ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Suriname. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Suriname. Citizens of Suriname can change their government democratically. Political parties largely reflect the cleavages in Suriname's ethnically complex society, a factor contributing to parliamentary gridlock and, in the past, to dictator Desi Bouterse's popularity. The May 2001 death of a labor leader, who was to be the star witness in a trial against former Suriname dictator Desi Bouterse and others accused of 15 political killings, initially appeared to rob the prosecution of key testimony needed to convict the narcotics-running one-time strongman.
