Former army chief and military dictator of Suriname, Desi Bouterse, on Sunday publicly apologized for the first time for the 1982 killing of 15 political opponents, Radio Netherlands (RN) said on Monday.
In December 1982, a group of labour union activists in Suriname were executed in Paramaribo without a trial.
The regime in the former Dutch colony alleged that the 15 men were plotting a coup and were shot as they tried to flee, but no evidence of this was ever made public and no one has ever been tried for the killings, RN stated. At the time, Bouterse said the 15 people who were executed were “all people connected with parts of the CIA.”
RN noted that it was something of an unexpected twist that Bouterse, who was speaking Sunday at a youth rally to mark the 27th anniversary of his successful coup on February 25, 1980, admitted to being “politically responsible” for the killings.
Caribbean Net News, reporting from Paramaribo, Suriname, quoted Bouterse as saying, “I am apologising to all the surviving relatives,” and he further stated that the entire Surinamese community should participate in seeking the truth of that “dark chapter in Suriname’s history”.
The fifteen victims, Net News reported, included journalists, lecturers, trade unionists, lawyers, army officers and businessmen, who were tortured and executed after an allegedly foiled attempt to overthrow his military government.
According to RN, he has denied direct responsibility saying he didn’t pull the trigger, but his admission could have consequences for relatives of those killed who want Bouterse prosecuted. Many of those relatives now live in the Netherlands and they have been building up a case for many years.
The Dutch were so outraged by the extra-judicial killings, RN said, that shortly after the executions the Netherlands and the United States suspended economic and military assistance to the Bouterse regime.
RN said further that since the killings investigators have been trying to piece together what had occurred for many years. Meantime, Amnesty International reported that by mid-2002, 160 people had testified at an inquiry into the ‘December murders’.
Surinamese investigators travelled to the Netherlands to hear testimony from people there, RN said.
However, RN reported that not all the evidence may be sound as there were claims that some witnesses chose to ‘adjust’ their testimonies out of fear of reprisals from Bouterse or his henchmen. Investigators will have to decide what step to take next since Bouterse has confessed to being ‘politically’, though not directly, responsible for the murder of the 15 people.
According to Net News, Bouterse gave the youths his side of the story, since according to him, representation of the events back then by political opponents were false.
At Sunday’s meeting he also called for amnesty for the alleged suspects in the 1982 killings, siding with coalition leader Paul Somohardjo, who recently abandoned his earlier position to bring the suspects to justice. Bouterse argued, Net News stated, that since amnesty was granted to persons including former rebel leader Ronnie Brunswijk for their role in the civil war during the late 80s and early 90s, amnesty should also be an option in the so-called ‘December murders’ of 1982.
Net News reported also that currently, the Court of Justice is reviewing motions of several of these suspects, including Bouterse, arguing that the Public Prosecutor should cross them off the list of suspects. It is expected that the court will reject the motion and in doing so clear the way for a Military Court to try the more than 20 suspects later this year.
At the time of the killings, Net News recalled, Bouterse had said the fifteen people who were executed were conspiring with the CIA to topple his regime.
After the killings he read a statement on television, alleging that the fifteen victims were trying to escape when they were shot. Eyewitnesses who saw the bodies said that several of the victims showed gunshot wounds in the chest, abdomen and face suggesting that they were executed by a firing squad, Net News reported.
Meanwhile in 2004 forensic experts investigated the alleged killing site, Fort Zeelandia, in Paramaribo to gather evidence in the case prosecutors are building against the suspects.
