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Vol. 31, Issue 50 QUEENS/LONG ISLAND/BRONX/MANHATTAN December 11-17, 2020
SEDITION
CHARGES
LIKELY
Former Suriname President
Bouterse could face new
legal challenges
By Bert Wilkinson
Clear signs are emerging
that authorities in the Caribbean
Community nation of
Suriname are preparing to
bring sedition-related charges
against former military strongman
and two-time former president
Desi Bouterse for recent
remarks that officials say most
definitely threatened the peace
in the country.
The moves came a week after
Bouterse made some surprising
comments at a National Democratic
Party (NDP) forum at
which he said that some of the
ills the society are seeing under
the administration of President
Chan Santokhi can only be
dealt with through alternative
means. “You will only be able
to remove these things with
weapons,” Bouterse told a rally
after appearing at a court tribunal
for the very first time
during 12 years of hearings
into the December 1982 murders
of 15 government opponents
while he was the military
strongman.
Large sections of the society
erupted and called for his head
after the remarks were reported,
recalling the fact that there
were two military coups while
Bouterse was army leader and
military strongman — in February
1980 and on Christmas
Eve 1980. Such utterances from
persons of a lesser track record
than Bouterse, 75, might have
been largely ignored, but the
coalition appears to me grasping
at every opportunity to
weaken his influence and that
of the NDP in time for the 2025
elections and keep the fourparty
coalition together as the
government is struggling to
come to grips with an economy
that is in a tailspin.
On Tuesday of this week,
Santokhi, a former police
chief and justice minister,
announced that cabinet had
established a special sub committee
to review the remarks
and that government had also
asked the state prosecutor’s
office to officially launch a
Free food in refrigerator
Central Brooklyn Lions stock a refrigerator with free food for residents. Lion Jerusha
Jacobs See story on Page 14
Black leaders start COVID task force
By Nelson A. King
Claiming that America
is currently ill-prepared
and ill-equipped to deliver
any of the COVID-19 vaccines
to Black communities,
Black leaders have
announced the creation of
a task force in New York to
ensure the vaccine is readily
accessible to Black New Yorkers
and to address concerns
in Black communities about
the safety and efficacy of the
COVID-19 vaccine.
“The nonprofit community,
as well as relevant stakeholders,
will be part of this process,”
said Jennifer Jones Austin,
chief executive officer and
executive director of the Federation
of Protestant Welfare
Agencies (FPWA). “Our goal is
to make this process and plan
as comprehensive and useful
as possible. Our goal here is to
save lives.”
Marc Morial, president and
chief executive officer of the
National Urban League, said:
“We chose New York for the
Task Force because it went
from being the epicenter of
the COVID-19 crisis to the
nation’s leader in demonstrating
how best to combat the
pandemic.
“The foresight and fortitude
shown by the state’s governor
and our non-profit community,
who have been doing
the work and out front on the
issue of health care inequity,
was just as critical then as it is
now,” he added.
Nina Turner, former Bernie
Sanders presidential campaign
co-chair and Amare
public affairs founder, said the
task force is “going to push an
aggressive campaign to spread
the word about the importance
of the vaccine.
Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 12
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