Abstract
Suriname is the only country in the Americas that has not legally recognized the collective rights of indigenous and tribal peoples to the lands and resources they have occupied and used for centuries. According to Surinamese legislation, the state owns all land and natural resources and only those who can show titles that derive from the state, may claim ownership rights. Since indigenous peoples and maroons1 do not possess such titles, they may only claim certain “entitlements” that are subject to the general interest.
I do not think anybody can say: “this land is mine.” Only God can say: “this is mine.” What I want to ask the Minister is: “where is the paper of the government that says that [the land] is yours?” His answer is going to be: “first, ‘the law is the law’ and second, ‘without law there is no order’ […]” That’s what they will say, but I still want to ask this question.
Indigenous villager from Galibi. Personal communication, March 4, 1999
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Notes
See, e.g., Lynda Bell, Andrew Nathan, and Ilan Peleg (eds.), Negotiating Culture and Human Rights (New York: Colombia University Press, 2001).
Carol Smart, Feminism and the Power of Law (London and New York: Routledge, 1989).
Kimberlé Crenshaw et al. (eds.), Critical Race Theory. The Key Writings That Informed the Movement (New York: New Press, 1995).
This is a process that is occurring all over Latin America: A. Brysk, From Tribal Village to Global Village. Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
Peter Meel, “Not a Splendid Isolation. Suriname’s Foreign Affairs,” in R. Hoefte and P. Meel (eds.), 20th Century Suriname. Continuities and Discontinuities in a New World Society (Kingston/Leiden: Ian Randle Publishers/KITLV Press, 2001), 148.
This includes people living in Paramaribo. There is no accurate data on indigenous and maroon people living in their tribal areas. Ellen-Rose Kambel, Indigenous Peoples and Maroons in Suriname (Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, August 2006), 10–11.
Ellen-Rose Kambel, “Resource Conflicts, Gender and Indigenous Rights in Suriname. Local, National and Global Perspectives” (PhD thesis, University of Leiden, 2002), 30–32.
The 1629 Government Order (Ordre van Regieringe), a set of principles to guide Dutch colonial activities, which was valid in Suriname until 1869, explicitly stated that the property rights of the Spanish, Portuguese, and the “Naturals” (indigenous peoples) shall be respected. Ellen-Rose Kambel and Fergus MacKay, The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Maroons in Suriname (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 1999), 32.
A. J. A. Quintus Bosz, “De Rechten van de Bosnegers op de Ontruimde Gronden in het Stuwmeergebied,” in Grepen uit de Surinaamse Rechtshistorie (Paramaribo: Vaco Press [1965] 1993).
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Sector Study: Governance in Suriname (Washington, DC: IDB, 2001), 4.
P. Meel, “Towards a Typology of Suriname Nationalism,” New West Indian Guide 72, nos. 3–4 (1998): 270.
W. Heilbron, “Staatsvorming en politieke cultuur in Suriname na de Tweede Wereldoorlog,” SWI Forum 5, no. 2 (1988): 64.
J. Buddingh’, Geschiedenis van Suriname (Zeist: Het Spectrum, 1995), 316.
For a further discussion of the Saramaka case, see Fergus MacKay, “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Suriname: A Human Rights Perspective,” in M. Forte (ed.), Indigenous Resurgence in the Contemporary Caribbean. Amerindian Survival and Revival (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 155–173.
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© 2007 Jean Besson and Janet Momsen
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Kambel, ER. (2007). Land, Development, and Indigenous Rights in Suriname: The Role of International Human Rights Law. In: Besson, J., Momsen, J. (eds) Caribbean Land and Development Revisited. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230605046_6
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