Celeste Hicks - The Trial of Hissène Habré: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice

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Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis Yet

Tim Allen, Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army

Raymond W. Copson, The United States in Africa

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Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War

Jonathan Glennie, The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa

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Michael Deibert, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair

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About the author

Celeste Hicks is a freelance journalist who has been writing about Chad and the Sahel for more than ten years. Previously BBC correspondent in Chad and Mali, she worked for BBC World Service African Service in London before becoming an independent journalist in 2011. She writes for the BBC, the Guardian , World Politics Review , Janes Intelligence Review , Africa Report , Bloomberg and many others. She is also the author of Africas New Oil (Zed 2015).

THE TRIAL OF HISSNE HABR

HOW THE PEOPLE OF CHAD BROUGHT A TYRANT TO JUSTICE

CELESTE HICKS

The Trial of Hissne Habr: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice was first published in 2018 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Celeste Hicks 2018.

The right of Celeste Hicks to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Haarlemmer by seagulls.net

Index by John Barker

Cover design by Jonathan Pelham

Cover photo Daniel Simon/Getty

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-184-3 hb

ISBN 978-1-78699-183-6 pb

ISBN 978-1-78699-185-0 pdf

ISBN 978-1-78699-186-7 epub

ISBN 978-1-78699-187-4 mobi

CONTENTS

This book is dedicated to all the Chadian victims of Hissne Habr and the DDS for their tireless fight for justice.

With great thanks to Reed Brody, Henri Thulliez and Stephanie Hancock at Human Rights Watch for their ongoing support for the project and their invaluable institutional record of the twenty-five year fight for justice. Thanks to Miss Wasabi films, creators of the excellent film Talking about Rose , for the generous travel and writing grant which helped me to complete this project. Thanks also to Clement Abaifouta for helping me to access the Chadian victims in NDjamena, to Jean Noyoma Kovousouma for his help and arrangements during my last visit, and to Jacqueline Moudeina for always agreeing to see me despite her general infuriation with journalists. Thanks to Mike Dottridge for his enthusiasm and attention to detail, filling in the many gaps about Habrs crimes in the 1980s, and to Kim Thuy Seelinger for tipping me off about the seminal importance of the Extraordinary African Chambers work on sexual violence as a war crime. Thanks to Lucy Lamble at the Guardian for commissioning so many reports on this subject, and to Mark Kersten and Phil Clark for being great sounding boards and Matt Brown for his research assistance. Once again thanks to Ken Barlow at Zed Books and Stephanie Kitchen at the International African Institute for their faith in me, and to Dave for his clear thinking when I couldnt see the wood for the trees.