Suriname

Suriname - soorĭnämˈ, –nămˈ, officially Republic of Suriname, republic (1995 est. pop. 430,000), 63,037 sq mi (163,266 sq km), NE South America, on the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Guiana region, it is separated from Brazil on the south by the Tumuc-Humac Mts., from Guyana on the west by the Corantijn (Courantyne or Corentyne) River, and from French Guiana on the east by the Maroni River. The capital and largest city is Paramaribo, which is situated on the Suriname River.

Land and People

Suriname is mostly rolling highlands covered by tropical rain forests. The relatively small population is concentrated along the flat coastal plain, where the use of dikes makes cultivation possible. The people are largely of Asian Indian or mixed African and European ancestry; there is a significant Indonesian minority. Dutch is the official language, although Sranang Tongo, a creole English, is widely spoken. Hinduism, the Roman Catholic and Moravian churches, and Islam are the predominant faiths.

Economy and Government

Agriculture accounts for about 15% of the gross domestic product. Rice is the principal crop, and sugarcane, coffee, bananas, and coconuts are also cultivated. Suriname is one of the world's great producers of bauxite, which accounts for about 70% of export revenues. Other exports are alumina, rice, wood and wood products, fish, shrimps, and bananas. The leading industries process bauxite, alumina, foodstuffs, fish, and timber. Fluctuations in world bauxite prices have a strong impact on the country's economy.

Suriname operates under the constitution of 1987. Executive power is held by the president, who is elected by the unicameral national assembly for a five-year term. Members of the national assembly are elected by popular vote and also serve five-year terms. The country is divided into ten administrative districts.

History

The first Dutch expeditions to the Guiana region took place in 1597–98, and the first Dutch colony, on Essequibo Island in present-day Guyana, was founded in 1616. The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621 to exploit the territory. The Dutch hold on the east coast was interrupted by English and French attacks and by a slave insurrection (1762–63). The Treaty of Breda gave all English territory in Guiana to the Dutch, but in 1815 the Congress of Vienna awarded the area that is now Guyana to Britain while reaffirming the Dutch hold on Dutch Guiana (present-day Suriname). The Netherlands granted Dutch Guiana a parliament in 1866.

In 1954, Suriname officially became an internally autonomous part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, and in 1975 it became independent. Just prior to independence, some 100,000 Surinamese, mainly of Asian descent, migrated to the Netherlands. In 1980 the government was ousted by a military coup led by Sgt. Major Désiré Bouterse, and the soldiers' civilian allies were installed in office. Bouterse assumed complete control from 1982 to 1987.

A variety of insurgent guerrilla groups formed in the mid-1980s and did considerable damage to the country's infrastructure and major industries. Democracy was restored in 1988 and guerrilla activity decreased. President Rameswak Shankar, however, was ousted from office in a Dec., 1990, military coup led by Bouterse, who again installed his political allies. New elections (1991) gave his opponents, the four-party New Front for Democracy (NFD) coalition, control of parliament, and NFD leader Ronald Venetiaan became president. He implemented free-market reforms, but inflation soared and the economy continued to contract.

Bouterse resigned as army chief in 1992 amid corruption charges. In 1996, however, a former aide to Bouterse, Jules Wijdenbosch of the National Democratic party (NDP), won the presidency. Bouterse served as an adviser to Wijdenbosch's government until Apr., 1999; three months later he was convicted in absentia in the Netherlands of drug trafficking. Venetiaan's New Front won a resounding victory in the May, 2000, parliamentary elections, and the former president was reelected to the office in Aug., 2000.

Bibliography

See W. N. Van de Poll, Surinam, the Country and Its People (tr. 1951); M. J. Herskovits and F. J. Herskovits, Suriname Folklore (1937, repr. 1969); R. A. L. Hoefte, Suriname (1990).

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