Hissène Habré

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Hissène Habré, 1987

Hissène Habré ( Arabic حسين حبري, DMG Ḥusaīn Ḥabrī , born August 13, 1942 in Faya-Largeau ; † August 24, 2021 in Dakar , Senegal ) was a Chadian politician . He was the dictatorial ruling President of Chad from 1982 until he was ousted in 1990 . Previously, as a rebel leader, he fought the regime of his predecessor Tombalbaye (president from 1960 to 1975). The party system Habré was by serious human rights violations and violence campaigns, particularly against non- Muslimethnic groups of Chad. A commission of inquiry appointed after his tenure accused him of being responsible for around 40,000 politically motivated murders .

Political activity

Hissène Habré came from the Anakaza clan , part of the Daza ethnic group , which forms one of the two branches of the Tubu ethnic group . After primary school, he first worked in the French colonial administration of the country. Equipped with a French scholarship, he studied political science in Paris. After graduating in 1971, he returned to Chad.

Habré became a member of the now defunct rebel army Forces Armées Nationales du Tchad (FAN), which fought in the early 1970s against the arbitrary rule of the President of Chad, François Tombalbaye , who had been supported by Libya since 1972 . During this time, Habré gained media fame through the kidnapping of three Europeans on April 21, 1974 in Bardaï in the Tibesti region in order to extort money and weapons. Affected were the German doctor Christoph Staewen (whose wife Elfriede was murdered during the kidnapping), the French development worker Marc Combe and the French ethnologist Françoise Claustre. Staewen was ransomed after a few weeks through extensive concessions from the federal government, Combe escaped in 1975, Françoise Claustre, on the other hand, was only released by the rebels on February 1, 1977, despite the intervention of the French government.

On August 29, 1978, Habré was appointed Prime Minister by President Félix Malloum , who had ruled since 1975 and who called former rebels into the government . However, his tenure ended a year later, along with Malloum's government, when Goukouni Oueddei came to power.

Wars against Libya

In July 1975, Libya, a friend of the Tombalbayes regime, occupied large parts of the country in order to take action against the troops of the rebel leader Habré; Libya had already annexed the Aouzou Strip in the north in 1973. However, France and the USA supported Chad because they wanted to prevent Libya from gaining regional supremacy under the “revolutionary leader” Muammar al-Gaddafi .

On December 15, 1980, Libya again occupied the entire northern part of Chad, but with French help, the Libyan troops were defeated and driven out of most of the country in November 1981. In 1983, Gaddafi's troops occupied the entire area north of Koro Toro (including Faya-Largeau ), France, in return, the areas south of the 17th parallel. The United States used a secret base in Chad to train captured Libyan soldiers to form a force against Gaddafi. The US also provided military aid and supported the DDS.

Putsch against Oueddei

Habré launched a coup d'état on June 7, 1982 against Oueddei and appointed himself president; he abolished the office of prime minister. To safeguard his power, he set up police forces with a political mandate, the Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS) . From then on, opponents of the regime were persecuted with torture and executions.

The victory against Gaddafi and the case of Habrés

With the support of the USA and France, Habré was able to assert himself against Gaddafi; the Libyan occupation of the north ended with the Toyota War of 1987, which was victorious for Chad . The war was officially declared over in 1988. Despite the victory, displeasure with the brutal regime grew and on December 1, 1990, Habré was overthrown by the (then) prolibian rebels of Idriss Déby . He found asylum in Senegal .

In the 1990s, armed attempts by Habré supporters to advance from Cameroon across Lake Chad and recapture the Chadian capital failed.

Conviction for human rights abuses

During his tenure, Habré ordered the mass killing of members of the Sara (1984), Hadjerai (1987) and Zaghawa (1989) ethnic groups . According to estimates by an investigative commission set up by the new Chadian Minister of Justice after his disempowerment, he authorized 40,000 political murders and systematically tortured him, which earned him the nickname “Africa's Pinochet ”. In autumn 2005 the Belgian judiciary issued an international arrest warrant against him for human rights violations during his tenure and requested his extradition . Since November 15, 2005, the extradition request has been heard in a court in Dakar . Ten days later, the court declared that it had no jurisdiction. He was arrested again the following day. The Interior Minister of Senegal said that the then President of the African Union , Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo , would decide how to proceed.

After the UN had given Senegal an ultimatum to extradite Habré to Belgium in May 2006 , the heads of state of the AU decided that Habré should be brought to justice in Senegal.

On August 15, 2008, Habré was sentenced to death in absentia by the N'Djamena Criminal Court .

In 2012, Habré was not allowed to be extradited to Belgium . This was decided by the competent court in Dakar, the capital of Senegal , because the extradition request did not comply with the legal process of Senegal.

On June 30, 2013, Habré was arrested. Since July 2, 2013 he had to answer for war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity before the Extraordinary African Chambers ("Chambres Africaines Extraordinaires"). The trial was scheduled to begin on July 20, 2015 - 25 years after Habré fled Chad to Senegal. On May 30, 2016, Habré was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape , sexual slavery and ordered illegal killings during his reign from 1982 to 1990 . On April 27, 2017, the judgment was confirmed by the competent court of appeal.

He died of COVID-19 on August 24, 2021 at the age of 79 .

literature

  • Jacques Le Cornec: Les mille et un Tchad . 1st ed., L'Harmattan, Paris et al. 2002, ISBN 2-7475-3723-4 . (French; content: including the history of Chad from 1800-2000, politics, heads of state - including: Habré)
  • Alioune Sall: L'affaire Hissène Habré: aspects judiciaires nationaux et internationaux . L'Harmattan, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-296-99549-9 . (French; content: including prosecution of Habré in Senegal and Chad, case law, legal situation)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/08/24/hissene-habre-brutal-former-president-chad-found-guilty-crimes/
  2. ↑ a b Chad's ex-President Habré died of Corona at the age of 79. In: nau.ch. August 24, 2021, accessed August 24, 2021 .
  3. ^ Dubious concession from Bonn , Das Ostpreußenblatt, page 5, of July 6, 1974
  4. ^ German rebel radio . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1974, pp. 16-17 ( Online - June 17, 1974 ).
  5. ↑ Make you cry . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 1975, p. 96-98 ( online - 15 September 1975 ).
  6. ↑ see Olaf Bruns: The Fall of Africa's Pinochet (article in Europolitan of January 23, 2006)
  7. ↑ Senegal legalises Habré trial . In: afrol News, April 9, 2008
  8. ^ No extradition from ex-President Habre to Belgium , derstandart.at, from January 12, 2012
  9. ↑ Ex-President of Chad in detention taz.de, July 1, 2013
  10. ↑ African Rights Groups Back Habre Court Human Rights Watch, November 2, 2014
  11. ↑ L'affaire Habré ( Memento from May 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) chambresafricaines.org (accessed December 31, 2014)
  12. ↑ Hissene Habre from Chad: Who is 'Africa's Pinochet'? BBC News, July 17, 2015, accessed July 17, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Hissène Habré sentenced: Life sentence for Chad's former dictator . FAZ, May 30, 2016.
  14. ↑ Life imprisonment for ex-dictator Habré is confirmed by Spiegel Online, April 27, 2017, accessed on the same day.
personal data
SURNAME Habré, Hissène
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chadian politician
BIRTH DATE September 13, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Faya-Largeau , Chad
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Dakar , Senegal