1980 Surinamese coup d'état

The Surinamese coup d'état of 1980, usually referred to as the Sergeants' Coup (Dutch: De Sergeantencoup), occurred on 25 February 1980, when a group of 16 sergeants (Dutch: groep van zestien) led by Dési Bouterse overthrew the government of Prime Minister Henck Arron with a violent coup d'état. This marked the beginning of the military dictatorship that dominated Suriname from 1980 until 1991. The dictatorship featured the presence of an evening curfew, the lack of freedom of press, a ban on political parties (from 1985), a restriction on the freedom of assembly, a high level of government corruption and the summary executions of political opponents.

President Johan Ferrier was eventually forced out of office in August 1980, and several months after the coup d'état by Bouterse most of the political authority transferred to the military leadership. From then until 1988, the titular Presidents were essentially army-installed by Bouterse, who ruled as a de facto leader with few practical checks on his power.

On 8 December 1982, a group of fifteen academics, journalists, lawyers, union leaders, and military officials, who opposed the military rule in Suriname were snatched from their beds and brought to Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo where they were tortured and executed by Bouterse's soldiers. Fourteen of those executed were Surinamese; journalist Frank Wijngaarde () was a Dutch national. The events are known as the December murders.

In 1986 Bouterse's soldiers killed at least 39 citizens, mostly children and women, of the Maroon village of Moiwana, as part of the Suriname Guerrilla War which was fought between the soldiers of Bouterse and the Jungle Commando led by Ronnie Brunswijk.

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