Paramaribo, Suriname (AP) — Desi Bouterse, a military strongman who led a 1980 coup in the former Dutch colony of Suriname then returned to power by election three decades later despite charges of drug smuggling and murder, has died. He was 79.
Suriname’s President Chan Santokhi on Wednesday reflected on Bouterse’s outsized legacy in a message of condolences to his family and called on the nation to “keep calm and maintain order.”
Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk wrote on Facebook that Bouterse’s “life had a lasting impact on our country and his efforts will not be forgotten.” The cause of death was not immediately known.
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Bouterse was applauded by supporters for his charisma and populist social programs. For his opponents, he was a ruthless dictator who was convicted of drug trafficking and extrajudicial killings.
In December 2023, Bouterse was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murders of 15 opponents of the then-military government i n December 1982, ending a historic 16-year legal process. He then vanished and never served time in jail despite the sentencing.
“There is nobody who has shaped the history of Suriname since its independence like Desi Bouterse,” said Dutch historian Pepijn Reeser, who wrote a biography of Bouterse in 2015.
He said that Bouterse was the first to overcome the stark social class divide that once defined Suriname.
“Before the coup, it was unthinkable somebody from the lower class could become the most powerful man of the country. But he was also the first post-colonial leader to resort to political violence, and the first to use Suriname as a transshipment point for illegal narcotics,” Reeser said.
Early Wednesday, dozens of supporters gathered outside Bouterse’s home where his wife lived, tears streaming down their faces. Many were dressed in purple, the color of his political party.
Born Oct. 13, 1945, on a former sugar plantation near the capital, Paramaribo, Bouterse left for the Netherlands in 1968, as did thousands of other Surinamers in that era to seek adventure or a better life in Europe. Suriname was then still a colony, and as a Dutch citizen he was eligible for conscription, so he joined the armed forces a few months after arriving.
He graduated from the Royal Military School and served at several Dutch army bases in the Netherlands and Germany. Bouterse returned to Suriname two weeks before it became an independent republic on Nov. 25, 1975, and joined its newly formed military. The initial optimism of young military men in serving their own country quickly turned into frustration over widespread favoritism and corruption in the consecutive governments of Prime Minister Henck Arron. When Arron forbade the troops from unionizing, 16 young soldiers led by Bouterse overthrew the government on Feb. 25, 1980, and made him the de facto ruler.
“We took control because we want to save this country from ruin. There needs to be a total change of mentality to transform Suriname into the paradise it used to be,” Bouterse said to a journalist a few hours after the coup.
Bouterse was married twice and had three children, one son and two daughters. His son, Dino Bouterse, was serving a 16-year prison sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking.
Former AP Employee Pieter Van Maele contributed to this story.
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