Desiré "Dési" Delano Bouterse (13 October 1945 – 23 December 2024) was a Surinamese military officer and politician, who served as the eighth president of Suriname from 2010 to 2020, having previously led the country twice after a coup as a military dictator from 1980 to 1987 and again from 1990 to 1991. He was the founding president of the National Democratic Party (NDP) from 1987 to 2024.
Bouterse was a controversial figure, held responsible by some for numerous human rights violations committed during his military rule in the 1980s. Most notable were the December murders in 1982. He was prosecuted for the murders, and a trial was initiated, but the National Assembly extended amnesty to him in 2012. After the trial was forced to continue, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on 29 November 2019. He was also suspected of having directed the Moiwana massacre in 1986 against a village of Maroons during the Surinamese Interior War which pitted his government first against the maroon guerrilla group Jungle Commando, led by his former bodyguard, Ronnie Brunswijk, and then against the indigenous group Tucayana Amazonas.
On 16 July 1999, Bouterse was sentenced in absentia in the Netherlands to 11 years' imprisonment after being convicted of trafficking 474 kg (1,045 lb) of cocaine. Bouterse always maintained his innocence. He claimed the star witness in the case, Patrick van Loon, was bribed by the Dutch government. According to the United States diplomatic cables leak released in 2011, Bouterse was active in the drug trade until 2006. Europol issued a warrant for his arrest. At that time, he could not be arrested in Suriname, because he was still president. As the conviction came before his election as president, he risked arrest if he left Suriname.
In 2023, he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for the 1982 murders of fifteen political dissidents. He was reported missing by the Surinamese authorities in January 2024 after refusing to report to prison. He was considered a fugitive until his death.
Bouterse died on 23 December 2024, at the age of 79, while on the run following his conviction.
Desiré Delano Bouterse was born on 13 October 1945 in Domburg, located in Suriname's Wanica District. He was born in a multiracial family of Amerindian, African, Dutch, French, and Chinese ancestry. As a young boy he moved from Domburg to the capital Paramaribo, where he was raised by an aunt. He attended St. Jozefschool (a Catholic boarding school), and later the Middelbare Handelsschool (roughly equivalent to upper-secondary vocational education in business and administration), which he did not finish.
In 1968, Bouterse moved to the Netherlands, where he was conscripted into the armed forces of the Netherlands (Nederlandse Krijgsmacht). After completing his military service, he signed up to train as a non-commissioned officer at the Koninklijke Militaire School in Weert. In this period, Bouterse became known as an athlete, and he was chosen as head of the basketball team.
In 1970, Bouterse married Ingrid Figueira, whom he had known as a teenager in Suriname. They had two children: Peggy and Dino. Shortly after the marriage, Bouterse was assigned to the Dutch military base in Seedorf, Germany.
On 11 November 1975, Bouterse returned with his family to Suriname after it gained independence from the Netherlands. He wanted to help establish the Surinamese army. In 1979, Bouterse accepted a request by Roy Horb to become chairman of a new Surinamese military workers' union (Bomika; Bond voor Militair Kader).
On 25 February 1980, Bouterse, Horb, and fourteen other sergeants overthrew the Henck Arron government with a violent military coup d'état, now known as the Sergeants Coup. The sergeants who accomplished this coup were known as the Groep van zestien (Group of Sixteen), led by Bouterse. After the coup, he became chairman of the National Military Council of Suriname and as such the de facto dictator of Suriname. From then until 1988, Bouterse was the power behind puppet presidents installed by him.
The military takeover, which was widely supported by the population, was officially aimed at fighting corruption and unemployment (which at the time affected 18 per cent of the working population), and at restoring order in public affairs. However, "the political plans were vague, no ideological discussions had taken place in preparation for the coup," notes historian Rosemarijn Hoefte.
On the day of the coup, Bouterse's soldiers burned down the Central Police Station of Suriname. The remains of this building now form the "monument of the Revolution". Annually, on 25 February, the coup is commemorated.
The military dictatorship imposed an evening curfew, and curtailed freedom of press (only one newspaper, de Ware Tijd, was allowed to continue publishing, but was subject to heavy censorship). In 1985, it banned political parties and restricted freedom of assembly. It was characterised by a high level of government corruption and the summary executions of political opponents. After the December murders of fifteen opponents in 1982, Bouterse closed the University of Suriname.
He established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea, but his regime did not show any Communist orientation. The Netherlands suspended development aid to its former colony, destabilising the Surinamese economy. At the same time, the fall in bauxite prices, Suriname's main export, accentuated the economic crisis. The regime was quickly confronted with several uprisings, sometimes led by part of the army, sometimes by civilians. In 1983, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, Suriname drew closer to Washington and expelled Cuban diplomats, perhaps for fear of U.S. aggression.
On 7 and 8 December 1982, fifteen prominent Surinamese men who had criticised Bouterse's military dictatorship or were connected with the coup d'état attempt on 11 March 1982, were brought to Fort Zeelandia (then Bouterse's headquarters), where they were tortured and shot dead. These killings are known as the December murders.
On 10 December 1982 Bouterse stated on STVS television channel that 15 arrested "suspects who were plotting to overthrow the government later in December were shot dead while trying to flee Fort Zeelandia". Years later Bouterse said that he was not present at the killings. In 2000 he stated that the decision for these killings was made by the commander of the battalion, Paul Bhagwandas, who died in 1996. Bouterse accepted political responsibility as leader, but still denied any direct involvement.
The trials for the December murders did not take place in Suriname until 30 November 2007. Among the 25 indicted suspects, Bouterse is the chief figure. Since the trial began, Bouterse never went to court. In a speech, Bouterse said “I want to apologise to all the relatives of the victims. But to think you can lock me up? Never, niemals, jamais, nunca.” In an interview with Al Jazeera in 2009, Bouterse said that the trial was being used by his political opponents to prevent him from running for office again and for their own political gain. In April 2012, two months before the verdict in the trial was expected, Bouterse's party member Andre Misiekaba said, during a debate in the Surinamese parliament, that: "The December Murders trial is a political trial which has the purpose to eliminate Bouterse from the political arena and therefore the Amnesty Act is needed."
On 1 February 2012, Ruben Rozendaal, one of the military suspects, announced in local media that it was time for him to come forward with the truth about the December Murders because he wanted to clear his name before he died: he was suffering from a severe kidney disease, and the doctors had told him he did not have much time left to live. After consulting with his lawyer, Rozendaal decided to withdraw the testimony he had given in 2010. After the last suspects and witnesses in the December Murders case were heard, the court-martial decided to hear Rozendaal again, and this hearing was set for 23 March 2012.