Amsterdam meets the Wild West in Paramaribo. Inhabitants are proud of their multi-ethnicity and the fact that they live in a city where mosques and synagogues play happy neighbors. In 2002 the historical inner city was listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
„Our“ driver picks us up at the hotel at 09.00h sharp, drives us with a small detour through a typical native neighborhood to the airport. The handlers are waiting there already and within 30 minutes we sit in the airplane ready to taxi. Nice to have some good service – we will never complain about the French again!
A short one hour flight takes us across huge rain-forests to Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. The airport is „very basic“ and we have to wait for fuel for quite a while. The drive to the hotel takes us about one hour and takes us through some pretty poor quarters.
After a short lunch at the hotel, we decide to do some sightseeing in the city center. We start off at the Fort Zeelandia, walk along the Waterkant, see the Craft Market (and stay out of it) and admire the old wooden Dutch buildings – the World Heritage Site. Unfortunately everything is more or less falling apart and memories of Zanzibar are coming back. The place is a dump! The mosque and the synagogue are peacefully next to each other and the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral down the road is getting renovated.
Back in the hotel, we jump quickly into the pool and decide to have dinner at the restaurant (run by a Dutch lady) within the Fort.
Suriname’s earliest inhabitants were the Surinen Indians, after whom the country is named. By the 16th century they had been supplanted by other South American Indians. Spain explored Suriname in 1593, but by 1602 the Dutch began to settle the land, followed by the English. The English transferred sovereignty to the Dutch in 1667 (the Treaty of Breda) in exchange for New Amsterdam (New York). Colonization was confined to a narrow coastal strip, and until the abolition of slavery in 1863, African slaves furnished the labor for the coffee and sugarcane plantations. Escaped African slaves fled into the interior, reconstituted their western African culture, and came to be called “Bush Negroes” by the Dutch. After 1870, East Indian laborers were imported from British India and Javanese from the Dutch East Indies.
Known as Dutch Guiana, the colony was integrated into the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1948. Two years later Dutch Guiana was granted home rule, except for foreign affairs and defense. After race rioting over unemployment and inflation, the Netherlands granted Suriname complete independence on Nov. 25, 1975. A coup d’état in 1980 brought military rule. During much of the 1980s, Suriname was under the repressive control of Lieut. Col. Dési Bouterse. The Netherlands stopped all aid in 1982 when Suriname soldiers killed 15 journalists, politicians, lawyers, and union officials. Defense spending increased significantly, and the economy suffered. A guerrilla insurgency by the Jungle Commando (a Bush Negro guerrilla group) threatened to destabilize the country and was harshly suppressed by Bouterse. Free elections were held on May 25, 1991, depriving the military of much of its political power. In 1992 a peace treaty was signed between the government and several guerrilla groups. In March 1997, the president announced new economic measures, including eliminating import tariffs on most basic goods, coupled with strict price controls. Later that year, the Netherlands said it would prosecute Bouterse for cocaine trafficking.
Public discontent over the 70% inflation rate prompted President Jules Wijdenbosch to hold elections in May 2000, a year ahead of schedule. The New Front for Democracy and Development, a coalition led by former president Ronald Venetiaan, won the election. Venetiaan was reelected in Aug. 2005.
In May 2006, torrential flooding left more than 20,000 homeless.
In July 2007, a United Nations tribunal settled a long-simmering maritime dispute between Suriname and Guyana. The UN redrew the maritime border to give both countries access to an area potentially rich in oil deposits.
