Lingewaard {{Indonesia-politician-stub