Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

SURINAME: Unrest Ahead of Military Coup Trial

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov 21 2007 (IPS) - Suriname has not exactly calmed down politically since a United Nations tribunal settled its long-time maritime border row with neighbouring Guyana in September.

Opposition parties have been calling for the removal of the government based on the premise that the legal team selected to fight the case with Guyana was under-prepared and inept and therefore resulted in Suriname being outmanoeuvred.

Political leaders had hoped to use the dissatisfaction that flowed from the ruling, which gave English-speaking Guyana the lion’s share of an area believed to contain among the world’s richest untapped oil and gas resources, to ratchet up pressure on the government. That has not happened, as officials appear to have succeeded in persuading citizens that the ruling was final and binding.

Since then, the Ronald Venetiaan administration and the main opposition National Democratic Party (NDP) – both multiparty, multiracial coalitions – have continued to trade words. In recent days, Venetiaan, 71, openly accused the NDP, led by former military strongman Desi Bouterse, of helping to hatch a plot to create chaos in the Dutch-speaking South American republic of 480,000 people.

National security minister and former police chief Chandra Santokhi said authorities had put the national prison system on a total lockdown after his ministry discovered plans for a mass prison break at facilities around the country.

Santokhi, whose ministry helped to put alleged Guyanese drug kingpin Roger Khan behind bars in New York, where he had fled from his native Guyana, said the government had “hard intelligence” that the NDP was linked to the plot to spark prison riots involving dozens of hardcore inmates, drug dealers and arms traffickers – charges the party vehemently denies.

Santokhi says his ministry has the list of inmates who would have been “rescued” during the riots and ensuing breakout, allegedly to form gangs that would have created havoc in a bid to destabilise the government.

Suriname is a major exporter of bauxite. U.S.-based Alcoa has extensive bauxite mines in the country, while Canadian companies have opened numerous gold mines, exporting about 250,000 ounces per year. Runaway gold prices have led to a fever of new exploration, making political stability crucial, Venetiaan has argued.

Bouterse, 62, lashed back at authorities, saying he is perennially scape-goated to distract from national woes that include rising food and gasoline prices, and high school fees that have sparked student protests.

“I won’t be surprised at all if before long they will say that we are responsible for the climate change in the world,” Bouterse told local newspapers.

The ministry’s announcement has come just two weeks before Bouterse and former army officers are due to go on trial for the Dec. 8, 1982 murders of 15 opponents of the military coup that ousted the elected government two years before. Government also appears to be reading negative things into protests by former rebel soldiers who fought a Western-supported war against military rule in the 1980s.

A group of near destitute ex-officers, diagnosed with post-war psychological trauma, has been occupying the grounds of the presidential palace in downtown Paramaribo for two weeks demanding compensation, health care and job opportunities from the government.

They have vowed to remain there until demands are met. Venetiaan has also blamed the NDP for stirring up the veterans even though they were the ones that had opposed Bouterse’s rule, which lasted from 1980-87. The administration has also been linking the NDP to protests by opposition youth groups as it puts the national system on standby to deal with any eventualities.

Surinamese governments are highly sensitive to political protests by the NDP, owing in large measure to the fact that some of the leading players of the 1980 coup, 1982 murders and a second coup in 1990 are at the helm of the NDP and are also associated with other parties. Therefore, any protests and threats are taken quite seriously.

Bouterse apart, former prime minister and natural resources minister Errol Alibux and former army chief Artey Gorre are the other high-profile defendants in the court-martial-like trial beginning at a military fort later this month. In all, 25 people have been charged with the murder of the 15 dissidents, who included journalists, labour leaders, clergymen and academics.

They were executed at a colonial-era fort right next to the presidential complex and cabinet office for daring to criticise the coup.