Coups d’etat: Lessons of the past, prospects for the future and a guide for action

The Soviet Union and The Third World

Read the full thesis.

Center for Strategic and International Studies
Georgetown University

Walter Laqueur and others. With editorial assistance by Sophia M. Miskiewicz and Louise K. Kaplanski

Index

  1. Military Coups in the Third World: The Soviet View
  2. Soviet Attitudes toward Third World Coups
  3. Defending Third World Regimes from Coups
  4. Towards an American Coup Policy
  5. The American Role in Initiating & Assisting Coups in
    the Third World
  6. Military Coups d’Etat World-Wide 1969-84: The How and
    Why, Causes of Success and Failure

Overall Summary

More Third World countries have turned towards the Soviet Union or realigned to the West as a result of coups d’état than any other factor. The present work deals with the why and how, and presents a systematic survey of coups during the last fifteen years: operational details, motivational background, their foreign dimensions, and their internal effects. It investigates Soviet attitudes towards coups, as well as the degree and the specifics of Soviet involvement. It then turns to the question of defending Third World regimes from coups and the general problem of an American coup policy. Indications are that military coups will continue in the years to come and their frequency may increase. U.S. vital interests in the Third World have been threatened by coups in the past and they will be further threatened in the future. A U.S. coup policy must consist of the ability to intervene to defeat coups when such intervention is in the American interest (i.e., the existence of a counter-coup force). On the other hand, circumstances may arise in which it will be in the American interest to initiate coups—for instance, in cases in which the prevention of a coup has been unsuccessful and a hostile military take-over has already taken place. The various possibilities that have arisen in the past and are bound again to arise in the future are discussed in this study which concludes with a number of proposals of both a general and specific nature. The study was prepared under the guidance and with the collaboration of Professor Walter Laqueur, Professor Steven David, and Mr. Philipp Borinski.

C/6. Suriname

  1. Successful coup on February 25, 1980; de facto pronunciamento.
    • a) Operational detail: Coup executed by the NCO and rank-and-file element in the country’s 800-man “Army” against the civilian government of Henck Arron. Despite resistance by the police, due to which ten people were killed and several dozen wounded, the soldiers quickly gained control of the capital, Paramaribo.
    • b) Motivational background: Corporate grievances. The soldiers were denied pay raises and a Dutch-style soldiers’ trade union, and some of their spokesmen had been beaten and jailed by police.
    • c) Foreign dimension: No apparent foreign implications or repercussions.
    • d) Internal effects: The NCOs who led the coup (Lieutenant Michel van Rey and the Sergeants Horb, Neede, and Sital) formed an eight-man National Military Council and a civilian administration under it. They made the usual promises for reform.
  2. Unsuccessful coup on May 25, 1980; (intended) pronunciamento.
    • Not much detail available. The leader of the 300 mercenaries attempting this coup, the ex-sergeant Fred Ormskerk, was fatally wounded in the course of the event.
  3. Successful coup August 13–16, 1980; pronunciamento.
    • The powerful National Military Council, headed by Master Sergeant Desi Bouterse, pushed the figurehead president Johan Ferrier out of office and replaced him with the head of the civilian administration, Prime Minister Henk Chin A Sen; simultaneously the council abolished the constitution and dissolved the parliament. Some Cuban sympathizers in the NCO corps were arrested.
  4. Two unsuccessful coups in mid-March, 1981; (intended) pronunciamentos.
    • Not much detail available. Both coups, pulled off by participants in the “sergeants’ coup” of February 1980, were motivated by Bouterse’s increasing personal power, less by his comic-opera (but intensely cruel) policy line. His latest fad was a socialist “positive neutrality.”
  5. Successful coup on February 4, 1982; pronunciamento.
    • Bouterse (by now Lieutenant Colonel) removed Henk Chin A Sen because of “ineptitude” and took over the two posts of President and Prime Minister. Subsequently, he reinforced his “leftist” course.
  6. Unsuccessful coup on March 11, 1982; (intended) pronunciamento.
    • “Rightist officers” tried to overthrow Bouterse. Their two leaders, Master Sergeant Wilfried Hawker and Lieutenant Surendre Rambocus, were executed.
  7. Unsuccessful coup on December 8, 1982; no classification.
    • This coup attempt may have been fabricated by Bouterse in order to get rid of the political opposition. He eliminated the centers of the opposition and declared a state of emergency in order, as he alleges, to prevent a coup. He had 15 “conspirators” executed. The Netherlands thereupon cancelled talks about economic aid as well as all military deliveries. Four months later, Libya concluded a cooperation treaty with the Bouterse regime, which condemned the U.S. and proclaimed solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada.

(the file misses number 5 in the listing)

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Date:
January 1, 1984
Categories:
Desi Bouterse, Foiled Coups & Plots
Tags:
Boxes:
Thesis
Years:
1984
Persons:
Desi Bouterse, Roy Horb
META DATA
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