| Hissène Habré حسين حبري |
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|---|---|
| 7th President of Chad | |
| In office June 7, 1982 – 1 December 1990 |
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| Prime Minister | Djidingar Dono Ngardoum |
| Preceded by | Goukouni Oueddei |
| Succeeded by | Idriss Déby |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 13, 1942 Faya-Largeau, Chad |
Hissène Habré (حسين حبري; born September 13, 1942), also spelled Hissen Habré, was the leader of Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990.
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Habré was born in 1942 in Faya-Largeau, northern Chad, then a colony of France. He was born into a family of shepherds. He is a member of the Anakaza branch of the Gorane (Toubou) ethnic group.[1] After primary schooling, he obtained a post in the French colonial administration, where he impressed his superiors and gained a scholarship to study in France. The school he was awarded the scholarship to was the Institute of Overseas Higher Studies, located in Paris, France. He completed a university degree in political science in Paris, and returned to Chad in 1971. He also obtained several other degrees and earned his Doctorate from the Institute. After a further brief period of government service, he went to Tripoli and joined the Forces Armées du Nord (Armed Forces of the North, FAN), an armed Chadian rebel movement. FAN operated in the extreme north of Chad, among the Toubou nomadic people, and was led by Goukouni Oueddei. FAN had itself split from another rebel movement, FROLINAT, led by Abba Siddick.
Habré first came to international attention when a group under his command attacked the town of Bardaï in Tibesti, on 21 April 1974, and took three Europeans hostage, with the intention of ransoming them for money and arms. The captives were a German doctor, Christophe Staewen (whose wife was killed in the attack), and two French citizens, Françoise Claustre, an archeologist, and Marc Combe, a development worker. Marc Combe escaped in 1975 but, despite the intervention of the French Government, Madame Claustre (whose husband was a senior French government official) was not released until 1 February 1977.
Habré split with Goukouni Oueddei, partly over this hostage-taking incident (which became known as the "Claustre affair" in France), but retained the designation "FAN" for his rebel army.
On 29 August 1978, Habré was given the post of prime minister of Chad, replacing Félix Malloum in that position; Malloum had been both prime minister and president since 1975. Habré's term as prime minister ended, however, a year later, when Malloum's government ended. Elections brought Goukouni Oueddei to the presidency.
Habré deposed Oueddei in a coup, backed by the CIA, on June 7, 1982 and the FAN leader became president; the post of prime minister was abolished. There followed a period of turmoil.
Habré ruled Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990 by Idriss Déby and fled to Senegal. Habré's one party regime was characterized by widespread human rights abuses and atrocities. Habré's government periodically engaged in ethnic cleansing against groups such as the Sara, Hadjerai and the Zaghawa, killing and arresting group members en masse when it perceived that their leaders were posing a threat to the regime. Following his rise to power, Habré created a secret police force known as the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), under which opponents of Habré were tortured and executed. Some methods of torture commonly used by the DDS included; burning with incandescent objects, spraying of gas into the eyes, ears, and nose; forced swallowing of water, and forcing the mouths of detainees around the exhaust pipes of running cars.[2] It is estimated that 40,000 Chadians nationwide either died in detention or were executed under Habré, and that over 200,000 were subjected to torture. Human Rights Watch later dubbed Habré "Africa's Pinochet."[3][4]
Libya invaded Chad on July 1980 in an attempt to drive out Habré, occupying and annexing the Aozou Strip. The United States and France responded by aiding Chad in an attempt to contain Libya's regional ambitions under Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.
Civil war deepened. On 15 December 1980, Libya occupied all of northern Chad, but Habré defeated Libyan troops and drove them out in November 1981. In 1983, Libyan troops occupied all of the country north of Koro Toro. The United States used a clandestine base in Chad to train captured Libyan soldiers whom it was organizing into an anti-Gaddafi force.
Habré's aid from the USA and France helped him to win the war against Gaddafi's Libya. The Libyan occupation of the north of Koro Toro ended when Habré defeated him in 1987. By that time, the war was beginning to end, and had ended by 1988.
