Desi Bouterse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Desi Bouterse on August 12, 2010

Desiré Delano Bouterse [ ˈdeːsiː ˈbʌʊ̯təɾsə ] (born October 13, 1945 in Domburg , Suriname ) was a sports instructor in the military, coup leader and commander in chief of the armed forces of Suriname . He is the founder and chairman of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and was President of Suriname from 2010 to 2020 .

origin

The first known ancestor of Desi Bouterse was Kole Jan Bouterse, a farm boy from the Dutch Kamperland in the province of Zeeland . At the age of 27 he was sent to Suriname in 1841 as a soldier in the National Militie , a volunteer legion. After the end of his service in 1847, he stayed there. He became a plantation supervisor and eventually director of the Vredenburg plantation . He entered into a relationship with an enslaved named Frederica, whom he married after the abolition of slavery in 1867 and with whom he had several children. The eldest daughter, Georgina (* 1851), was in a relationship with a French man who had been deported to South America as a prisoner. The couple's four children kept their mother 's maiden name Bouterse . One son, Henri, had children with Johanna Emelina of the Arawak tribe , who had converted to the Roman Catholic Church. The youngest son of the two, Desiré Juliaan, was the father of Desi Bouterse, his mother was Wilhelmina van Gemert.

Youth and education

Desi Bouterse grew up in the Dutch colony of Suriname and attended business school in Paramaribo . From 1968 to 1975 his family lived in the Netherlands , where he married Ingrid Figueira in 1970. The divorced relationship resulted in two children, daughter Peggy and son Dino. He completed various military training courses in the Dutch army . As a soldier ( Sergeant ) he was the last year before his return to Suriname in the NATO - barracks in Lower Saxony Seedorf stationed. After his divorce from Ingrid Figueira, he married Ingrid Jolanda Waldring in 1990, with whom he also has two children.

Military and political career

Military coup in Suriname

Back in Suriname, which was just becoming independent (November 25, 1975), Bouterse was involved in building a new army. On February 25, 1980, he carried out a military coup ( Sergeant Coup ) with Roy Horb (1953-1983) and 14 other NCOs and deposed the government under Prime Minister Henck AE Arron . This military coup was initially welcomed by a large part of the population, as it promised a decrease in corruption and an increase in the standard of living.

Hendrick Chin A Sen was appointed as the new head of government after the coup . After supposed plans for a counter-coup, Bouterse suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament . President Johan Ferrier , who had been in office since 1975 , resigned at Desi Bouterse's pressure.

Member of Parliament

After Bouterse founded the NDP in 1987, the party provided Jules Wijdenbosch as president for the first time from 1996 until the early elections in 2000 , who was then replaced by Ronald Venetiaan . In the May 25, 2005 elections, the NDP became the second largest party in the National Assembly of Suriname (DNA), and Bouterse was again elected as the party's top candidate.

After he wanted to participate in a parliamentary session on January 27, 2009 after a 13-month absence, the parliamentary chairman Paul Somohardjo immediately initiated the expulsion procedure. On the same day, Bouterse was informed by bailiff and letter that his membership in parliament (DNA) had ended. The reason for the exclusion was Article 68, No. 1, f of the Basic Law. According to this, membership in the DNA ends after an absence in Parliament for a continuous period of five months.

Bouterse saw his months-long absence in the DNA primarily as a protest against the government's refusal to accept him since the beginning of the 2005 and the legislative period . a. to participate in the Defense Committee .

Presidency

Bouterse at the awarding of the Order of Yellow Star to the footballer Clarence Seedorf , with the wife of the President Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring (2014)

On May 25, 2010, the Megacombinatie (MC) (an amalgamation of NDP, Progressieve Arbeiders- en Landbouwers Unie (PALU), Nieuw Suriname (NS), Kerukunan Tulodo Pranatan Inggil (KTPI) and Democratisch Nationaal Platform 2000 ) won with the presidential candidate Desi Bouterse the general election in Suriname (23 seats). By-added coalition partner, the People's Alliantie to Paul Somohardjo (6 seats) and the A Combinatie chaired its former nemesis Ronnie Brunswijk (7 seats), one was a two-thirds majority of Bouterse possible. On July 19, 2010, the National Assembly of Suriname elected Bouterse as the new President of the Republic of Suriname. He achieved 36 of 51 possible votes and was thus just above the required 34 votes. The opposing candidate, Chandrikapersad Santokhi from the Nieuw Front coalition , received 13 votes. Suriname has a presidential system of government in which the president is both head of state and head of government , and so two top positions are combined in one person who does not have to answer to parliament. The Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen said on the same day that he was only welcome in the Netherlands to serve his prison sentence. The inauguration of Bouterse and Vice President Robert Ameerali took place on August 12, 2010.

