Desi Bouterse, Suriname’s fugitive former president, dies at 79 

Desi Bouterse, the former president of Suriname who fled authorities to avoid jail after his conviction over the murder of activists in the 1980s, has died at age 79, the government says.

“In anticipation of more detailed and definitive information from official channels, we would like to offer our condolences to the wife, children and other surviving relatives for this loss,” President Chan Santokhi said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to Bouterse.

Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk wrote on Facebook that Bouterse’s “life had a lasting impact on our country and his efforts will not be forgotten”.

His cause of death was not immediately clear, and the government did not provide details on where Bouterse died on Tuesday.

A divisive figure, Bouterse was applauded by supporters for his charisma and populist social programmes but viewed by his opponents as a ruthless dictator who was convicted of drug trafficking and extrajudicial killings.

He dominated politics in the small country on the northeastern coast of South America for decades, leading a coup in 1980 and finally leaving office in 2020.

In 2019, he and six other people were convicted for their roles in the 1982 murders of 15 leading government critics, including lawyers, journalists, union leaders, soldiers and university professors.

Bouterse had claimed the murdered men were connected to a planned invasion of the former Dutch colony.

In December last year, Bouterse was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murders, ending a historic 16-year legal process.

He then vanished and never served time in jail.

“There is nobody who has shaped the history of Suriname since its independence like Desi Bouterse,” said Dutch historian Pepijn Reeser, who wrote a biography of Bouterse in 2015.

He said Bouterse was the first to overcome the stark social class divide that once defined Suriname.

“Before the coup, it was unthinkable somebody from the lower class could become the most powerful man of the country. But he was also the first postcolonial leader to resort to political violence and the first to use Suriname as a transshipment point for illegal narcotics,” Reeser said.

In 1999, a Dutch court sentenced Bouterse in absentia to 11 years in prison for smuggling more than 453kg (1,000lb) of cocaine to the Netherlands. The absence of an extradition treaty between the nations meant he never served his time in prison.

Early on Wednesday, dozens of supporters gathered outside Bouterse’s home, where his wife lived, tears streaming down their faces.

Many were dressed in purple, the colour of his political party.