Ex-rebellion Ronnie Brunswijk speaks on the cell phone on June 30, 2010 in Paramaribo. Brunswijk was amongst 50 individuals to be sworn in as member of Suriname parliament (DNA).
Photograph credit score ought to learn Louis ALFAISIE/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Lower than two weeks after former Surinamese president Desi Bouterse was cremated, incumbent Vice-President Ronnie Brunswijk has run into bother with judicial authorities after revealing that he had lengthy recognized the place the ex-military dictator was hiding after fleeing from justice for almost a yr.
Brunswijk, chief of the largely Maroon-supported ABOP liberation get together, dropped the political bombshell this week, laconically telling journalists that he was shocked that police and judicial authorities had not recognized the place Bouterse was hiding as a result of he at all times knew and had been involved with the previous navy strongman who had staged coups in 1980 and 1990. He stated he had even acquired images by cell phone from Bouterse simply days earlier than his loss of life.
Bouterse, 79, died hours earlier than Christmas at his riverside residence within the metropolis, simply over 11 months after he had vanished into hiding to keep away from beginning a 20-year jail sentence for the 1982 murders of 15 political opponents.
He was accountable for the navy again then and was broadly thought of the de facto head of state following the coup two years earlier. Police say they’re nonetheless attempting to find out how his lifeless physique had turned up at his closely monitored residence with out the information of authorities. In revealing that he had been involved with Bouterse and was conscious of his hideout, the VP has now landed himself in bother with investigators as he had not disclosed such particulars to the very authorities, which he serves because the quantity two official.
“We have been on good phrases till loss of life,” Brunswijk instructed reporters earlier than the cupboard’s weekly assembly on Wednesday. “It was recognized for a very long time the place he was. That’s now not related. I don’t know if the judicial authorities didn’t know that, however Suriname is so small.”
He additionally revealed that he had visited Bouterse’s residence to console his spouse and household after his loss of life from liver illness linked to alcohol abuse and had additionally been involved with main members of his Nationwide Democratic Occasion (NDP), anticipated to do properly in elections set for late Could.
The state prosecutor’s workplace has, in the meantime, written to the VP asking for a proper rationalization, however he has not responded thus far. Star Information, a web based publication, reported Thursday that the letter was despatched on Jan. 6, two days after Bouterse’s cremation. Brunswijk has additionally acknowledged that he needed to attend the NDP-organized funeral providers however had not acquired a proper invitation.
Brunswijk had served as Bouterse’s bodyguard whereas each have been within the navy within the Eighties however broke away to kind a Western-funded insurgent guerilla motion that unsuccessfully tried to reverse the coup.
