FLASHBACK: Hissène Habré (Left) returning to prison
An African Union (AU) team will arrive in Chad August 8 to begin the activities of a trust fund created to compensate the victims of former dictator Hissène Habré, the regional organization has announced.
The AU mission, which will be in Chad through August 11, will set up the fund’s provisional secretariat, and hold a meeting of the fund’s board in order to establish a work plan and set the modalities of the reparations process, according to a letter from Tordeta Ratebaye, deputy chief of staff of the AU Commission chairperson, who also serves as Chairperson of the Trust Fund’s board.
Victims and their supporters hailed this development after many years of delay following Habré’s conviction in May 2016 of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture, including sexual violence and rape, by an African Union-backed Senegalese court. Habré, who ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, died in August 2021 in Dakar, while serving a life sentence.
“It is high time the African Union woke up and gave the victims hope again,” said Jacqueline Moudeina, the main lawyer for the victims of the Habré regime. “The victims have already waited six years for the Fund to be set up and we are going to their funerals every week. ”
When an appellate court confirmed Habré’s conviction in April 2017, and awarded 82 billion CFA francs (approximately US$150 million) to 7,396 named victims, it mandated the African Union to set up a trust fund to raise the money by searching for Habré’s assets and soliciting contributions. The African Union adopted the Statute of the Trust Fund for Victims of Hissène Habré’s Crimes in 2018 A Headquarters Agreement was signed in 2019 and the African Unions allocated $5 million to the Trust Fund. In September 2021, following Habré’s death and a renewed international interest in the victims’ plight, the African Union sent a delegation to Chad during which it took possession of a building for the Fund, which it described as “a decisive turning point in the process of reparations for the victims, and announced that it was “working to render the Fund operational within the shortest possible time.” Until the current mission, however, no further action had been taken in eleven months.
“This mission is a welcome step forward. Habré’s victims fought relentlessly for 25 years to bring him and his henchmen to justice, and were awarded millions of dollars, but they haven’t seen one cent in reparations,” said Reed Brody of the international Commission of Jurists who has worked with Habré’s victims since 1999. “Many of the victims who scored these historic victories are in dire straits and in desperate need.”
The Habré trial is the only one in the world in which the courts of one country convicted the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes and was widely considered “a milestone for justice in Africa.”
In a separate trial in Chad, a court on March 25, 2015, convicted 20 Habré-era security agents on murder and torture charges and also ordered millions of dollars in victim compensation from the Chadian government which has also never been paid.
Habré’s one-party rule was marked by widespread atrocities, including targeting certain ethnic groups and committing severe sexual and gender-based violence. DDS files recovered by Human Rights Watch in 2001 reveal the names of 1,208 people who were killed or died in detention, and 12,321 victims of human rights violations.
For more information:
In Carcassonne- Reed Brody – International Commission of Jurists – +1 917-388-6745 (WhatsApp) +34 640 531 901 (telephone) reedbrody@gmail.com twitter @reedbrody
In Ndjamena – Clément Abaifouta – President, Association of Victims +235 66 28 19 08 (WhatsApp. French only)
In Ndjamena – Jacqueline Moudeina – Lead Counsel for victims +1 (203) 578-7453 (WhatsApp. French only)