Latin America Review – Suriname-Libya: Cooling Relations – 31 January 1986

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Cooling Relations

Relations between Suriname and Libya are weakening as a result of unfulfilled bilateral commitments and Surinamese sensitivity to Western pressure. US Embassy reporting indicates that Suriname is dissatisfied with the course of relations since Head of Government Bouterse visited Tripoli last March. The Libyans reportedly have not provided the substantial economic aid Bouterse had hoped would help to relieve Suriname’s desperate foreign exchange shortage. [CENSORED]

[CENSORED]

Tripoli may use Suriname as a base to [CENSORED] conduct terrorist actions against US facilities in the Caribbean. According to US officials in Paramaribo, however, any terrorist action traceable to the Libyan Embassy in Suriname would probably result in the expulsion of all Libyans there.

[CENSORED]

We doubt that the Surinamese attitude toward Libya will improve much, if any, in the near term. The impending transfer to the United Nations of Libya’s main advocate in the Surinamese Government, Bouterse’s civilian cabinet chief Henk Herrenberg, is perhaps the clearest indication yet that Paramaribo is unlikely to expand relations with Tripoli. Herrenberg’s dismissal follows the unsuccessful visit of a Libyan economic delegation to Suriname last November and Tripoli’s cancellation in December of two proposed conferences that were to be held there.

Moreover, because Bouterse is anxious to attract Western economic aid and wary of provoking the United States since the Grenada intervention, he is likely to restrict Libyan efforts to court regional radicals from its Embassy in Paramaribo.

Date:
January 31, 1986
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