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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Suriname: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Americas Watch: Suriname
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Political life in Suriname, which gained independence from
the Netherlands in 1975, continues under the shadow of the
February 25, 1980 military coup, led by Sergeant Desire
Bouterse, and the December 8-10, 1982 execution of fifteen
opponents of the regime. In overthrowing the civilian
government, Bouterse, who became commander-in-chief of the army
and assumed the rank of lieutenant colonel, suspended the
Constitution and installed a succession of civilian figureheads
as president. The executions, at military headquarters in the
capital of Paramaribo, eliminated fifteen of the country's most
prominent citizens.
</p>
<p> As a result of the killings, the Netherlands suspended its
substantial aid program, and the United States ended the $1
million per year which it had been providing. The traumatic
effect of the killings, which horrified Suriname's small,
close-knit society, can be seen, in the view of many observers,
in the later civilian government's lack of political will to
exert control over the army.
</p>
<p> In 1987, a new Constitution was approved by the National
Assembly and a popular referendum. Articles 177 and 178, which
give the army the function of "guaranteeing the conditions in
which the Surinamese people can carry out and consolidate a
peaceful transition to a democratic and socially just society,"
have been cited by the military to justify a continuing
presence in politics.
</p>
<p> Elections were held pursuant to the new Constitution in
November 1987. Generally viewed as free and fair, the elections
brought to power a civilian government dominated by a coalition
of traditional ethnic-based parties, called the Front for
Democracy and Development. The Front won forty of the fifty-one
seats in the National Assembly, while the party affiliated with
the military, the National Democratic Party (NDP), captured
only three seats.
</p>
<p> Despite this decisive mandate, the Front government was
widely perceived as corrupt and reluctant to confront the
military. The army, still under Colonel Bouterse, retained de
facto control of the country. In December 1990, ostensibly
because the civilian president did not react strongly enough to
what Colonel Bouterse perceived to be insulting treatment by the
Dutch, the army once again overthrew the civilian government and
installed an interim government.
</p>
<p> From 1987 to 1990, during the period of nominal civilian
rule, the military engaged in numerous human rights abuses, both
in the undeveloped interior and in Paramaribo, the capital.
Violence in Paramaribo was directed particularly against members
of the civilian police force who attempted to enforce the law
against military personnel. These attacks included arson against
police stations and drive-by shootings aimed at particular
police officers. In August 1990, Police Inspector Herman Gooding
was murdered under circumstances that strongly indicate
military complicity, apparently in the course of investigating
military involvement in narcotics.
</p>
<p> Violent abuses were most frequent in Suriname's interior. In
various attempts to suppress an anti-Bouterse insurgency group
called the Jungle Command, which formed following the 1980
coup, the army often launched harsh attacks against
noncombatants. Military raids on villages in the interior
resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. Leaders of an
Amerindian insurrection disappeared while in military custody
in February 1990.
</p>
<p> The situation in the interior worsened with the emergence of
several armed groups that purport to be insurgents but almost
certainly are proxies of the military. These groups engage in
indiscriminate killing and robbery of civilians. In January
1990, the largest and most active of the groups, the Tucayana
Amazonas, held a televised press conference in Colonel
Bouterse's office and threatened by name Police Inspector
Gooding before his murder.
</p>
<p> Due to the fighting, thousands of Maroons (descendants of
escaped slaves) and Amerindians have fled the interior to
Paramaribo, other parts of Suriname, and neighboring French
Guiana. Thousands of refugees are currently in camps in French
Guiana.
</p>
<p> In July 1989, the Jungle Command reached a peace agreement
with the civilian government. However, in an indication of the
civilian government's relative power, Colonel Bouterse
effectively shelved the agreement by denouncing it as
unconstitutional. Although former elements of the Jungle
Command insurgency are now allied with the army, with the
remaining active insurgents mostly in French Guiana, Colonel
Bouterse has cited a supposed continuing insurgent threat to
justify an ongoing military presence in the interior. The
presence facilitates military involvement in drug trafficking
which, considerable evidence shows, has grown rapidly in the
last three years. Because military personnel are exempt from
the jurisdiction of the civilian police or courts, army
traffickers, as well as military abusers of human rights, have
enjoyed total impunity.
</p>
<p> On May 25, 1991, another election was held, amidst
widespread popular doubts that elections would alter the balance
of power. The Front, renamed the New Front, won thirty seats;
the NDP, twelve seats; and a new opposition party, Democratic
Alternative '91, nine seats. About sixty-four percent of the
electorate went to the polls.
</p>
<p> Again, the election was found to have been essentially free
and fair by the international observers in attendance, with
little overt intimidation of the opposition during the
campaign. However, Americas Watch found that the opposition
politicians felt free to address the issue of civilian control
of the military only tangentially, through the surrogate issue
of whether to seek closer ties to the Netherlands.
</p>
<p> Because the National Assembly was unable to elect a
president by the requisite two-thirds majority, the decision
went to the People's Assembly, made up of the National Assembly
and the various New Front-dominated regional assemblies. On
September 6, the People's Assembly elected by an eighty-percent
majority Ronald Venetiaan, a member of the New Front and the
minister of education in the civilian government toppled by the
1990 coup. Venetiaan is regarded as honest and more forceful
than the previous civilian president.
</p>
<p> Although newly elected members of the National Assembly
belonging to Democratic Alternative have expressed the opinion
that "nothing has changed," there has been some positive
activity. Under Venetiaan, the government has announced its
intention to cut the military's budget and to reorganize its
functions, including transferring responsibility for
immigration to the civilian police.
</p>
<p> In September, President Ventiaan addressed the United
Nations, pledging to amend the Constitution "within the shortest
possible time." A number of constitutional amendments, including
revisions of Articles 177 and 178, have been proposed to the
State Council, an advisory body with the role of reviewing
legislation, but the amendments have not yet reached the
National Assembly.
</p>
<p> In the same speech, President Ventiaan also pledged to fight
drug trafficking. While few concrete steps have yet to be
taken, Suriname in November signed a protocol of future
cooperation with the Netherlands, which includes a provision for
cooperation in fighting drug trafficking. The Dutch have agreed
to restore some aid, including assistance to the judiciary and
the police, with the rest of the aid conditioned on structural
changes.
</p>
<p> The result of these pledges has been a growing tension
between the army and the civilian government. Since the
government has not yet acted on its announced intentions, it is
uncertain to what degree the army will resist further incursions
on its prerogatives. A