Desi Bouterse

Desiré "Dési" Delano Bouterse (13 October 1945 – 23 December 2024) was a Surinamese military officer, politician and revolutionary who served as the eighth president of Suriname from 2010 to 2020, having previously led the country twice after a coup as a military leader 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.