Paramaribo, Suriname – Suriname’s former military dictator has offered his first public apology for the 1982 killings of 15 critics of his military regime, saying he accepted political responsibility for the deaths but denied involvement.
“The December killings are a dark page in our country’s history, and I offer my apologies to the surviving relatives,” Desi Bouterse said in comments broadcast Monday by Radio 10. “We must deal with this dark page in a mature way and make sure it does not happen again.” Bouterse, now an elected opposition legislator, made the apology during a meeting Sunday with mostly teenagers in the headquarters of his National Democratic Party.
Fifteen politicians, journalists, union leaders, lawyers and soldiers, were rounded up on Dec. 7, 1982, and slain in a hundreds-year-old fort in Paramaribo. A union leader and politician, Fred Derby, who survived, testified before his death in 2001 that Bouterse personally set him free.
Bouterse, who remains a powerful figure in Suriname, said that he was not present when the slayings took place.
Henk Kamperveen, whose father Andre Kamperveen – a political icon and radio station owner – was among the victims, said the apology was insincere.
“Judging from the whole atmosphere in which he spoke and all the things he said, I must conclude that his apology is worthless,” he said Monday. “It has 0.0 percent value.” Bouterse and 25 others are to be tried by a military court in connection with the deaths, but no date has been set yet nor have charges been filed against them. They have asked an appeals court to declare that they are not suspects.
A spokesman for the president’s party declined to comment. Calls placed to a lawyer for the victims’ relatives went unanswered.
On Dec. 8, 1982, Bouterse read a statement on national television that the 15 were arrested because they worked for the CIA and were shot when they tried to escape. Few people believed Bouterse since authorities determined the victims were shot from the front.
“I read the statement but never believed it myself,” Bouterse said Sunday. “That’s why I later personally asked for an investigation.” Bouterse seized power in a 1980 coup and was forced by international pressure in 1987 to allow the return of a democratically elected government.
Also under his dictatorship, at least 39 people were shot to death by a military unit in 1986 during a civil war with jungle-based rebels. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that the government must prosecute the killers, but no trial has been organized.
