Updated November 2007

After nearly ten years of struggle and a prolonged legal campaign, the N'djuka Maroon community of Moiwana won a landmark victory against brutal government oppression.

The community's legal campaign and its victory, supported throughout by the Forest Peoples Programme's Legal and Human Rights Programme, has given heart to other victims of past injustices in Suriname and beyond.

Details below, in date order

• Final Written Argument of the Victims in the Case of Moiwana Village (pdf).
  The document contains the final written arguments of the Victims and was submitted to the Inter-American Court on 7 October 2004
  
  
• Full text of the judgment by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights:
  Case of Moiwana Village v. Suriname (pdf)
  Judgment of June 15, 2005
  

• The article below, issued by Reuters News Service, provides an explanation of the legal case, as at
  August 16, 2005
  
  
• FPP Summary of the Operative Points of the judgment
  August 2005
  
  
• Follow-up, 30 November 2005:
  Surviving relatives of 39 Maroon people killed in Suriname's Moiwana village massacre have returned to their birthplace for the first time since the 1986 killings for a memorial service. Article issued by Reuters News Service
  
  
• Inter-American Court of Human Rights dismisses Suriname's request for interpretation in the Case of Moiwana Village (pdf)
  February 2006



• Separate opinion of Judge Cançado-Trindade on Suriname's request for interpretation (pdf)
  February 2006



• Inter-American Court of Human Rights issues its observations and orders as part of monitoring Suriname's compliance with its 2005 judgment in the Case of Moiwana Village v. Suriname (pdf)
  November 2007
  

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Rights court orders Suriname massacre compensation
16 Aug 2005 03:03:19 GMT
Source: Reuters

PARAMARIBO, Suriname, Aug 15 (Reuters) - An international rights court has ordered Suriname to pay nearly $3 million in compensation to survivors of a 1986 massacre during the country's guerrilla war, according to court documents and local rights groups.

More than 40 men, women and children were killed in November 1986 when members of Suriname's armed forces attacked the N'djuka Maroon village of Moiwana. Witnesses at the time said soldiers rounded up villagers during a search for suspected rebels.

In a ruling made public on Monday, the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Suriname to pay $13,000 to each of the 130 survivors for material and moral damages, plus legal costs, according to a copy of the decision obtained by Reuters.

The government must also establish a $1.2 million development fund for health, housing and educational programs for Moiwana residents and investigate and prosecute those responsible for the deaths, the court said.

No one has been prosecuted or punished for the attack on the village and the survivors were forced to flee into exile in French Guyana or internal displacement in the former Dutch colony.

The government of military strongman Desi Bouterse at the time denied any involvement in a civilian massacre although he acknowledged ordering an operation in the village.

Hundreds of mainly Maroon villagers were killed in Suriname's jungle war which began in 1986 as an uprising against Bouterse. He would later allow elections and the new government reached a truce with the rebels in August 1992.

During the conflict, many bush villages were razed by the army for harboring suspected rebels.

A police inspector in charge of the criminal investigation was killed in 1990 and police halted their probe. The court said there was evidence the Bouterse government was involved in obstructing the investigation into the Moiwana village deaths.