Bouterse sentenced by Suriname military court

President Desi Bouterse

Suriname's President Desiré Delano (Desi) Bouterse has been sentenced to 20 years in prison over the execution of 15 military and political opponents in December 1982. 

This ruling by Suriname’s all-female Military Court, headed by Judge Cynthia Valstein–Montnor, ends this first phase of the trial, which started in 2007. Bouterse’s lawyer, Irwin Kanhai, has already announced he will appeal the decision.

The background of this trial is this. Bouterse was one of the leaders of the February 25, 1980, ‘Sergeants-coup’ which ended the government of President Henck Arron, the first leader of Surinam, after its independence from the Netherlands in 1975. Previous to his military career in Suriname, Bouterse had been a NCO – sports-instructor in the Dutch Army.

Since the new leaders did not manage to revitalize the struggling economy, dissatisfaction grew, also within the Surinam Armed Forces. On December 7, 1982, Bouterse ordered the arrest of 16 prominent individuals, amongst whom two military officers, scientists, businessmen, journalists and a union leader. (One of the two officers was lieutenant Soerindre Rambocus, who graduated in 1978 from the Netherlands’ Royal Military Academy, together with the author of this blog.) The group was transported to Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo, Surinam’s capital. As witnesses have testified, the death sentences were read out that night by Bouterse, after which many individuals were tortured and 15 were subsequently shot on the ramparts of Fort Zeelandia. Yesterday’s judgment speaks of 93 bullet holes in the wall where the executions took place. One person, union leader Frank Derby, was sent home. He recorded a statement before his death in 2001, which was used as evidence in yesterday’s judgment. On December 10, 1982, Bouterse proclaimed on the national television that the group had been shot, while trying to flee the Fort. In 2007 he apologized for the killings, but maintained that he had not been present in person. 

Bouterse remained the military dictator of Suriname from 1980 until 1988. After that period parliamentary democracy was reintroduced and Bouterse became the leader of the National Democratic Party. He was elected President of the Republic in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. In 2012 the Surinam Parliament adapted an ‘Amnesty Law’, for those involved in the killings. The Military Court judged in 2016 that the Amnesty Law interfered with the constitutional guarantee of a ‘fair trial’ and could therefore not be applied.

In 1999, Bouterse was convicted in absentia for trafficking 474 kilograms of cocaine, by a court in the Netherlands. He has denied these allegations. Bouterse is placed on an Interpol watch list, but currently enjoys diplomatic immunity. His son Dino was sentenced to 16 years in a US jail in 2015 for offering a home base to Hezbollah and trafficking drugs. (see: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-suriname-hezbollah-idUSKBN0M61UN20150310)

As stated above, Bouterse’s lawyer has announced he will appeal the judgment. President Bouterse (74) was not in Suriname when the judgment was read out, since he was currently on a State Visit to China, where he was received by President Xi Jinping. His spokesperson denounced the ruling as a ‘political trial, initiated by the opposition’. It is to be expected that the appeal will also take a long time. 

Interestingly, in his position as President of the Republic the Surinamese Constitution grants Bouterse the option to pardon himself. But perhaps, just like in Argentina in 2004, a Suriname court could annul such a pardon. (See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3551895.stm. See also (in Dutch) the interesting report by G. Spong, advisor to the Military Court: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&ved=2ahUKEwiS6Y_-rZLmAhUQalAKHQbGByI4ChAWMAJ6BAgEEAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.starnieuws.com%2Findex.php%2Fbeyond_files%2Fget_file%2F7ca464179eba5f312baf09b016d8c1e4.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2-hUo-59lktwhOsTpIkDl-