74
Arguments of the representatives
189.
The representatives requested moral damages in the following terms:
a)
given the grave circumstances and violations of basic human rights in
this case, “both those before the Court and the underlying violations,” and the
ongoing indifference of the State to such violations and the consequential
extreme suffering of the victims, moral damages over and above a judgment
of condemnation should be awarded;
b)
the aggravated circumstances of the case that should be taken into
account include: gross violations of the right to life as part of a pattern of
systematic, collective reprisals against civilian maroons; intentional
destruction of the remains of a number of the victims of the massacre and
denial of the fundamental right to conduct the required burials; ongoing
dispossession of traditional lands and resources; the State’s gross indifference
and hostility towards the suffering of the victims; Suriname’s affirmative
obstruction of justice; and the complete failure over an 18-year period to
investigate the massacre, punish those responsible and compensate the
victims;
c)
the victims have suffered and still suffer greatly because of their
inability to comply with fundamental cultural norms, and because “angry
spirits are avenging themselves on the victims and causing them physical and
mental afflictions”;
d)
the victims have been forced “to take up life in a foreign country far
from the context in which [their lives] had been evolving, in a state of
solitude, poverty, and severe physical and psychological distress”; and
e)
the massacre is not history for the victims, it is a burden that each and
every one of them has endured for the past 18 years, made more heavy and
painful by the State’s indifference to their suffering.
Arguments of the State
190. The State’s arguments found in the material damages section (supra
paragraph 184) apply to the matter of moral damages as well.
The Court’s Assessment
191. Moral damage may include suffering and affliction, detriment to very
significant personal values, as well as non-pecuniary alterations to a victim’s living
conditions. Since it is not possible to assign a precise monetary equivalent to nonpecuniary damage, for purposes of comprehensive reparation to victims, the Court
must turn to other alternatives: first, payment of an amount of money or delivery of
goods or services that can be estimated in monetary terms, which the Court will
establish through reasonable application of judicial discretion and equity; and
second, public acts or works that seek, inter alia, to commemorate and dignify
victims, as well as to avoid the repetition of human rights violations.104
104
Cf. Case of the Serrano-Cruz Sisters, supra note 9, para. 156; Case of Plan de Sánchez Massacre.
Reparations, supra note 82, para. 80; and Case of De la Cruz-Flores, supra note 59, para. 155.