President Ronald Venetiaan did not win the hearts of Surinamese people, but his ‘ten clean fingers’ commanded respect from many

‘A man with ten clean fingers.’ That will remain Ronald Venetiaan forever. The former Surinamese president, who died on Wednesday afternoon at the age of 89, never committed self-enrichment or corruption. As president, he also lived in the same simple house where he and his family lived as a teacher. He commanded respect in a country where not everyone makes the distinction between politics and cronyism.

But that qualification of ‘clean fingers’ had also come to stick to Venetian. In Paramaribo, some joked that his hands remained so clean because he did not tackle the real problems vigorously enough. An accusation that, on closer inspection, was not justified.

Venetiaan suffered his biggest defeat in 2010. In that year, he had to hand over power to the man he had always opposed – Desi Bouterse, the former coup plotter responsible for the December murders of 1982 in which fifteen opponents were killed, including friends of Venetiaan.

Tough task

Immediately during his first term as president (1991-1996), Venetiaan had attempted to limit Bouterse’s power. He was not alone at the time with the difficult task of restoring the economy, which had completely derailed after military coups. He also faced an army leadership that enriched itself through drug trafficking and gross corruption, and who had no intention of giving up its position of power even after the democratic elections. In addition, Bouterse and his associates sabotaged government attempts to make peace with the Jungle Commando of Maroon leader Ronnie Brunswijk. “But we will not allow ourselves to be held hostage within our own borders with weapons that we have purchased ourselves,” Venetiaan said during a visit to the Netherlands in 1992.

Zoom in

Ultimately, after insubordination, Bouterse was forced by Venetian to resign his position as army chief. The constitution was also amended, causing the army to lose its position of power. In order to provide the Surinamese president with the requested “backing”, Paramaribo and The Hague had concluded a Framework Treaty initiated by Prime Minister Lubbers, the main aim of which was to protect democracy and the rule of law.

Venetian, however, remained a cautious politician. “Confrontation means one shootout,” he said in 1992 NRC. For example, he then felt that Suriname was “not yet ready” for judicial action against the perpetrators of the December murders. In 1996, just before the elections, he announced an investigation. It only came to this after the turn of the century, under great pressure from relatives. When the December murder trial finally started in 2007, some Surinamese – especially young people – had little interest in it after all these years.

Difficult relationship with the Netherlands

The relationship between Venetian and the Netherlands was a difficult one. He detested the humble attitude (sakafasi) that many Surinamese accepted towards the former white colonizer. And he felt a kinship with black consciousness movements à la Black Power. In protest against the ‘humiliating’ 100 percent drug checks on flights from Paramaribo, he once flatly refused to receive the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation.

His stiff attitude towards the Netherlands dated from his student days in Leiden, when Venetiaan was active in the nationalist movement. After studying mathematics and physics, Venetiaan returned to Suriname, where he became a teacher and later director of the General Secondary School. He stood out as a union leader during the strikes that ended the political career of the legendary NPS leader ‘Jopie’ Pengel in 1969. The fact that he did not join the PNR of nationalist leader Eddy Bruma but the Creole NPS had mainly pragmatic reasons. He could better realize his ideals through the much larger NPS. In 1973, Venetian became Minister of Education in the Arron cabinet, which achieved independence two years later. As minister, he advocated the Surinameseization of Dutch-oriented education programs.

As a black NPS politician, Venetiaan has always been distrusted by supporters of the Hindustani VHP, even when both parties joined forces against Bouterse in the so-called New Front from the 1980s onwards. That distrust was inspired by the persistent ethnic divisions in Suriname. The strongly nationalistic position of Venetian in the run-up to independence in 1975 was also still a factor.

When part of the VHP seceded after the 1996 elections, led by Hindustani businessmen, Bouterse’s NDP still came to power. But the odds turned in 2000, when NDP president Wijdenbosch was forced to resign due to massive street protests against his mismanagement.

His stiff attitude towards the Netherlands dated from his student days in Leiden, when Venetiaan was active in the nationalist movement

Upon his return as president in 2000, Venetiaan was once again faced with the task of restructuring a ruined economy and reducing debt. This succeeded thanks to good policy, increasing income from oil and gold and Dutch support, although the civil service remained far too large. Venetian laid the foundation for economic stability. Dutch aid eventually became unnecessary, because Suriname gained access to the international capital market thanks to its prudent policy.

Venetian did not win the hearts of the Surinamese. There was no effective anti-poverty policy, also due to the poor functioning of a government apparatus that was unable to do much due to widespread clientelism. His distant and rigid governing style also did not help the president.

In order to continue to govern after 2005, Venetiaan entered into a coalition with a Javanese and a Maroon party, the leaders of which had been convicted of a sexual offense and drug transport respectively – the latter was Ronnie Bruswijk. In private he railed against malpractice. But he did not put an end to the corruption in the government’s allocation of building land, to which every Surinamese citizen is entitled, due to coalition interests. That also cost him support.

Generation gap

Moreover, a generation gap emerged. Young voters had had enough of ‘old’ ethnic politics and saw an alternative in Bouterse’s multi-ethnic NDP. In a prescient diplomatic message leaked via WikiLeaks, the American ambassador had already wondered whether “aging political veterans” like Venetians still “have the good PR sense to convince the nation.” The lack of a change of guard among the ‘old’ parties was partly responsible for the election defeat in 2010.

The politician who had worked so selflessly for his country all his life, about which he could also write lyrically under the name ‘Vene’, was unable to recover from that blow. At the inauguration of his successor Bouterse in the Antony Nesty Sports Hall in Paramaribo, Venetiaan had refused to personally hang the chain of office on him, according to tradition. He left that to the speaker of parliament. Venetiaan gave up his seat in parliament at the end of 2013. “I am making way for the young lions and lionesses to take the stage,” he said. Many in his own circles also thought that he should have done this a little earlier.

Yet appreciation for Venetiaan has grown again in recent years – some even felt homesick – when Suriname fell into a deep crisis again under Bouterse’s presidency due to mismanagement and corruption. His party NPS had meanwhile appointed him honorary chairman. Last summer, Venetiaan publicly spoke out against the NPS joining the NDP coalition.

Zoom in

Give a gift





Part





Email the editor