In the parliamentary elections on May 25, 2015 , President Bouterse's NDP achieved an absolute majority with 26 out of 51 parliamentary seats. Since the opposition saw no chance to prevail with its own candidates in the run-up to the presidential and vice-presidential elections in parliament, it had decided not to nominate its own candidates. At the same time, she agreed to ensure a quorum in order to make the election possible in the first ballot with a two-thirds majority (34 out of 51 MPs).

In a special session of the parliament on July 14, 2015, President Desiré Delano Bouterse was re-elected and the current Minister of Education, Ashwin Adhin, was elected Vice-President. Since no list of opposing candidates had been submitted and 46 MPs were present in the plenary chamber at the special session, there was no need to vote, instead the two candidates were automatically elected.

The inauguration for the second term as President took place on August 12, 2015 in the Anthony Nesty Sports Hall in Paramaribo.

The NDP lost ten seats in the parliamentary elections on May 25, 2020 compared to 2015 and the Vooruitstrevende Hervormings Partij (VHP) became the strongest party. VHP Chairman Chan Santokhi succeeded Bouterse as President of Suriname on July 13, 2020. In early August 2020, Santokhi announced that Bouterse had amassed Suriname's debts up to € 2.5 billion. In the six months before the presidential election alone, the latter hired around 3,500 new civil servants in order to sabotage the work of a possible new government.

Entanglement in crime

Desi Bouterse, photo 1985

As Commander in Chief of the Surinamese military, Desi Bouterse was the strong man in the military regime that ruled Suriname from 1980 to 1987. Especially in these years Bouterse was involved in several crimes, such as the " December murders " in 1982 (15 dead), the civil war ( Inland Sea Oorlog ) from 1986 to 1992, which killed at least 300 people, and the massacre in the Ndyuka - Dorf 1986 (" Moiwana massacre ") (39 dead). He was also accused of participating in illegal drug deals on several occasions . In July 1999, he was sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison for smuggling 1,000 kilograms of cocaine . The Netherlands obtained an international arrest warrant against Bouterse, which made it practically impossible for him to leave his home country for years. Since taking office as President in 2010, Bouterse has enjoyed immunity; the arrest warrant may not be enforced under international law.

Family members of Bouterse were also involved in serious crimes on several occasions. In August 2005, Bouterse's son Dino, who was considered the “ Hereditary Prince ” to the presidency, was sentenced to eight years in prison in Paramaribo for involvement in international drug trafficking and arms smuggling, of which he only served three years. In 2013, Dino Bouterse was arrested in Panama and extradited to the US , where he was tried for smuggling five kilograms of cocaine into the US between December 2011 and August 2013. He had also offered the Islamist Hezbollah to set up a base in Suriname. He was sentenced to 16¼ years in prison.

In December 2011, Bouterse pardoned his adopted son Romano Meriba, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2002 for the murder of a Chinese jeweler and the throwing of a hand grenade in front of the house of the Dutch ambassador. Former justice minister of the country Chan Santokhi was outraged by the pardon. In 2017, Meriba was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for a robbery he committed in November 2015. In September 2019, Mereba was suspected of being implicated in the disappearance of two men in Suriname as part of a failed cocaine deal. The fatal attacks on another man and on former professional soccer player Kelvin Maynard , who was shot dead on the street in Amsterdam in September 2019 , are believed to be related to this Meriba cocaine deal.

Conviction in November 2019

On November 29, 2019, the military court in Suriname sentenced Desi Bouterse to 20 years in prison for the December murders of 1982. Six accomplices were also convicted: Benny Brondenstein , Ernst Gefferie and Iwan Dijksteel to 15 years each and Stephanus Dendoe , Kenneth Kempes and Lucien Lewis to 10 years in prison each. Arrests did not follow initially because an appeal was filed. Should Bouterse be re-elected President on May 25, 2020, he will continue to enjoy political immunity .

The Dutch journalist Nina Jurna, who followed the trial of the December murders from the beginning, said that this verdict was undoubtedly "historical and important news", but in the Netherlands, where von Bouterse, "the only Dutch-speaking dictator." the world ”, downright“ obsessed ”, attracts much more attention than in Suriname itself. There, people quickly returned to normality. The more the former colonial power Netherlands and the local media attacked and criticized Bouterse, the greater his support from the Suriname population. As a result, the status of Bouterse in his own country assumed "almost mythical proportions".

reception

In his book Desi Bouterse: een Surinaamse tragedie , the author Pepijn Reeser characterizes Desi Bouterse, whom he calls “the man we love to hate”, and his relationship to the former colonial power Netherlands. Bouterse, according to Reeser, is a product of Dutch colonialism . This has shaped the relationship between Suriname and the Netherlands in the past few decades and left its mark on the country. The story of Bouterse and his ancestors is the story of how the Netherlands treated Suriname and the Surinamers then and now and what actions and reactions this resulted in. It is the story of Dutch ambitions versus Surinamese reality.

