## Facts

- In November 1986, during Suriname’s internal armed conflict, Surinamese armed forces attacked Moiwana Village, a N’djuka Maroon community, killing more than 40 people and destroying the village.
- Survivors fled into the forest and then lived for years in internal displacement or exile.
- The community’s cultural and spiritual practices require funerary rites connected to ancestral land; inability to recover remains and perform rites caused sustained psychological and spiritual suffering.
- For years after Suriname accepted the American Convention’s obligations and the Court’s jurisdiction (1987), the State did not conduct an effective investigation, prosecute or punish those responsible, or provide adequate redress.
- The prolonged displacement, continuing fear, and lack of State protection prevented meaningful return and use of traditional lands.
- Proceedings were brought in the Inter-American system, and Suriname raised a temporal-jurisdiction objection based on the 1986 massacre predating ratification and acceptance of jurisdiction.

## Issues

1. Whether the Court had temporal jurisdiction where the massacre predated ratification, but the State’s failure to investigate, prosecute, punish, and provide redress continued afterward.
2. Whether Suriname violated the rights to humane treatment, freedom of movement and residence, property, and judicial guarantees and protection, in relation to the duty to respect and ensure rights.
3. What reparations were required for continuing harms to the community, including accountability measures, land-related measures, return, and symbolic relief.

## Decision

- The Court rejected Suriname’s preliminary objections, including lack of temporal jurisdiction, treating post-ratification omissions and resulting harms as continuing violations.
- The Court found Suriname internationally responsible for violating:
  - Article 5(1) (humane treatment), in relation to Article 1(1).
  - Article 22 (freedom of movement and residence), in relation to Article 1(1).
  - Article 21 (property), in relation to Article 1(1).
  - Articles 8(1) and 25 (judicial guarantees and judicial protection), in relation to Article 1(1).
- The Court ordered reparations including monetary compensation, effective investigation and prosecution, measures to secure the community’s traditional lands, facilitation of safe return, and symbolic measures; it also treated the judgment itself as a form of reparation.

## Legal Principles

- A State’s continuing failure, after ratification, to investigate and provide remedies for serious human rights abuses can constitute an autonomous continuing violation within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction.
- Severe and prolonged psychological and culturally grounded suffering linked to displacement, impunity, and inability to complete funerary rites may violate the right to humane treatment.
- Sustained displacement attributable to State omission—where the State fails to provide security and conditions for safe, voluntary return—may violate freedom of movement and residence.
- Article 21 protects the communal property interests of Indigenous and tribal communities; failure to recognize, secure, and enable enjoyment of traditional lands can violate the right to property.
- Articles 8(1) and 25 require effective investigation and access to remedies; entrenched impunity for grave violations can itself breach fair-trial and judicial-protection obligations.
- Reparations may combine compensation with measures of satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition, land demarcation/titling measures, and concrete steps toward accountability.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Suriname’s post-ratification impunity and failure to secure return and communal land rights produced continuing violations of humane treatment, movement, property, and judicial protection, and it ordered broad reparations centered on accountability, land security, return, compensation, and public acknowledgment.


Moiwana Cmty. v. Suriname, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 124 (2005)