Dutch intelligence monitored Surinamese in the Netherlands from 1959 to 1962

The Domestic Security Service (BVD), the predecessor of the AIVD, monitored Surinamese residents in the Netherlands from 1959 to 1962. Those under surveillance were mainly politically active individuals who spoke out against racism and colonialism, as well as writers.

The revelations come from documents released Friday on Public Access Day at the National Archives in The Hague. The documents, from the period leading up to Suriname’s independence in 1975, include records of conversations held during the independence negotiations.

Information gathered from private meetings of various Surinamese organizations in the Netherlands was shared with and documented by the intelligence service. Among those involved in the negotiations were Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, Minister of Foreign Affairs Max van der Stoel, Surinamese Prime Minister Henck Arron, and other Surinamese ministers, including Eddy Bruma.

Eddy Bruma, a former politician, is named in the file on Surinamese extremism in the Netherlands. He was a founder of the Surinamese association Wie Eegie Sanie and later the Nationalist Republican Party in Suriname, and he became Minister of Economic Affairs in 1973.

Hugo Olijfveld, founder of the Surinamese-Amsterdam publication Sranang Krioro, was also closely monitored. According to the BVD, the magazine published “strongly anti-Western articles.”

Former president Ronald Venetiaan, who recently passed away, appears in the report as well. He had been involved in a Surinamese student association in Leiden.