Security guards of Surinamese vice president Ronnie Brunswijk have taken the phone from a journalist from De Ware Tijd, the largest newspaper in Suriname, in a heavy-handed manner. The journalist, Jason Pinas, wanted to take pictures of the vice president, but was then held in a stranglehold by the security personnel and pushed to the ground, he told the website Starnieuws. He has filed a report.
The incident happened in front of the parliament building in the Surinamese capital Paramaribo. Pinas photographed the vice president there after he got into his car. Brunswijk was not pleased with this and a disagreement arose. Pinas was grabbed by a group of the vice president’s security officers. They eventually took his phone too.
The Surinamese Association of Journalists (SVJ) speaks of “cowardly abuse” about which the association is “shocked, indignant, but above all deeply disappointed”. According to SVJ chairman Carla Boetius, there is a violation of press freedom and democracy in Suriname.
‘Good manners’
After the incident, Pinas was taken to the emergency room of the Academic Hospital in Paramaribo for medical treatment. He told local media hours after the incident that he still had pain in his neck, head and arm.
“Even if I hadn’t been allowed to take a photo, it would still be a matter of decency for the vice president to behave properly,” says the reporter, who also had a clash with the vice president earlier this year. Brunswijk then did not want to answer a question from Pinas during a press conference.
Code of ethics
In response to the incident, the vice president stated that he values press freedom, but that journalists know how to behave. “What happened has happened. We have to be honest. Journalists also have their code of ethics,” he said in parliament. According to Brunswijk, reporters should not get too close, because then security people no longer know who the journalist is.
The vice president stated that Pinas had come up to his car to take a picture. Brunswijk then reportedly asked the journalist what he was doing there. “Security caught the man and took him away,” he added. The vice president also says he is not responsible for the actions of his security officers.
Brunswijk, 60, has been vice president of Suriname for a year and a half. He is a controversial figure. In the early 1980s, the current vice president was the personal bodyguard of Desi Bouterse, who was then commander of the army. However, the two quarreled, after which Brunswijk waged a bloody battle against his former boss in the Interior War as leader of the Jungle Command.
Brunswijk has been convicted of drug trafficking in both the Netherlands and France. In Suriname, Brunswijk has often been involved in scandal and associated with violence. As a parliamentarian, for example, in 2007 he was personally involved in a fight in the National Assembly, the parliament of Suriname.
The vice president is also active as a businessman: he owns a number of gold mines and has built a football stadium that he named after himself. Brunswijk also owns the football club Inter Moengotapoe, where, to the surprise of many, he stepped onto the field in September wearing a captain’s armband, having put himself in the starting lineup.