Former Surinamese army leader and former president Desi Bouterse has died at the age of 79.
Bouterse had been on the run since January 2024 after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December 2023 for his leading role in the December murders of 1982 in which fifteen prominent Surinamese people died.
The ex-army leader is said to have died at his hiding place after a short illness.
Bouterse also has a past in Meppel. In the early 1970s he was an important player at the Alcides basketball club. The stories from that time are in stark contrast to the events of twelve years later during the December murders.
Bouterse plays for the Alcides basketball club, which we now know as the Red Giants in Meppel. He was currently stationed at the barracks in Havelte. Pepijn Reeser writes about this time in the book Desi Bouterse: A Surinamese tragedy.
It can be read: “From the first match it is clear that Alcides has a player of premier league level.” And one of the matches is described as: “On Friday evening, MSC was only able to maintain the illusion of being a match for Alcides’ basketball team for eleven minutes. Desi Bouterse made the match for Alcides and became top scorer with 36 points, with which he earned the lion’s share of the 16-58 victory that the team ultimately achieved.”
It is said about him that ‘he was a very nice basketball player’, ‘played attractively’ and ‘stood head and shoulders above the Meppel average.’ Partly thanks to Boutserse, the club from Meppel is promoted to the national division.
After his promotion, Bouterse moved with his family and stopped working at Alcides. The team notices this the following year. “Alcides had no business playing at national level without Bouterse.” Alcides is relegated.
In the mid-1970s, Bouterse moved back to Suriname from the Netherlands. There he committed a coup together with other soldiers in 1980. He silenced critics of his policy in a gruesome manner during the night of December 7 to 8.
Sixteen men, including journalists, lawyers and trade union leaders, are arrested. They are tortured and killed; only one person survives the atrocities that later become known as the December murders.
In December 2023, the judge will sentence him to twenty years in prison. Bouterse had to report to prison at the beginning of this year to serve his sentence, but instead he fled and had been missing ever since.