Former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré has been found guilty by a Dakar court of crimes against humanity, rape, and sexual slavery. Habré’s trial marked the first of an ex-leader by an African Union-backed court in another African nation. Rights groups say Habré was responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people after seizing power in 1982, the Council on Foreign Relations notes.
Cheers erupted in the Senegalese courtroom as the Extraordinary African Chambers convicted Habré of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison, The Washington Post adds.
“This verdict sends a powerful message that the days when tyrants could brutalize their people, pillage their treasury and escape abroad to a life of luxury are coming to an end,” said a statement by Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, who has pursued the case since 2000.
Suleyman Guengueng [see film above], a political prisoner during the Habré years who documented the abuses he saw while in detention, was in the courtroom to hear the verdict and said he hoped the trial would send a message to dictators around the world, as well as to their victims, The Times reports.
“To all the dictators violating human rights in the world, this can happen,” Mr. Guengueng said. “To all their victims, don’t shut your mouth. Open your mouth.”
As the verdict was announced, Jacqueline Moudeina and Delphine Djiraibe, two formidable Chadian lawyers who have worked together on this case for nearly twenty years, clung to each other in relief, according to one observer.
The head of the Chadian Association for Human Rights, Djiraibe (left), convinced human rights advocates in 1999 to help the victims pursue Habré, who had fled to Senegal. A former Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, Djiraibe is a senior human rights lawyer and chief attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, a NED grantee based in N’djamena that she founded in 2006 to provide Chad’s poor with access to justice and hold the government and extractive industries accountable for harm to local populations and the environment.
The successful resolution of the trial of the former dictator marks a significant step forward in holding high-profile human rights abusers to account in Africa, experts and campaigners tell The Guardian:
Howard Varney, a South African human rights lawyer and senior programme adviser with the International Centre for Transitional Justice, said the tribunal was an interesting development in the context of “what could be described as the first serious endeavour by the AU to address crimes against humanity. It’s something of a contrast with the AU’s relation and approach to the ICC and international law generally.”
The conviction is a vindication of the decades-long campaign waged by his victims, Human Rights Watch said:
Habré was convicted of torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including having raped a woman himself, by the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Senegalese court system and sentenced to life in prison on May 30, 2016…. The written decision will be distributed at a later date. Human Rights Watch has prepared an unofficial summary from notes taken in court.
Habré fled to Senegal in 1990 after being deposed by the current Chadian president, Idriss Déby Itno. Although Habré was first arrested and indicted in Senegal in 2000, it took a long campaign by his victims before the Extraordinary African Chambers were inaugurated by Senegal and the African Union in February 2013 to prosecute international crimes committed in Chad during Habré’s rule.
“This is an enormous victory for Hissène Habré’s victims, who for 25 years never gave up fighting to bring him to justice” said Brody, counsel at Human Rights Watch who has worked with the survivors since 1999. “This conviction is a wake-up call to tyrants everywhere that if they engage in atrocities they will never be out of the reach of their victims,” he said:
Habré’s trial is the first in the world in which the courts of one country prosecuted the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes. Ninety-three witnesses testified at the trial, the majority travelling from Chad to be there. Survivors presented powerful testimony about torture, rape, sexual slavery, mass executions, and the destruction of entire villages.
“I have been waiting for this day since I walked out of prison more than 25 years ago,” said Souleymane Guengueng, who nearly died of mistreatment and disease in Habré’s prisons, and later founded the Association of Victims of Crimes of the Regime of Hissène Habré (AVCRHH). “Today I feel ten times bigger than Hissène Habré.”
Habré’s trial is the first in the world in which the courts of one country prosecuted the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes. Ninety-three witnesses testified at the trial, the majority travelling from Chad to be there. Survivors presented powerful testimony about torture, rape, sexual slavery, mass executions, and the destruction of entire villages.
*Ms. Delphine Djiraibe is a senior human rights lawyer and chief attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, a NED grantee organization based in N’djamena that she founded in 2006 to provide Chad’s poor with access to justice and hold the Chadian government and extractive industries accountable for harm caused to local populations and the environment. In 1991, she co-founded the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights and has succeeded in helping victims of former dictator Hissen Habre bring him to justice. Ms. Djiraibe also serves as president of the Peace and Reconciliation Initiative’s Comité de Suivi de l’Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation, whose objective is to encourage dialogue among political actors, strengthen democratic practices, and promote the rule of law. For her extraordinary efforts in protecting human rights and preserving the environment, she received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2004. During her NED fellowship, she explored issues of transitional justice in comparative context, focusing on the Hissen Habre trial and researching mechanisms to improve equal access to justice in Chad.
January 2000: Filing the first case against Hissène Habré in Senegal. L to R:– Sidiki Kaba (lawyer, FIDH), Reed Brody (Human Rights Watch), Boucounta Diallo (lawyer), Sabadet Totodet (victim), Souleymane Guengueng (victim), Pascal Kambalé (partially hidden, lawyer HRW), Alioune Tine (RADDHO), Delphine Djiraibe (Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights), Dobian Assingar. (Chadian League for Human Rights) Ramadane Souleyman (partially hidden, victim) (Credit – Seyllou Diallo)
