When Suriname elected Desi Bouterse as president in 2010, there was still a criminal case against him because of the execution of fifteen opponents on December 8, 1982, the so-called December murders. At the time, this was a reason for the Netherlands to suspend the development relationship with Suriname. At least, so it was claimed. The question is whether the human rights violations were the real reason.
After the independence of Suriname in 1975, the country should be economically independent within fifteen years via a Multi-Year Development Plan (MOP). The Netherlands set aside an amount of 3.5 billion guilders for this. Agreements were laid down in the 'Treaty on Development Cooperation between the Netherlands and Suriname'. Despite this, disagreements soon arose between the two countries about how the obligations should be interpreted.
Redemption amount suffering
The situation was concisely expressed by the ambassador of the Netherlands in Paramaribo, H. Leopold, in a letter he sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 1978. In this he stated that little was done about development aid because of Surinamese politicians and civil servants who disregarded the agreements and regarded the 3.5 billion guilders as 'a lump sum payment for the suffering and unilateral economic enrichment that accompanied the colonial relationship'.
According to Leopold, Suriname saw the treaty as an agreement in which only one party had obligations, namely the Netherlands. The ambassador therefore called on Foreign Affairs to radically review the development relationship with Suriname, if the MOP did not want to be 'interred in the extensive archive of plans and advice that were published in Suriname with care, love, idealism and sometimes with a degree of demagoguery. and either never read or never executed, or both'.
Although these concerned signals led to official advice to the then Minister for Development Cooperation, Jan de Koning, in order to achieve a radical policy change, measures were initially not taken. Attempts by Dutch diplomats to destroy the Surinamese counterparts to keep to the agreements made, met with great resistance and annoyance from Surinamese who accused the Netherlands of neocolonial behaviour. The Netherlands had little choice but to wait for a suitable moment to put an end to this situation. This initially appeared to have been found when Desi Bouterse came to power in a coup d'état in February 1980.
Neocolonial behavior
At the instigation of Arie Pais, Minister of Education and married to the later Minister for Development Cooperation Eegje Schoo, the Council of Ministers decided to investigate whether it was legally possible to suspend development aid to Suriname. Legal adviser to Foreign Affairs W. Riphagen, however, quickly concluded that 'under the current circumstances, unilateral termination by the Netherlands of the development cooperation agreement with Suriname is not permitted under international law'. According to Riphagen, the only criterion for stopping aid was 'the question of whether fundamental human rights are being violated continuously and systematically' and that could not be said (yet) in the eyes of jurists of Suriname.
But not for long. On December 8, 1982, Bouterse had fifteen opponents executed for an alleged coup attempt. With the support of the Council of Ministers, Eegje Schoo, who had succeeded Cees van Dijk as Minister for Development Cooperation in 1982, suspended aid to Suriname with immediate effect. In a letter to the Military Authority in Suriname, the Dutch government motivated this decision by pointing out the gross violation of human rights. In a letter to the Dutch embassy in Paramaribo, the Military Authority reacted furiously to these measures and accused The Hague of using the cessation of development aid as "pressurization to adapt the internal situation to Dutch ideas".
Motivation
The Surinamese reproach was not entirely far from the truth. The Dutch government motivated the cessation of aid by pointing to human rights violations, but these played a minor role in the decision-making process. Naturally, the Dutch government was genuinely indignant about what had taken place in Paramaribo, but at the same time the executions were a useful means for the Netherlands to radically revise the development treaty with Suriname.
Eegje Schoo confirmed this in an interview:'Personally I was already thinking about the possibility of renegotiating the treaty in due course, because we were actually faced with an impossible situation with Suriname. The treaty did not work and caused an increasing dependence on the Netherlands instead of greater financial and economic independence. The project folder circulating at the time seemed to have been compiled entirely by the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work. It had become completely against the intentions in a welfare country, which contributed to a very unhealthy relationship between Suriname and the Netherlands and in which the government of Suriname fulfilled its obligations less and less.'
The suspension of aid was not logical from a policy and legal point of view. In the first place, human rights violations took place not only in Suriname, but also in other developing countries without the Netherlands attaching any consequences. This was also noticed at the time by senior officials of the Foreign Affairs. For example, M. Damme, head of the Asia Development Aid Directorate, pointed out Indonesia in a memorandum:although arbitrary executions regularly took place in East Timor and West Irian, the Netherlands maintained a close development relationship with Indonesia. Damme:'The parallel with Suriname is obvious and one often hears it discussed:Fifteen deaths in Suriname are sufficient for suspension, but all violations in Indonesia together are apparently not yet enough for any measure.'
