American mercenaries arrested in a plot to overthrow the leftist military government of Suriname 1986
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American mercenaries arrested in a plot to overthrow the leftist military government of Suriname claim they were promised $500 million by Dutch financiers and supported by several unidentified U.S. senators and the Dutch government, federal investigators said yesterday.
In Suriname, the official Suriname News Agency (SNA) quoted the country’s leader, Col. Desi Bouterse, as saying attacks on two military posts last week were part of a failed invasion plan and that 12 troops captured in the raids were still being held hostage.
SNA said Col. Bouterse told a meeting of the ruling 25 of February [CENSORED] the eastern Marowijne district were attacked on July 21, the date of the planned invasion that was to center on Zanderij International Airport, 29 miles from the capital.
The government said Ronny Brunswijk, 25, a former bodyguard of Col. Bouterse, led those attacks.
The Netherlands officially denied any involvement in the abortive coup against its former South American colony, and a White House source said the American government had no role in the caper, which ended with the arrest of 14 mercenaries in Louisiana on Monday.
“We strongly deny any support or any involvement with these kind of groups. Under international law, countries are not allowed to support actions aimed at getting rid of other governments, and we abide by those laws,” a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Tommy Lynn Denley, who U.S. authorities said is the self-proclaimed mastermind of the plot, claims he was supported by American senators, Dutch authorities and the Ansus Foundation, a corporation based in Amsterdam, according to J. Robert Grimes, regional commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service in New Orleans.
“These claims are all being investigated,” he said.
The SNA report from Suriname linked the aborted invasion to “secret talks” between former Prime Minister Wim Udenhout and foreigners who were said to have offered the government a $511 million loan.
The amount was later reduced to $300 million and the date postponed to July 28, when a group of foreigners was to arrive in Suriname to sign the contract, the report said.
In the Netherlands, the Dutch news agency ANP said the Americans arrested in New Orleans had posed as the “bankers” offering a loan to Suriname with the aim of getting into the country.
According to SNA, Mr. Brunswijk, the former Bouterse bodyguard, met in the Netherlands with former Foreign Minister Andre Haakmat before returning to Suriname to begin the guerrilla attacks earlier this month.
Mr. Haakmat appeared on Dutch television over the weekend and said Mr. Brunswijk’s activities were an attempt to create a popular uprising against Col. Bouterse.
The Customs Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) learned of the plot in May and infiltrated the group, Mr. Grimes said.
Mr. Denley and 12 other alleged mercenaries were arrested as they planned to board a plane at a small airport about 50 miles northwest of New Orleans for a flight to Suriname.
Another man charged in the plot was arrested in Lafayette, La., a Customs Service spokeswoman said.
Mr. Denley, 45, of Grenada, Miss., is a former Customs officer and Panama Canal Zone police officer, and lived with a woman and her son who were among those arrested.
Authorities confiscated thousands of rounds of ammunition, American M-16s and Israeli Uzi machine guns as well as small arms, communications equipment, survival supplies, facial camouflage paint and knives when they searched one of two vans the suspects used to transport equipment to their plane, the spokeswoman said.
“There is still the second van to search,” she said.
A federal judge yesterday morning denied bail and ordered the group held at a federal prison in New Orleans on charges of violating the U.S. Neutrality Act, which prohibits American citizens from trying to overthrow foreign governments with which the United States is at peace.
A Treasury Department spokesman in Washington said the group expected to receive 1.5 billion Dutch guilders (about $500 million) to kidnap Col. Bouterse and turn the government over to the Ansus Foundation.
Investigators yesterday still had no information about the Dutch corporation or the identity of any American politician involved in the plot, Mr. Grimes said.
He added that investigators also did not know whether the suspects were associated with other American-based paramilitary groups.
The plot was outlined by authorities at a press conference in New Orleans.
A wiretap affidavit made public Monday said Mr. Denley, as president of a company named Tango Lima Delta Inc., showed an undercover agent a contract to receive 1.5 billion Dutch guilders in return for turning over the Surinamese government to the Ansus Foundation.
Mr. Denley contended the Dutch government and several U.S. senators had approached him about arranging the coup, according to the document.
The senators were not named.
The mercenaries, from various parts of the United States, planned to join an army of Central American Indians in the coup attempt, Mr. Grimes said.
He said Mr. Denley promised the others they would be paid $1 million each if successful.
The plans called for three combat teams led by former U.S. Navy SEALS and armed with U.S. M-60 and Israeli Uzi machine guns to pull off the coup, authorities said.
Background
Suriname is one of three small countries east of Venezuela on the northern coast of South America.
Formerly called Dutch Guiana, it won independence from the Netherlands in 1975.
Col. Bouterse took over in a military coup in 1980, and the United States halted economic and military aid two years later after 15 opposition leaders were killed while in government custody.
The Dutch government, also in protest, ended its annual subsidy of about $100 million a year, which sent the Surinamese economy into a tailspin.
A White House source, who asked not to be identified, said Col. Bouterse’s tight-fisted reign has led to growing internal problems as well as renewed border incidents with neighboring French Guiana.
He said rumors of unrest and “strange tourists” arriving in French Guiana had circulated among the U.S. intelligence community for months — a possible foreshadowing of the abortive coup.
Had the plotters actually entered Suriname and attempted their coup, “they certainly could have done some damage,” Mr. Grimes said.
Those arrested Monday in Hammond were identified as:
Homer Phillips Jr., 31, of Harrisburg, Mo.; Michael Johnson, 18, of New Orleans, and his mother, Barbara, 45; Hector Tellez, 31, of Oak Forest, Ill.; Jamie Bright, 30, of Marion, Ohio; Don Morton, 46, of Colby, Kan.; Fred L. Rich, 41, of Columbia, Mo.; Vanus Livingston, 56, of Sugar Tree, Tenn.; Steven Green, 25, of Evansville, Ind.; Raymond Livingston, 25, of Jefferson, La.; Roger McGrady, 36, of Sacramento, Calif.; and Daniel Lee Marchand, 29, of Tennyson, Ind.
The arrests mark the third time in five years officials have foiled alleged New Orleans-based plots to topple foreign leaders.
“Obviously, this is a hub,” said U.S. Attorney John Volz.
“It’s a central point, a jumping-off point to South America and Central America.”
In 1981, the plans of a group of white supremacists to overthrow the government of Dominica were thwarted when FBI agents arrested them at a lakeshore marina.
In 1984, 13 men, most of them Haitian citizens, were arrested in a motel in Slidell, where they were meeting to plan an invasion of Haiti.
This story is based in part on wire service reports.
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