literature

  • Harmen Boerboom; Joost Oranje: De 8-december-moorden. Slagschaduw over Suriname . BZZToH, 's-Gravenhage 1992, ISBN 90-6291-762-3
  • Wim Hoogbergen; Dirk Kruijt: De oorlog van de sergeanten. Surinaamse militairen in de politiek . Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-351-2998-9
  • Désiré Bouterse , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 49/2010 of December 7, 2010, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick Meershoek: Bouterse blijkt telg van Zeeuwse boerenzoon. In: ad.nl. February 24, 2015, accessed April 18, 2020 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ Surinaamse president Desi Bouterse 70 years. In: waterkant.net. October 13, 2015, accessed April 18, 2020 .
  3. ↑ President Desi Bouterse 70 years. In: srherald.com. October 13, 2015, accessed April 17, 2020 (Dutch).
  4. ↑ Suriname - A Heap of Chaos , In: Der Spiegel , January 12, 1987
  5. ↑ Ronald Venetiaan again President of Surinam In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 5, 2005
  6. ↑ Nina Jurna: Bouterse gekozen tot president van Suriname ( Memento from July 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), In: NRC Handelsblad , July 19, 2010, (ndl.)
  7. ↑ Bouterse spreekt na jaren met Venetiaan ( Memento from July 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), In: NRC Handelsblad , July 29, 2010, (ndl.)
  8. ↑ Suriname ex-strongman Bouterse back in power , In: BBC News , July 19, 2010, (Eng.)
  9. ↑ Dutch Parliament website , accessed July 20, 2015
  10. ↑ Parliament's website ( Memento of 23 August 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in Dutch, accessed on 20 July 2015
  11. ↑ StarNieuws, August 12, 2015 in Dutch, accessed on August 13, 2015
  12. ↑ Surinaamse president Santokhi: 'Bouterse laat guilt van 2,5 miljard euro na'. In: ad.nl. August 4, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020 (Dutch).
  13. ↑ Matted clique . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1991 ( online ).
  14. ↑ a b c Suriname president's son arrested on US drug smuggling charges. In: reuters.com. August 30, 2013, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  15. ↑ 'Arrestatiebevel tegen staatshoofd mag niet' In: De Telegraaf , July 19, 2010, (ndl.)
  16. ↑ Surinam ex-leader's son is jailed In: BBC News , August 12, 2005, (Eng.)
  17. ↑ Suriname leader's son gets 16 years US prison for Hezbollah aid. In: reuters.com. March 10, 2015, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  18. ^ Bouterse pardons his adopted son Volkskrant on December 30, 2011, accessed on December 23, 2015, Dutch.
  19. ↑ Nu International Report of December 30, 2011, accessed December 23, 2015, in Dutch.
  20. ↑ Meriba weer in opspraak; aangifte tegen hem vanwege drug deal. In: waterkant.net. September 5, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  21. ↑ 'Research onderzoekt mogelijke link vermist duo met pleegzoon Bouterse'. In: crimesite.nl. April 6, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 (Dutch).
  22. ↑ Kelvin Maynard will de laatste jaren in Amsterdam vervolgd voor onder meer verkrachting (in 2016) and openlijke geweldpleging (in 2018). In: inhetnieuwsblog.wordpress.com. September 18, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 (Dutch).
  23. ↑ Kees Broere: Rechter veroordeelt Bouterse tot 20 jaar cel voor betrokkenheid bij Decembermoorden. In: Volkskrant . November 29, 2019, accessed November 30, 2019 .
  24. ^ Suriname president guilty of murder over 1982 executions. In: The Guardian . November 30, 2019, accessed November 30, 2019 .
  25. ^ Judgment of the Military Court of November 29, 2019 in Dutch, accessed on January 3, 2020 (PDF file).
  26. ↑ Krijgsraad Suriname veroordeelt nog voor zes suspicions Decembermoorden. In: Volkskrant . November 30, 2019, accessed November 30, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Matthijs le Loux: Alleen de Verkiezingen lijken Bouterse voor 20 jaar cel te kunnen authorities. In: nu.nl. March 27, 2020, accessed April 15, 2020 (Dutch).
  28. ^ Pepijn Reeser: Desi Bouterse: een Surinaamse tragedie ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  29. ↑ Nina Jurna: Waar komt de Nederlandse obsessie met Bouterse vandaan? In: oneworld.nl. January 17, 2020, accessed April 16, 2020 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Bouterse, Desi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bouterse, Desiré Delano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Surinamese politician, leader of a military regime in Suriname
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Domburg