(de Ware Tijd) BOXEL – Peter van Haperen, witness for de defense in the trial of Desi Bouterse, claims to know nothing about the murders that were committed in Fort Zeelandia on 8 December 1982. Van Haperen had been called to testify, because he could have provided evidence that would exculpate Bouterse. When judge Robby Rodrigues asked Van Haperen yesterday whether he knew anything about the criminal charges against Bouterse, the witness answered in the negative, saying, “No, I don’t have any information about the facts in the charges.” Van Haperen spent three hours telling how he had been recruited by Dutch and American intelligence services in 1982 to plan a coup against Bouterse. He claimed that the 15 men killed on 8 December in Fort Zeelandia would have become part of the new government if the coup, which was planned for the night of 24 and 25 December 1982, had been successful. These coup plans failed because of the actions Bouterse and his supporters took on 8 December. Van Haperen claimed the coup plans were leaked because “Surinamese are too loose-lipped”, so Bouterse could take action. As he explained, Van Haperen would carry out an invasion with around 80 men, while a13-man advance team would travel to Suriname from French Guyana disguised as a sports team. Assistance with the coups plans would allegedly be provided by the French secret service and the former Dutch military attaché in Suriname Bas van Tussenbroek, while the rest of the “invasion army” was to be flown in from Curacao with a C-130 Hercules plane of the US Army. If that plan were to fail, the invaders would land by parachute on the Zorg en Hoop airfield and then take over the Memre Boekoe barracks and Fort Zeelandia. Bouterse, Errol Alibux, Iwan Krolis, Harvey Naarendorp and others who would resist were to be liquidated by a team specially trained in Belgium.
