5. The petition states with respect to the massacre and destruction at the village of Moiwana, which is the principal subject of the petition, that at the beginning of November 1986 the military commenced a “cleansing” operation in Eastern Suriname, and ordered the civilian population to evacuate the area. For various reasons many did not leave. The operation against the village of Moiwana and its outlying areas began, according to the petition, on November 29, 1986, and was carried out by a military unit made up of specially-trained men divided into three groups, one of which launched a direct attack on the village. This action started with the burning of the house belonging to the rebel leader, Brunswick, and continued with the shooting of nearly all the inhabitants, after which the village was burned. At the same time the soldiers blew up a bus that was approaching, killing all the occupants. After these events were over 40 people were dead, victims of extrajudicial execution by government troops. Some of the corpses that were taken to the morgue in Alfonsdorp were incinerated next to the morgue building. Toward the end of November 1986, the Government denied having carried out any operations in the area. 6. According to the petition, in 1989 the Civil Police attempted to carry out an investigation led by Police Inspector Herman E. Gooding, who was murdered on August 4, 1990, after meeting with the Deputy Commander of the Military Police, as documented in the report by the IACHR 3. His corpse was found next to the office of Commander-in-Chief Bouterse. Several soldiers were arrested by the Civil Police shortly after the Moiwana massacre, but were released after the police were besieged by 30 armed Military Policemen acting on the orders of Commander-inChief Bouterse. 7. In 1992, the Parliament of Suriname adopted a retroactive Amnesty Law that canceled all proceedings related to human rights violations committed from 1985 to 1991, except for crimes against humanity defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1950 (Nuremberg Principles). According to the petitioners, the foregoing means that the aforesaid Amnesty Law does not apply to the crimes of Moiwana. 8. On the question of the law, the petition alleges violation by the Government of Suriname of Articles I, right to life and personal security; VII, right to protection for mothers and children; IX, right to inviolability of the home; and XXIII, right to property of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (hereinafter the “American Declaration”); Articles 8 (1), right to a fair trial; and 25(1) and 25(2), right to judicial protection of the American Convention on Human Rights. The petition further alleges violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949; and Articles 4 and 13 of the Protocol Additional to the forenamed convention, Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 1978, and of international criminal law related to the prohibition and punishment of crimes against humanity. 9. The petitioner pleads exception to the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies based on the grounds contained in Article 37(2)(b) and (c) of the Regulations of the IACHR, which refer, respectively, to denial of access to the remedies under domestic law or prevention from exhausting them, and to unwarranted delay in rendering a final judgment. 10. The petitioners claim that the Attorney General and the President of the Court are the only ones who could have ordered an investigation and filed criminal charges against those responsible, but that neither of them had opened a meaningful investigation into the Moiwana massacre, nor adopted any measures either to implement the recommendations that the Commission made in five decisions that it published in its 1989 Annual Report, or against the mass repression inflicted by the Army in 1986 in the village of Moiwana and other locations against Maroons and Amerindians, which led to their exile en masse in French Guyana and Paramaribo. The petitioner alleges that the State has provided no compensation at all to any of the victims, be they the residents of the village of Moiwana or the refugees, 10,000 of whom were still living in refugee camps near St. Laurent, in French Guyana at the time the petition was lodged. 3 IACHR 1990-91 Annual Report, p. 497-98. 2