Secondly, lawyers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered the suspension an example in which 'the government decides on a course of action, implements it and then later asks jura [legal adviser, LvD] to justify it'. Making the possible resumption of aid dependent on the return to democracy was considered equally problematic, because before the December murders there was just as little question of a democratic system.
Uncomfortable position
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs only thought aloud about the resumption of aid after Bouterse had left the field in 1987. Various options were reviewed via memorandums and memoranda, but it was clear that the Netherlands did not want to continue the relationship in any case.
In a memorandum entitled 'The development with Suriname. A new perspective', it was concluded that 'the thread from the past cannot simply be picked up and a different kind of relationship must be sought in which the objections to the course of events in the past can be overcome. (…) Termination of the agreement in good consultation seems to be the most appropriate option, after which a normal bilateral relationship can be entered into with Suriname.'
Furthermore, the new aid relationship had to be concentrated on the agricultural sector, light and medium-sized industry, health care and education. Projects that were started before 1982 were not allowed to continue and new projects had to be carefully tested from now on. Because the Netherlands, as the largest lender, had found itself in 'a rather uncomfortable position', it was necessary to let aid flow through multilateral channels.
Change of course
From the Surinamese side, termination of the agreement was of course not negotiable. However, Prime Minister of Suriname, Henck Arron, and Minister of Finance S.C. Mungra willing to look at new forms of cooperation. It was eventually agreed that the treaty with Suriname from 1975 would enter into force again in full, albeit that both parties signed a joint statement.
In practice, this meant an important change of course. From then on, there was a six-monthly policy meeting and new procedural rules, projects were now assessed on the basis of financial, economic, technical and institutional criteria, there was a clearer division of responsibilities and the money was from now on transferred directly to the supplier of goods and services.
Despite the new agreements, the cooperation between the Netherlands and Suriname was extremely difficult. Both countries continued to disagree on the obligations. Where Suriname thought that the Netherlands should transfer the money without further ado, the Netherlands stated that it wanted to adhere to the treaty in full, but in accordance with the joint statement in which the new procedural rules were laid down.
Again suspension
Aid to Suriname was suspended twice more, the first time in December 1990 after the Surinamese army staged another coup that overthrew the Shankar government. In 1997 the aid relationship was restored, which was again accompanied by new agreements. The so-called Bonaire Agreement stipulated that the responsible Surinamese and Dutch ministers would focus more on the main points and leave the implementation of the policy more to the Dutch and Surinamese diplomats.
However, the agreement did not last long. The reason was the international search warrant that the Netherlands issued in 1997 against Desi Bouterse for drug trafficking. Suriname responded immediately by denying the Minister for Development Cooperation Jan Pronk – just on his way to Paramaribo – access to the country, after which the development relationship was frozen again.
Three years later, the aid relationship was resumed. The Netherlands promised to commit the remaining 350 million guilders, with Suriname being allowed to decide on which sectors the aid would be spent. However, it did not help the difficult relationship. In 2004 the highly critical report 'A burdened relationship. 25 years of Dutch-Suriname development cooperation' made public. The authors of this report concluded that development aid to Suriname has contributed insufficiently to the development of the country. Due to the colonial past, it was difficult for the Netherlands to come to clear and businesslike agreements, while Suriname turned out to be unable to spend the money effectively.
Minister for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne subsequently decided to end the special development relationship with Suriname in the foreseeable future. This put an end to the difficult relationship that had developed since Surinamese independence.
Review
The 'Treaty on Development Cooperation between the Netherlands and Suriname', concluded in 1975, led to mutual irritation and incomprehension from the start, which resulted in an extremely difficult relationship.
Suriname blamed the Netherlands for neocolonial behaviour, while the Netherlands felt that the Surinamese did not keep to the agreements made and spent the money incorrectly. The Netherlands therefore tried from the outset to arrive at a revision of the treaty. Although the Netherlands was extremely weak from a legal point of view, the Dutch government eventually managed to achieve a different development relationship by using Surinamese crises such as the December murders to suspend aid and to constantly impose new conditions on its resumption.