PARAMARIBO--The tens of thousands of people that opposition parties intended to draw to their anti-Government protest on Saturday did not materialise. The crowd of approximately 5,000 people that did descend upon Grun Dyari (Green Field), the headquarters of the National Party Suriname (NPS), nonetheless did bring its message across: “Bouta [Bouterse – Ed.] must go” many wrote on the placards they carried. One placard signified the urgency that was attached to this demand: “Enough is already too much.” The demonstration was peaceful but the participants and the speakers were fired up.
Opposition PL, NPS, VHP and ABOP joined forces to organise the event during which they wanted to demand that Government amend its current policies or give back its mandate. Several social organisations joined in.
It was the umpteenth protest that has been called against Government in recent weeks. Non-aligned protest movement We Are Tired also drew thousands of people to the streets during several protest marches in April.
The ongoing economic crisis has pushed up prices for basic goods and people live in poverty, they complained. They were joined by several unions, among them teachers’ union BvL. When police arrested We Are Tired leader Curtis Hofwijks and BvL leader Wilgo Valies, the opposition parties decided to hold a protest because “Government crossed the border with its political action against the civilians’ demonstrations, which called for a political response” from them.
The parties had applied for a permit to gather at Independence Square, across from the National Assembly building in Paramaribo, but when the request was denied they shifted to Grun Dyari.
Hofwijks and other We Are Tired leaders were present at the protest on Saturday. BvL had indicated early on that it would not be taking part because it preferred to not have political meddling in its union objectives.
While the protest was billed as a people’s demonstration – not a demonstration of the PL, VHP, NPS and ABOP – “the people” many of whom were dressed in their party colours –NPS green, VHP orange and ABOP yellow – hardly spoke; it was mostly the leaders from the opposition parties who addressed the crowd with verbal attacks on Government. The crowd cheered them on with loud vuvuzela trumpet noise.
Chandrika Santokhi, leader of VHP opened with “President, the people want their country back.” He charged that “proud Suriname had been dumped into beggar status, due to the inflation, corruption, ill-management and bad leadership.”
The VHP leader deplored that the value of the Surinamese currency, the SRD, has shrunk to a third of what it was before President Bouterse took office, while the President and his friend turned the country into corruption paradise. “We do not want a second Venezuela,” Santokhi said.
ABOP leader Ronny Brunswijk also spoke. An illustrious politician who in the eighties led his Jungle Commando in an armed civil unrest against Bouterse and then surprisingly joined Bouterse’s MegaCombination coalition to form Government in 2010, was relegated to the opposition benches when Bouterse did not include him for his second run for President in 2015. He called on Bouterse to accept that the ship is sinking and that it is time to restore Suriname socio-economically.
NPS-chairman Gregory Rusland demanded an immediate change of course from Government, insisting that the current policies were not in the interest of anybody, “especially the young people in the country. The problem is that the young people that are supposed to represent them in the National Assembly are a bunch of yes-men who approve anything from the Government.” Rusland said the protest was meant to send a signal to Government and called for an applause for the “young people from the We Are Tired movement who got the ball of protests rolling.”
The parties issued a joint statement at the end of the protest, entitled “stop making the people poor.” The social accord that Bouterse “agreed upon” with the people has not worked and there is no improvement in sight. All sectors of the community are suffering and if Bouterse cannot bring an end to it, he better resign, it said.
