Hugo Jabini

Hugo Jabini is a Saramaka politician and environmental leader from Suriname. In 1998 he became the spokesman of the Association of Saamaka Authorities (Dutch acronym VSG). In 2007 he and Wanze Eduards were part of the VSG team that won an landrights lawsuit against the Surinamese government in international court. For their work in the landrights struggle they shared the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009. From 2010 to 2015 Jabini was a member of the Surinamese National Assembly, as part of the National Democratic Party (NDP).

Biography

Jabini is from village of Tutubuka in the district Boven Suriname. Both his mother and his grandfather were captains. In 2010 he graduated from the Anton de Kom University[1] after a comparative law study comparing Surinamese and Saamaka land rights protections.[2][3]

In 1998 Jabini became spokesman of the Association of Saamaka Authorities (Dutch acronym VSG),[2] an organization in which 61 Saamaka villages worked together in the struggle for Indigenous land rights. These rights were being threatened by industrial mining and logging.[4] On November 28, 2007, Jabini and Wanze Eduards, also of the VSG, won a lawsuit against the state of Suriname that they had filed of behalf of the Saramaka people at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.[5][6] For their work on the land rights struggle the two men were jointly awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009.[1]

In 2010 Jabini was elected member of the Surinamese National Assembly as part of the NDP slate of candidates.[7] He was also chosen from among fifteen candidates as a member of Parliamentarians for Global Action. In 2015 Jabini was not included on the NDP's candidate list for the general election. He was not given a reason for this change. Earlier, during the budget development process he had offered the critique that the landrights matters had still not been resolved,[8] and that the government was still giving out natural resource extraction concessions in Saamaka territory.[9]

References
  1. Goldman Prize, Wanze Eduards & Hugo Jabini, 2009
  2. Christine F. Samsom, His/Her Tori over grondenrechten in Suriname, 2014
  3. AdeKUS, Het Surinaams versus het Saramakaans rechtsysteem: een rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek betreffende rechten op de grond, 2014
  4. "Both ENDS: Wat verwacht VSG uit Suriname van Rio+20?".
  5. Starnieuws, Surinaamse staat onder druk om Saramakka-vonnis, March 24, 2010
  6. Merel de Koning, Vechten voor grond, One World, November 29, 2017
  7. DNA, Gewezen leden 2010 - 2015
  8. Starnieuws, Jabini weet niet waarom hij niet gekandideerd is, April 8, 2015
  9. Suriname Herald, Hugo Jabini ontevreden over aanpak grondrechtenvraagstuk, February 23, 2015
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