NRC Handelsblad: “Action Committee Confirms Disclosure by Minister Graanoogst —Contact with Mercenaries for Coup in Suriname”
Involvement of Mercenaries
Rotterdam NRC HANDELSBLAD in Dutch 5 Oct 82 p 2
[Article: “Action Committee Confirms Disclosure by Minister Graanoogst —
Contact with Mercenaries for Coup in Suriname”]
[Text] The Hague, 5 October — Members of the Action Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Suriname have made contacts with Belgian mercenaries relative to the preparations for a coup in Suriname, which they wanted
to carry out on 1 July. Statements made by committee members and their relatives largely confirmed the disclosures made by the Surinamese minister of
army and police, Ivan Graanoogst, over the weekend.
Minister Graanoogst stated in Paramaribo that Surinamese in the Netherlands,
with the help of about ?0 mercenaries, planned to carry out a coup before
the end of the year. The mercenaries were supposed to have been able to
count on 200,000 guilders each. According to Graanoogst, the mercenaries
had gained experience in the Congo and in the operation of the Israeli army
at the Ugandan airfield at Entebbe, where Israeli hostages were freed. The
entire operation in Suriname was budgeted at 15 million Surinamese guilders.
Graanoogst’s disclosure seems largely based on a statement made by the former
first secretary of the Action Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in
Suriname, 33 year old Mirza “Edo” Joeman. On 30 July, he traveled to
Paramaribo at the invitation and at the expense of the military authorities.
Both Joeman and the Surinamese embassy have confirmed this trip. Joeman,
who was one of those who occupied the Surinamese embassy in the Hague last
week, talked for two and one-half hours with Bouterse in Paramaribo and informed him of the plans made by the committee members to carry out a coup
with the aid of mercenaries. Mirza Joeman gave Bouterse a written statement
on the plans, as he himself acknowledges and as the embassy in the Hague also
confirms.
Both in Paramaribo and at the Surinamese embassy they had been aware for some
time of plans pursued by certain members of the committee. According to the
embassy, Joeman was invited to verify matters and to follow up on them. The
33 year old former teacher received the promise that he would be able to return to the Netherlands without any problems.
Joeman was one of the people who had contacts with mercenaries, among other
times at the beginning of June in the Zealand-Flemish community of Ijzendijca
“I talked to two, sometimes five people there, some of whom spoke Flemish.
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Others did not speak at all, so that I don’t know their nationality,” said
Joeman. According to him, other talks with representatives of mercenaries
also took place in Amsterdam and the Hague.
Faja Lobbi D 7
Joeman gave the code name of the organization which was preparing a plot as
Faja Lobbi D 7. The D stands for the Hague, and 7 for the seven people involved. A Dutch Surinamese engineer named Doerga was allegedly also involved
in the Faja lobbi. He was an officer of the committee. Doerga is willing
to confirm only that he had contact with “military experts.” Even though he
would prefer a peaceful dialogue with the military leaders in Suriname, he
does not deny that he “is oriented toward a military solution.”
That the whole operation did not go through is due, according to Joeman, to
the fact that the Surinamese involved, among whom were Surinamese businessmen
in the Netherlands, refused to pay the mercenaries large sums of money beforehand. They wanted to delay payment until the operation in Suriname had
been carried out.
Racist
The president of the committee, E.G. Wormer, says that he was informed only
after 1 July, when it appeared that the plans would not go through. According to Wormer, the plan was a “purely racist matter” on the part of a number
of Hindustanis. “That is also the reason why I was left out of it,” stated
Wormer. Joeman also speaks of .an “ultra-racist strategy.” “I felt that it
was not a popular coup,” said Joeman, this being the reason why he wanted to
accept the invitation for a talk with Bouterse.
Wormer has distanced himself from any plan for an attempted coup in Suriname.
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