Henck Alphonsus Eugène Arron
(25 April 1936 – 4 December 2000) was the First Prime Minister of Suriname from 24 December 1973 to 25 February 1980.
After Johan Adolf Pengel died in 1970, Arron, a banker, became the leader of the NPS, the main Creole party. In 1973, Arron created a coalition, which included the pro-independence PNR party, that won that year's general election. In February 1974, Arron announced that Suriname would be seeking independence before the end of 1975. This came as a surprise because within Arron's own party there was no majority in favour of independence.Suriname was granted independence by the Netherlands on 25 November 1975. However, Surinamese politics soon degenerated into ethnic polarisation and corruption with the NPS using Dutch aid money for partisan purposes. Its leaders were accused of fraud in the 1977 elections, in which Arron won a further term, and the discontent was such that a large chunk of the population fled to the Netherlands, joining an already significant Surinamese community there. In 1980, Arron was accused of corruption and overthrown and jailed by the very military which, against the advice of the Dutch government, he had created. He bore the ill-treatment and humiliation with courage; the charges did not stick, he was released in 1981, and, a year later, became managing director of the Surinaamse Volkskredietbank.
Later in his life he served as Vice President of Suriname (and therefore Chairman of the Council of Ministers) from 26 January 1988 to 24 December 1990.
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