EDITORIAL - Caricom must not seat Bouterse

There are many nasty strikes on the political career of Desi Bouterse, who was this week chosen by the parliament of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) member state of Suriname to be that country's new president. He was, for example, the army sergeant who in 1980 lead the coup against the country's early post-independent government, and for most of the next decade led an ignoble regime.

Like most of his type, and in style with the fashion of the day, Bouterse sought shelter behind the fig leaf of left-wing ideology. He ranted against Suriname's former colonial power, Holland.

But the pretence at ideology did not hide the repressive and bloody nature of Bouterse's regime. The army was purged of moderate and ostensible 'counter-revolutionary' members, such as was the case with Sergeant Wilfred Hawker, who was executed in early 1982.

The regime was also suspected to be behind the murder of others in civil society and government, including Humphrey Keervelt, a former head of the Suriname Planning Bureau, who was killed in mid-2001.

Bloodstains

But there are two large bloodstains on Bouterse's previous stint in power, which time may cause to recede but which history ought not to absolve.

The first is what became known as the 'December Murders' of 1982, when 15 of Suriname's leading intellectuals, lawyers, journalists and trade unionists were executed at Fort Zeelandia, supposedly for planning a coup.

After two decades of dodging, Bouterse took 'political responsibility' for those murders, for which he remains a defendant in a murder case, but has denied liability. He pinned the blame for giving the order on a now dead army officer, Paul Bhagwandas.

Then there was the 1986 incident at the Maroon village of Moriwana in the Surinamese jungle, where the army wiped out villagers because of their suspected support of insurgents. In another time, Bouterse might have been hauled to The Hague before the International Criminal Court to answer charges of genocide.

'Mega front'

It is also not to be forgotten that in 1999 Bouterse was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to 11 years in prison by a Dutch court for drug smuggling.

His past notwithstanding, Bouterse has for several years been a member of Suriname's parliament, and in May elections his National Democratic Party and its coalition partners won 23 of the 51 seats in the legislature. They have since enticed smaller parties to their so-called 'Mega Front' to give Bouterse 36 votes, or 70.5 per cent of the legislative ballots in the election for the presidency.

There is a larger point than merely to rehash the facts for our reminding of Bouterse's past. The decision of Suriname's parliament notwithstanding, we do not believe he is morally fit to lead Suriname, about which we can do little. Nor do we deem him worthy to sit in the council of Caricom, about which the community can do a lot.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, as Caricom's current chairman, will hopefully agree and will lead the charge to suspend Suriname from the community until another leader is in place. Leaders must know that the passage of time doesn't of itself free them of responsibility for acts of impunity.

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