A group of sixteen non-commissioned officers led by Desi Bouterse seized key military installations and state power in Paramaribo. The coup ended the elected government and interrupted the constitutional order. Initial public support drew on discontent with corruption, unemployment, party patronage and unfulfilled post-independence expectations; the takeover itself was a military coup, and the revolutionary/anticolonial meaning later attached to it remains contested. A 2020 Surinamese commemoration lecture discusses the stated ideas behind the ‘Revolution’.
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Why is the 25 February 1980 event described as a coup in this timeline?
The military takeover removed the elected Arron government. Later revolutionary or anticolonial claims do not alter that institutional fact.
The 25 February 1980 takeover was an election victory.
It was a military coup that removed the elected Arron government.