Former Chad President on Trial for Crimes

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Hissène Habré, the former president of the northern African nation of Chad, is now on trial in a special court in Senegal, accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture.

Habré ruled the desert country from 1982 to 1990, when he was deposed by Idriss Déby Itno, the current president.

The irony is that Habré was a protégé of France, the former colonial power, and the United States. They had both provided him with weapons to fight his neighour, Libya, then an anti-western hotbed involved with terrorism.

Habré was seen as a bulwark against Moammar Gadhafi, who had expansionist designs on northern Chad and tried to conquer the region.

The trouble was that Habré also used the weapons against his own people. A National Truth Commission created after his overthrow said that more than 40,000 people were killed or left to die, and that about 200,000 were imprisoned, and often tortured, in his network of jails.

His government periodically targeted civilian populations, including various ethnic groups such as Chadian Arabs, the Hadjerai, and the Zaghawa, killing and arresting group members when it was perceived that their leaders posed a threat to Habré’s rule.

Yet for the past quarter-century he was living a comfortable existence, thanks to his looting of Chad’s treasury when he fled, in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. But the Senegalese government has finally been shamed into arresting Habré and putting him on trial.

Habré was first indicted by a Senegalese judge in 2000, but for the next 12 years the government of former President Abdoulaye Wade did little to enforce the order.

It was only in 2012, when Macky Sall became president of Senegal and the International Court of Justice demanded that Senegal prosecute or extradite Habré, based on the fact that Senegal had breached the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture by ignoring charges against Habré, that progress was finally made.

His trial is taking place before the Extraordinary African Chambers, inaugurated by Senegal and the African Union in February 2013 to prosecute the “person or persons” most responsible for international crimes committed in Chad between 1982 and 1990, the period when Habré ruled the country.

The African Union had in 2006 called on Senegal to prosecute Habré “on behalf of Africa.”

Habré’s trial is the first in the world in which the courts of one country prosecute the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes, under the concept of “universal jurisdiction.” It means that despots cannot expect to hide from their crimes by fleeing the country where they were committed.

Victims are permitted to participate in proceedings as civil parties, represented by legal counsel.

More than 4,000 victims have registered, with the help of Human Rights Watch and other groups.

Habré has denounced his trial as a farce staged by “African traitors” and “servants of America,” and refuses to cooperate, so the proceedings have been postponed until September -- but at least he is now facing justice for his crimes.