Three years after asking Senegal to prosecute the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, the African Union should ensure that the trial finally begins to move forward. African heads of state will come together in Sirte, Libya on July 1, 2009, for an AU summit.

The African Union should urge the United Nations Security Council to set up a commission of inquiry to document the worst human rights abuses in Somalia, an essential first step in creating justice and accountability.

The United Nations Security Council should make sure that its existing commitments to protect civilians during armed conflict are actually carried out.

Nearly two hundred thousand local people fled their homes when armed militias began to devastate eastern Chad in late 2005. Now, as conditions improve, some are trying to return home. Many find their land has been seized. Others are forced to join one of the paramilitary groups that still roam the countryside. Some face death.

Members of armed paramilitary groups are a serious threat to civilians who fled violence and insecurity and are now returning to their villages. People who have returned to their home regions have been killed, forcibly recruited into paramilitary groups, and threatened with death by armed men who in many cases have seized their land.

The United Nations Security Council should impose sanctions on governments and armed groups for using child soldiers, sexual violence against children, and attacks on schools, and should promote effective prosecution of the commanders responsible.

The United Nations Human Rights Council should ask Senegal to move forward on the trial of the exiled former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré.

More than 30 months after it asked Senegal to prosecute the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, the African Union should ensure that the trial moves forward.