Suriname History

Suriname - national flag

The flag was officially adopted in 1975. It combines the colors of the country's political party flags: green for the National Party and fertility, red for the Hindu party and progress and white for the People's Party, justice and freedom. The star stands for unity, its yellow color for sacrifice.

• Countryaah: What does the flag of Suriname look like? Follow this link, then you will see the image in PNG format and flag meaning description about this country.

Suriname - history

When the first Europeans arrived in 1500, the area was inhabited by Caribbean and Arawaks. In the early 1600's. the Dutch set up trading posts on the coast, but it was not until 1651 that the first permanent settlements were founded by the British. The area came in 1667 under Holland, which retained control except 1799-1802 and 1804-15, when it was under Great Britain. In the second half of the 1600's. Hundreds of plantations were laid out and the colony became a major sugar producer, based on slaves imported from Africa. From the end of the 1600's. established runaway slaves independent communities (see maroons) in the hard-to-reach hinterland. The Dutch recognized the societies in 1761 and entered into agreements with several of them: In return for internal self-determination, future runaway slaves were to be returned to the Dutch. Slavery was abolished in 1863, after which thousands of contract workers were imported from India and Java in particular.

• AbbreviationFinder: Check three-letter abbreviation for each country in the world, such as SUR which represents the official name of Suriname.

After World War II, the first political parties were formed, mainly based on ethnicity. Suriname gained autonomy in 1954. After independence in 1975, more than 10% of the population left the country despite massive financial support from the Netherlands. An alliance of parties representing the Creoles and the Indian population held power until 1980, when the military, led by Dési Bouterse,took power in a coup. From 1986, Suriname's Liberation Army (SLA), which found support in various groups of maroons, waged guerrilla warfare against the regime. Suriname got a new constitution in 1987, and a civilian government came to power; however, civil war-like conditions prevailed until 1992, when an agreement with the SLA came into being. In 1996, Jules Wijdenbosch (b. 1941) from the Bouterse National Democratic Party was elected president.

In the late 1990's, President Jules Wijdenbosch (b. 1941) and his adviser, the former dictator of the country, Dési Bouterse, became unpopular due to renewed crisis and corruption. Bouterse was sentenced in 1999 by a Dutch court to 11 years in prison for cocaine trafficking, a sentence that did not deprive him of his liberty, but which to some extent stabbed him. With Ronald Venetiaan (b. 1936) as the leader from 2000 of a coalition government of the Labor Party and the large ethnic groups of blacks, Indians and Indonesians, Suriname achieved for the first time the predicate "free country". However, the country remains dependent on the assistance of the former colonial power Holland. President Venetiaan was re-elected in 2005. Economic policy focused on getting the economy back on track; the precautions, which included government cuts and tax increases; the policy was not popular, but inflation came under control and the economic situation improved. In 2010, former dictator Desiré Bouterse won the presidential election, leading to tensions in relations with the Netherlands.

In 2004, the UN set up a tribunal to decide a border issue with French Guiana regarding. an ocean area where the subsoil may contain oil.