This former Dutch colony is host to a synthesis of diverse cultures. Located in the north-west of South-America between Guyana and French Guiana, Suriname, which was once known as Dutch Guiana, is peopled by Maroons, Indians, Amerindians, Indonesians and Creoles. Its population is the result of Dutch and British colonization, and of the exploitation of Suriname’s natural resources. Nowadays investment in tropical forest cleaning provoked mass deforestation in the interior, which has raised the ire of the people who live in those areas such as the Maroons, who are the descendants of African slaves that escaped and built their own community in the middle of the jungle, maintaining a West-African culture. Dutch is the official language although English, Sranang, Tongo, Hindi and Javanese are also spoken. The diversity of the country is also reflected in its religious mix which includes Catholics, Hindus, Muslims and Protestants.

This mixture of cultures has caused political tension, as the political parties are ethnically based, which makes reaching any consensus difficult. Politicians also have to encounter issues of corruption and drug-trafficking, Dési Bouterse, the current President, has been accused by the Netherlands of drug-smuggling in the late 90s. Bouterse led a coup in Suriname in 1980 and was leader of the country throughout the 1980s. In 2010 he was reelected to the Presidency. Bouteres was involved in the ‘December Murders’ in 1982, in which 15 of his political opponents were executed in cold blood. During his military dictatorship he also committed various massacres of Maroons in the interior, such as the Moiwana massacre in 1986, but he has refuted all these accusations and proposed a law which would in effect grant amnesty for all suspects of the December murders.