Moiwana
Moiwana | ||
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Coordinates: 5 ° 38 ′ N , 54 ° 21 ′ W Moiwana on the map of Suriname
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Basic data | ||
Country | Suriname | |
District | Marowijne | |
Residents | 200 | |
Detailed data | ||
Time zone | UTC −3 | |
Memorial in Moiwana in memory of the 1986 massacre |
Moiwana is a Marron village from the Ndyuka tribe in the Marowijne district in eastern Suriname .
Moiwana massacre
On November 29, 1986, during the civil war between the Surinamese military under the command Dési Bouterse and the so-called Jungle Commando under the leadership of Ronnie Brunswijk , an Ndykua, there was a massacre in the village of Moiwana. Members of the Surinamese military killed 39 people, most of them women and children. After this massacre, thousands of residents of the eastern bushland fled to French Guiana via the Marowijne River .
The human rights organization Moiwana'86 has campaigned for years to investigate the events and prosecute those responsible for the murders. On 15 July 2005, the then Inter-American Court of Human Rights ( Inter American Court of Human Rights , IACHR) in Costa Rica condemns the Government of Suriname because of the mass murders. According to the judge's verdict, the Surinamese government has to pay the relatives of the murdered pain and suffering and damages for the material loss. In addition, they must pursue and the guilty fund set up for the reconstruction of the village. She was also sentenced to bear the legal costs.
One year after the IACHR's conviction, on July 15, 2006, President Ronald Venetiaan apologized on behalf of the state for the November 29, 1986 massacre of the Marrons in Moiwana. The ceremony took place in the Moengo football stadium, among others, in the presence of traditional leaders of the Marron communities. At the same time, about 130 descendants of the victims received compensation for pain and suffering equivalent to US $ 13,000 per person from the state treasury. The state is also required to use a community fund of US $ 1.2 million to rebuild the village with houses, schools and other social facilities.
In its March 2007 issue of the Dutch Obsession Magazine , a monthly magazine aimed primarily at the Surinamese community in the Netherlands, comes with a remarkable report on the Moiwana massacre. The article is based on an interview with an ex-police officer who remains anonymous here. Together with the police inspector Herman Gooding, who was murdered on August 4, 1990, he happened upon the alleged perpetrators, the course of events and their clients during a hearing. According to the ex-brigadier's testimony, the massacre was carried out by locals (presumably Caribs ), a group known as the "Delta Force". This group of about 60 people is said to have been supplied with weapons by the military under Bouterse and received several weeks of shooting training . Their job was apparently to track down the head of the jungle command, Brunswijk. 275,000 Surinamese guilders were offered as pay for their work. When one of the masked mercenaries in Moiwana was recognized by an Ndyuka and he then shot this woman in cold blood, the massacre of the innocent residents is said to have occurred in a kind of chain reaction. Only after some suspects of the action had been arrested were the mercenaries retrospectively appointed to the military, thus deprived of justice, placed under military jurisdiction, taken over by the military police and released. After some of the Delta Force group are said to have repeatedly urged the military to pay their promised wages, according to the ex-brigadier, at least three of those involved in the Moiwana murders were themselves liquidated. Since the ex-brigadier had already received death threats several times, he followed the advice of his superiors to go abroad for security reasons. He has lived in the Netherlands with his family since 1991. To date, none of these events, including the murder of Police Inspector Herman Gooding, have been further investigated in Suriname.
literature
- Wim Hoogbergen and Dirk Kruijt: De oorlog van de sergeanten. Surinaamse militairen in de politiek . Amsterdam (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker) 2005; ISBN 90-351-2998-9 .
- Fergus MacKay (red.): Moiwana zoekt justigheid. De strijd van een marrondorp tegen de state Suriname . Amsterdam (KIT Publishers) 2006; ISBN 90-6832-491-8 .
Web links
- Amnesty International report on Suriname 2003 ( Memento of April 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 186 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Moiwana Community v. Suriname. In: iachr.lls.edu. November 29, 1986, accessed April 25, 2020 .