Word: suriname
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...article told of a group of men charged with attempting a coup against a left-wing "strongman's" government in the small South American country of Surinam--a nation most people don't know exists. The article stated that "All 13 were charged with violations of the Neutrality Act, which bars Americans from involvement in attempts to overthrow other governments...
...ought to prosecute people whose motives for invading other nations are selfish or paranoid in the extreme--like the Surinam invasion party, which hoped to abscond with the contents of the national bank, or the neurotic commander in Doctor Strangelove who is convinced he is surrounded by Communist plots...
However, the news story reported an event whose light coverage was disproportionate to its significance: it was a matter-of-fact account of a thwarted CIA plot to overthrow Surinam's government. Convinced that the South American country's leader Lt. Col. Desi Bouterse might be soft on Communism. America's favorite foreign policy arm hatched a scheme to oust his regime, which seized power in a military coup in 1980. According to The Times' report, the CIA plan called for a paramilitary force composed primarily of Surinamese exiles to infiltrate the capital city and take over the government Maybe...
...Times, the Congressional committees rejected the CIA plan not because they housed any philosophical objection to overthrowing a foreign regime that the U.S. finds distasteful, but rather because they considered such action unwarranted in the case of Bouterse's government. Committee members were not convinced that the Surinam government posed a threat to U.S. security interests; hence, they viewed the proposed overthrow as unduly extreme...
Furthermore, American "security interests" become dangerously elastic when Cold War dominoes are involved. The U.S. plotted to overthrow the Cuban dictatorship to keep Cuba from becoming a Soviet foothold; the CIA's Surinam caper, in turn, was intended to guard against the projected dangers of a Soviet or Cuban base in that country. The next logical step must be an overthrow on the basis of suspect pro-Surinam sympathies. And when it happens, it probably won't even make the papers...