(Dakar, Senegal – January 26) A coalition of human rights groups today
urged a Senegalese court to arrest the former dictator of Chad, Hissein
Habre.
|
|
"Hissein Habre is Africa's Pinochet. By bringing him to justice, Senegal can take an historic step towards ending the cycle of impunity that has plagued the continent."
|
Reed Brody
Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch
|
|
In a criminal complaint filed in Dakar on behalf of hundreds of victims
of torture, political murder and "disappearances," Human Rights Watch,
together with Chadian and Senegalese activists, accused Habre of crimes
against humanity and torture during his 1982-1990 rule. Habre has lived
in Senegal since he was deposed in December 1990 by current president
Idriss Deby.
"Hissein Habre is Africa's Pinochet," said Reed Brody, Advocacy Director
of Human Rights Watch. "By bringing him to justice, Senegal can take an
historic step towards ending the cycle of impunity that has plagued the
continent." Brody noted that Senegal was the first country to ratify
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In papers presented to an investigating judge in Dakar, the groups
provided details of 97 cases of political killings, 142 cases of torture
and 100 cases of "disappearance." Nine individual Chadians are named
as private plaintiffs, as is the Chadian Association of Victims of
Political Repression and Crime which represents 792 victims of Habre's
brutality.
"This is the first case of African victims asking the court of another
African country to prosecute a former African dictator," said Alioune
Tine of the Dakar-based African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights
(RADDHO). "This prosecution cannot only provide some justice to Habre's
thousands of victims, but help put an end to the routine practice of the
worst tyrants to move into comfortable exile next door."
Joining Human Rights Watch in today's actions were RADDHO, the Chadian
Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, the Chadian
League for Human Rights (LTDH), the National Organization for Human
Rights (Senegal), the London-based Interights, the International
Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the French organization
Agir Ensemble.
Habre, now 57 years old, took power in the former French colony of Chad
in 1982, overthrowing the government of Goukouni Wedeye. Habre's
one-party regime was marked by widespread abuse. He periodically
targeted various ethnic groups such as the Hadjerai (1987) and the
Zaghawa (1989) killing and arresting members en masse under the
pretext that they posed a threat to the regime. Just before Habre fled
in 1990, his Presidential Guard allegedly killed more than 300 political
prisoners who had been secretly detained at the President's headquarters
in the capital, N'Djamena.
The exact number of Habre's victims is not known. A truth commission
established by the Deby government accused Habre's government of 40,000
political murders and 200,000 cases of torture. Most were carried out by
his dreaded secret police, the National Security Service (Direction de
la Documentation et de la Sécurité - DDS) composed of 8,000 agents.
The truth commission also accused Habre of taking some seven billion CFA
francs (11.6 million dollars) with him when he fled to Senegal. In 1998,
Chad's then Justice Minister Limane Mahamat said that Chad would seek
Habre's extradition from Senegal, but no formal request was made. Chad
did institute a successful lawsuit in Senegal to recover the airplane in
which Habre fled.
The United States and France supported Habre throughout his rule, seeing
him as a bulwark against Libya's Moemmar Khadaffi. Under President
Ronald Reagan, the U.S. gave covert CIA paramilitary support to help
Habre take power in order, according to Secretary of State Alexander
Haig, to "bloody Khadaffi's nose." The U.S later provided Habre with
tens of millions of dollars per year as well as military intelligence
information.
The organizations presented the sworn testimony of two former prisoners
who were ordered by the DDS to dig mass graves to bury Habre's
opponents. In addition to those killed, many prisoners died of
starvation, malaria or dysentery. Torture was widespread in Habre's
detention centers. One frequent method, suffered by two of the
plaintiffs in today's action, was the "Arbatachar," in which a
prisoner's four limbs were tied together behind his back, leading to
loss of circulation and paralysis. Prisoners were also subject to
electric shocks, drownings and beatings. In their court papers, the
groups cited Senegal's obligations under international law to prosecute
those accused of crimes against humanity. It also invoked the
Senegalese statute on torture as well as the 1984 United Nations
Convention against Torture, which Senegal ratified in 1987 and which
obliges states to either prosecute or extradite alleged torturers who
enter its territory. This Convention was the basis for Britain's
detention of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Human Rights Watch took part in the Pinochet case in Britain's House of
Lords and has since campaigned to bring other former tyrants to justice.
Among other human rights criminals now in exile, the group cited
Uganda's Idi Amin currently living in Saudi Arabia, Haiti's Raul Cedras
in Panama, Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner in Brazil and Haiti's death
squad leader Emmanuel "Toto" Constant in the United States. When
Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who has lived in Zimbabwe
since 1991, visited South Africa in November 1999 for medical treatment
Human Rights Watch campaigned unsuccessfully for his arrest.
The Habre investigation began when the Chadian Association for the
Promotion and Defense of Human Rights requested Human Rights Watch's
assistance. Two lawyers with the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program
visited Chad in July-August 1999 to gather evidence. In
November-December 1999, Human Rights Watch consultant Pascale Kambale
and RADDHO director Alioune Tine returned to Chad to finish the
investigation and arrange today's criminal complaint, which was prepared
with the assistance of the FIDH.
|