Suriname commemorates Javanese immigration

Suriname commemorates Javanese immigration

Agence France-Presse, Paramaribo

The South American nation of Suriname has been marking 115 years since immigrants started arriving from Indonesia with a visit by a top provincial governor.

Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, governor of Yogyakarta province, has laid wreaths with Suriname's President Ronald Venetiaan at a monument to Javanese immigrants in Paramaribo and members of the Javanese community have sung and danced across the country to mark the anniversary.

"In our new relations with Indonesia, our peoples have the task to build better relations with the descendants", Venetiaan stated. The sultan, who was to leave on Tuesday, said he wanted to intensify cultural and educational relations.

Suriname and Indonesia are former Dutch colonies. Suriname has an estimated 70,000 people of Javanese origin.

After the abolition of slavery, Dutch plantation owners started in 1890 to import Indonesian laborers to work on sugar, coffee and cotton plantations. Most of the 33,000 laborers came from Yogyakarta province.

Suriname has 490.000 inhabitants of Indian, Chinese, Javanese, European and African descent.