New Dawn: Suriname Tries To Put Its Past Aside

Dési Bouterse, the former leader of Suriname, died recently. But analysts say his shadow will haunt the country for years to come. 

The 79-year-old became president after leading the army’s coup in the former Dutch colony in 1980. Seven years later, he stepped down after coming under international fire for inciting political violence, reported Agence France-Presse. In 1990, he returned to power in a bloodless coup but resigned a year later. In 2010, voters elected him president, a position he held for a decade, transforming himself into a dictator while becoming the subject of national and international arrest warrants for murder and drug-trafficking. 

As some in the South American country continue to mourn Bouterse, others say Suriname is trying to put its past in the rearview mirror. 

“Now that Bouterse has passed away, it might be worth investigating whether it makes sense to start a process of truth-finding, as happened in South Africa after the apartheid regime fell,” wrote Suriname’s local newspaper, de Ware Tijd, referring to the political murders of hundreds of people under the Bouterse regime. “Suriname’s development will be able to proceed more quickly if there is a certain degree of unity among the population.”  

The country of almost 700,000 people, one of the most diverse in the world, is now hoping to see the fruits of exploiting a treasured resource that lies off its Atlantic shores. As OilPrice.com reported, leaders in Suriname are now hoping to mimic neighboring Guyana, where the gross domestic product per capita increased 41 percent last year to almost $31,000 annually, more than four times greater than Suriname’s $7,600 per capita. 

The recent approval of the $12.2 billion, 1.4 million-acre GranMorgu project in Suriname is expected to deliver similar windfalls. By 2028, the project is expected to pump as much as 220,000 barrels per day from offshore fields containing 760 million barrels in total, added Offshore Energy. 

GranMorgu, incidentally, is a word for a massive grouper fish but also has a double meaning – “great morning” or “new dawn” in the local Sranan Tongo language, said French oil company TotalEnergies in a statement. 

Meanwhile, drillers have already generated more than $300 million a year for Suriname’s treasury for three years in a row – a previously unheard-of haul there, noted Radio Jamaica News. 

Surinamese hope to have a say in how the country spends the money. As BNamericas wrote, politicians and activists are calling for greater transparency and public oversight of the oil industry. Campaigns for the general election on May 25 already include demands for the government to dole out larger tranches of oil revenues to communities and interest groups. 

Held under new rules that will foster new political parties to enter parliament, the election is still a battle between President Chan Santokhi’s Progressive Reform Party and the late Bouterse’s National Democratic Party, the Center for Strategic and International Studies explained. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to the country in April before the vote was a sign of how powerbrokers in the Western Hemisphere also see the country’s potential. “Energy security in the Caribbean region,” was a major talking point during Rubio’s meeting with Santokhi. 

Meanwhile, the country is struggling with its economy, left bankrupt by the former president, corruption, and balancing its relations with China with new interest from the US, wrote Global Americans.  

Regardless, Suriname can expect big changes in the coming years. How they manage these changes is the tricky part, say analysts. 

Suriname has seen similar promises of economic growth through oil exploration for a decade now,” wrote Semafor. “People are still waiting.”