Have we got a coup for you…

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ATLANTA CONSTITUTION

Did CIA Director William Casey ever bave a proposition for Congress’ intelligence com- mittees! Here was this small, Georgia-sized South American country called Surinam (formerly Dutch Guiana), which fronts on the Caribbean. Independent from the Netherlands since 1975, Surinam’s legally elected government was ousted three years ago by a sergeants’ coup, which has ruled harshly ever since, forc- ing 16,000 of Surinam’s 400,000 citizens to flee, many to Holland and the United States. Worse still, the local tyrant, Desi Bou- terse, had been throwing in with bad company—Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua and Libya, coum- tries of that ilk.

For a small U.S. expenditure, Casey told members of the committees last December, the CIA could recruit and equip Surinam exiles to stage a countercoup and install a Western-leaning bastion of democracy. The master plan was ali set, Casey averred, and had President Reagan’s approval. No sweat.

By a stroke of good luck, Casey was in- forming House and Senate intelligence panels in advance of the Surinam mission. Rules gov- erning congressional oversight of covert operations require only that the panels’ mem- bers must be apprised of ongoing secret ac- tions, not necessarily before the fact.

The reaction of those House and Senate members let in on the scherme was pear-unani- mous: shocked opposition. Casey’s so-called e’vidence of Cuban penetration was flimsy and unconvincing, congressional sources told ABC News “Nightline” last week. Although the Democratic-dominated Honse panel had rejected the plan, Casey was pre- pared to follow through with it. But then the Senate committee, chaired by GOP Sen. Barrу Goldwater, voiced its own thupderons disan proval.

At that point, the project was scrapped, and congressional sources report they are reasonably confident that Casey has kept his word about that.

What lessons are to be drawn from the pear-fiasco in Surinam? For one, that despite the manifest disasters for U.S. interests which resulted from such quixotic CLA ventures in the past, play Reagan and Casey are disturbingly keen to with the dirty-tricks toy.

The United States has absolutely no busi- Dess authorizing the forcible removal of sover- eign governments, no matter how despotic or disagreeable, uniess as a means of last resort against a direct and verifiable threat to our national security. The present administration’s Castrophobia borwithstanding, Surinam clearly does pot meet that test.

For. another, the Surinam case points up the wisdom underlying Atlanta Rep. Wyche Fowler’s legislative proposal requiring ad- vance potice of all covert operations and giv- ing the inteligence panels the jointly shared power to scrub them if they seem unwise. We can’t always count on mere congressional disapproval sidetracking Reagar’s or any fo- ture administration from pursuing a hare- brained mission improbable.

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Date:
June 7, 1983
Categories:
Asymetric Warfare, Desi Bouterse, Foiled Coups & Plots, Mercenaries, Military & Intel, Planned Suriname Invasion, State Sponsored Terrorism, Suriname Interior War
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CIA-RDP91-00901R, Press
Years:
1983
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