Eva Dadrian wonders why Habré was the only African dictator to be indicted Former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, currently accused of masterminding mass murder, torture and murder of political opponents while he was in power from 1982 to 1990, is under house arrest in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, awaiting trial. Nearly 15 years after he was deposed in 1990, and five years after he was first arrested in Senegal, Habré has been indicted by a Belgian judge who is seeking his extradition from Senegal. The fate of Habré, who has lived in Senegal since he was driven out of Chad in 1990 by Idriss Deby, the current Chadian strongman and one of Habré's former lieutenants, will be decided by the African Union Summit next January. The Habré saga started in 1999, when the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (ATPDH) asked Human Rights Watch to help Habré's victims bring him to justice. A team of researchers from Human Rights Watch and the Dakar-based African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO) went twice to Chad to prepare the case. It is believed that the researchers who went to N'djamena, the Chadian capital, discovered by chance the abandoned archives of the DDS (Direction de la Documentation et des Services), Habré's personal police. The files of the DDS included tens of thousands of documents detailing the vicious attacks on rival ethnic groups -- the Sara, the Hadjrai, Chadian Arabs and the Zaghawa -- and the systematic torture and repression of political opponents carried out by the dreaded DDS throughout Habré's eight years of dictatorship. The charges brought against the former Chadian dictator have raised African hopes of seeing other despots answer for their crimes. Public opinion in the continent is eager to bring Habré and many others to justice. African political analysts, however, point to the lack of courts in Africa that can try former leaders like Habré. For example, the Rwandan Genocide tribunal in Arusha lacks adequate judicial mechanisms and funds. Also the slim chances of having an African trial for Habré were wrecked in 2001 when Senegal's Cours de Cassation, the highest court in the country, ruled that Habré could not stand trial in Senegal for crimes committed elsewhere. Rights activists in Africa add that when African heads of states give sanctuary to brutal African dictators they risk encouraging other "tyrants and would-be tyrants" to carry out similar atrocities. Allowing murderous commanders not only to escape justice but also to remain in action is also a dangerous recipe for renewed atrocities, says Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch. Several dictators accused of human rights violations have found sanctuary in other African states. President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria gave sanctuary to Charles Taylor instead of arresting him for his role in the Sierra Leon civil war. Robert Mugabe has given sanctuary to another former dictator, Mengistu Haile Maryam of Ethiopia, who was toppled in 1991. Some African leaders who are accused of human rights violations have also enjoyed help from the United States. Among the piles of papers and files were also official documents describing US training programmes for the agents of the DDS, and gave details of a course that took place outside of Washington DC, and which was attended by some of Habré's DDS's most feared torturers. If Habré is extradited, say observers, it could be a "wake-up call to dictators in Africa and elsewhere" that they eventually may be brought to justice. Now, after a Senegalese court had failed to rule on an extradition request from Belgium, the fate of the former Chadian dictator has been placed in the hands of the African Union. But people who suffered under Habré are disheartened that the upcoming AU Khartoum Summit in January will be presided over by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, who is accused of war crimes in his country. While these documents provided some evidence of Washington's support to Habré's regime, the US has fought charges brought against senior US officials who were mentioned in the documents. The US pressed the Belgian authorities to repeal the Belgian "universal jurisdiction" principle, which allows prosecution for crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world. Seasoned observers of African affairs recall that the US and France supported Habré as a "bulwark" against Muammar Kadhafi of Libya, Chad's northern neighbour, and until recently, a declared opponent of the US. In 1973, control over the Aouzou Strip, a portion of northern Chad bordering Libya and claimed to be rich in uranium deposits, led to a war between the two neighbours, leading Libya to annex the territory in 1976. During the war, US President Ronald Reagan provided Habré with extensive military aid, which the dictator used against his domestic opponents. Would the French and Americans who supported and backed Habré adopt the attitude of Lady Thatcher, the former British premier, who was jubilant that the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was allowed to escape extradition to Spain from Britain on grounds of his ill health? Pinochet was charged over his role in the tortures and "disappearances" of thousands of Chileans. He avoided extradition to Spain despite the ruling by the British Law Lords that former heads of state have no immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity, including torture. The Americans have already shown their contempt to the principles of human rights and to claims of torture and war perpetrated against civilians while the French are embroiled in a Cartesian discourse about the "positive" contribution of colonisation. Many Africans, especially those in power, think that handing over the former Chadian dictator to Belgium, is "a slap in the face to Africans" and a "slide back into colonial times". There is no doubt that Africans at large will feel insulted if a former colonial power, succeeds in making Habré stand in a Belgian court of law. Many Africans, and Congolese in particular, remember the atrocities committed by the Belgian colonial authorities in Congo. Congolese cannot forget the manning of their compatriots -- hands of so called "lazy" rubber collectors were chopped -- neither can they stop thinking about the pillage of their country and the exploitation of its natural resources to the point of depletion. It is ironic, says Laurent Oubangui, a Congolese victim of Mobutu's repression, that of all countries in the world it is Belgium that drafted the universal jurisdiction laws, which permit the trial of foreign nationals in Belgium no matter where the crimes are committed. Observers remember also that earlier this year it was Belgium that "arm-twisted Rwanda, to ensure that Belgian Catholic priest Guy Theunis implicated in the 1994 genocide was not tried in the African country but in Belgium". One is inclined to ask whether former dictators like Habré, Charles Taylor, Mobuto, Mengistu, Bokasa, Idi Amin, to name but a few, ever thought they would one day become the focus of an international extradition campaign. Did they imagine that they would be considered burdens by their host nation? Or where they so assured of immunity that the question never crossed their minds?
