Suriname

Suriname is located on the northern coast of South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean on the north, French Guiana on the east, Guyana on the west, and Brazil on the south. It occupies 163,270 square kilometers (63,039 square miles) is slightly larger than the U.S. state of Georgia, and is the smallest independent nation in South America. Its population was estimated to be 436,935 in July 2004. In 2003 its per capita income was estimated at $3,500, about the same as that of Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, or Ecuador.

Suriname is an ethnically and religiously diverse country: 37 percent of its people are of (East) Indian origin, 31 percent Creole (mixed black and white), 15 percent Javanese (Indonesian), and 10 percent descended from African slaves brought to the country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who escaped and took up residence in the interior of the territory. There are also small groups of American Indians, Chinese, whites, and "others." Reflecting its ethnic diversity, Suriname's population is 27 percent Hindu, 23 percent Roman Catholic, and 25 percent Protestant, with 5 percent of the population following indigenous beliefs.

Suriname was a Dutch colony from 1667 until the country gained its independence in 1975. Its first president, Johan Ferrier, served for five years before being ousted by a military coup led by national army commander Désiré Bouterse. The coup leaders appointed Henk Chin A Sen prime minister and abolished the parliament. Sen was replaced by the coup leaders in 1982, with Lachmipersad F. Ramdat Misier (b. 1926) named as president. He served (as acting president) until January 25, 1988, when he was succeeded by Ramsewak Shankar (b. 1937), after parliamentary elections were again allowed in 1987. Shankar's rule lasted for nearly three years before he, too, was ousted from office by the military and replaced by Johannes Kraag, a military ally. In reality, although he occupied the position of president for only a few days on two separate occasions, Bouterse was the de facto ruler of the country for a decade, working from his position as army chief and chairman of the National Military Council. Under Bouterse's leadership, the military regime "brutally suppressed civic and political opposition" (Freedom House, 2004).

Negotiations with the leaders of a simmering rebellion and new elections in 1991 finally led to the decline of military dominance. A newly formed political party, the New Front for Democracy and Development (NF), won a working majority in the parliament and subsequently selected Runaldo Venetiaan (b. 1936) as president. Venetiaan served in this capacity until 1996, when he was replaced by Jules Albert Wijdenbosch (b. 1941), but he returned to office after his party won the 2000 elections.

Suriname nominally is a constitutional democracy with a unicameral National Assembly of fifty-one members elected for five-year terms. Its small judiciary consists of Magistrates Courts as the courts of first instance (first level trial courts) and a Court of Justice based in the capital, Paramaribo. A Constitutional Court is provided for in the country's constitution, but has never become operational. Despite its turbulent past politics, Suriname in the early twenty-first century was rated by Freedom House as a free nation in which citizens' rights were generally well protected.

Caribbean Region.

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