Despite this victory, Habré's government was weak, and strongly opposed by members of the Zaghawa ethnic group. A rebel offensive in November 1990, which was led by Idriss Déby, a Zaghawa former army commander who had participated in a plot against Habré in 1989 and subsequently fled to Sudan, defeated Habré's forces. The French chose not to assist Habré on this occasion, allowing him to be ousted; it is possible that they actively aided Déby. Explanation and speculation regarding the reasons for France's abandonment of Habré include the adoption of a policy of non-interference in intra-Chadian conflicts, dissatisfaction with Habré's unwillingness to move towards multiparty democracy, and favoritism by Habré towards American rather than French companies with regard to oil development. Habré fled to Cameroon, and the rebels entered N'Djamena on December 2, 1990; Habré subsequently went into exile in Senegal.[5]
The United States and France supported Habré, seeing him as a bulwark against the Gaddafi government in neighboring Libya. Under President Ronald Reagan, the United States gave covert CIA paramilitary support to help Habré take power and remained Habré's strongest ally throughout his rule, providing his regime with massive amounts of military aid. The United States also used a clandestine base in Chad to train captured Libyan soldiers whom it was organizing into an anti-Qaddafi force.[6]
"The CIA was so deeply involved in bringing Habré to power I can't conceive they didn't know what was going on," said Donald Norland, U.S. ambassador to Chad from 1979 to 1981. "But there was no debate on the policy and virtually no discussion of the wisdom of doing what we did."[7]
Documents obtained by Human Rights Watch show that the United States provided Habré's DDS with training, intelligence, arms, and other support despite knowledge of its atrocities. Records discovered in the DDS' meticulous archives describe training programs by American instructors for DDS agents and officials, including a course in the United States that was attended by some of the DDS' most feared torturers. According to the Chadian Truth Commission, the United States also provided the DDS with monthly infusions of monetary aid and financed a regional network of intelligence networks code-named "Mosaic" that Chad used to pursue suspected opponents of Habré's regime even after they fled the country.[6]
In the summer of 1983, when Libya invaded northern Chad and threatened to topple Habre, France sent 3,000 paratroops with air support, while the Reagan administration provided two AWACS electronic surveillance planes to coordinate air cover. By 1987 Gaddafi's forces had retreated.
The United States and France ignored Habre's increasingly ruthless one-party rule. "Habré was a remarkably able man with a brilliant sense of how to play the outside world," a former senior U.S. official said. "He was also a bloodthirsty tyrant and torturer. It is fair to say we knew who and what he was and chose to turn a blind eye." [7]
Human rights groups hold Habré responsible for the killing of thousands of people, but the exact number is unknown. Killings included massacres against ethnic groups in the south (1984), against the Hadjerai (1987), and against the Zaghawa (1989). He authorized tens of thousands of political murders and physical torture.[8] For these crimes, he has received the nickname "the African Pinochet", after the Chilean president until 1990.
Between 1993 and 2003, Belgium had universal jurisdiction legislation allowing the most serious violations of human rights to be tried in national as well as international courts, without any direct connection to the country of the alleged perpetrator, victims or where the crimes took place. Despite the repeal of the legislation, investigations against Habré went ahead and in September 2005 he was indicted for crimes against humanity, torture, war crimes and other human rights violations. Senegal, where Habré has been in exile for 17 years,[9] has Habré under nominal house arrest in Dakar.[10]
On March 17, 2006, the European Parliament demanded that Senegal turn over Habré to Belgium to be tried. Senegal did not comply, and it at first refused extradition demands from the African Union which arose after Belgium asked to try Habré. The ATDPH has expressed its approval of the decision.[11] If he were to be turned over, he would have become the first former dictator to be extradited by a third-party country to stand trial for human rights abuses. In 2007, Senegal set up its own special war-crimes court to try Habré under pressure from the African Union.[9] On April 8, 2008, the National Assembly of Senegal voted to amend the constitution to clear the way for Habré to be prosecuted in Senegal;[12][13] Ibrahima Gueye was appointed as trial coordinator in May 2008. A joint session of the National Assembly and the Senate voted in July 2008 to approve a bill empowering Senegalese courts to try people for crimes committed in other countries and for crimes that were committed more than ten years beforehand; this made it constitutionally possible to try Habré. Senegalese Minister of Justice Madicke Niang appointed four investigative judges on this occasion.[14]
A 2007 movie by director Klaartje Quirijns, The Dictator Hunter, tells the story of the activists Souleymane Guengueng and Reed Brody who led the efforts to bring Habré to trial.[15]
On August 15, 2008, a Chadian court sentenced Habré to death in absentia[16][17] for war crimes and crimes against humanity[16] in connection with allegations that he had worked with rebels inside Chad to oust Déby.[17] François Serres, a lawyer for Habré, criticized this trial on August 22 for unfairness and secrecy. According to Serres, the accusation on which the trial was based was previously unknown and Habré had not received any notification of the trial.[16]
On 16 September 2008, 14 victims filed new complaints with a Senegalese prosecutor, accusing Habré of crimes against humanity and torture.[18]
The Senegalese government added an amendment in 2008, which would allow Habre to be tried in court. Senegal later changed their position, however, requesting 27 million euros in funding from the international community before going through with the trial. This prompted Belgium to pressure the International Court of Justice to force Senegal to either extradite Habré to Belgium to proceed with the trial. This request was denied by the ICJ.[19]
In November 2010, the court of justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled that Senegal could not hold trial in the matter through local court only, and asked for the creation of a special tribunal on the matter of Habre's prosecution. In April 2011, after initial reticence, Senegal agreed to the creation of an Ad-Hoc tribunal in collaboration with the African Union, the Chadian state and with international funding.[20]
Senegal changed their position again however, walking out during discussions on establishing the court on May 30, 2011 without explanation. The African union commission on Habré, in preparation for their next summit on June 30 published a report urging to press Senegal to extradite Habré to Belgium.[21]
On July 8, 2011, Senegal officials announced that Habré would be extradited to Chad on July 11,[22] but this was subsequently halted.[23]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Goukouni Oueddei |
President of Chad June 7, 1982 – December 1, 1990 |
Succeeded by Idriss Déby Itno |
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