Chad-Commission of Inquiry into the crimes and misappropriations committed
by ex-President Habré, his accomplices and/or accessories
Historical Background
Chad gained independence from France on 11 August 1960 and has known no real period of peace since then. A long running civil war, several invasions by Libya and the emergence of rebel movements in various regions have torn the country apart for several decades. The division between the North of Chad, a desert land populated by Muslims, and a fertile South inhabited by animists converted to Christianity, was reinforced by the French colonialists who favoured the South thereby reversing the “historical” domination of the North.
For almost twenty years, Libya exercised a direct influence over Chad’s political affairs. In 1973, it first occupied, then, in 1975, annexed, the Aozou strip, in the North, a stretch of land claimed by both countries. The Libyan government also supported several rebel groups from the North of Chad, most notably the Chad National Liberation Front, FROLINAT, founded in 1966, which fought with the goal of promoting opposition to the monopoly on power exercised by the South.
In 1979, the Transitional Government of National Union (GUNT-French acronym) gained power following an agreement reached in Lagos at which the main warring factions were brought together. This coalition fell apart in March 1980 when the Minister of Defence, Hissène Habré, seceded with his Armed Forces of the North (FAN-French acronym), which he had founded three years beforehand. In doing so he unleashed a 9 month battle that devastated the capital, N’Djamena.
 With the solid support of Reagan in the USA, Hissène Habré came to power on 7 June 1982. He immediately set up a one party regime with his stated intent being to bring peace and calm to Chad and to end for once and for all the dissidence in the South. In 1982, Habré’s FAN, which in the interim had become the regular armed forces and was to take the name of the National Armed Forces of Chad (FANT-French acronym), regained control over the principal towns in the South of Chad. However, far from being pacified, the South was then witness to the emergence of a widespread armed opposition fiercely opposed to Habré, called the CODOS (an abbreviation of “Commandos”. This climate of resistance and opposition to Habré led to the “Black September” of 1984. Several sources have indicated that the repression against the southern opposition at the time was especially violent and was aimed not only at the CODOS rebels but also at the civilian population and in particular those in positions of responsibility, such as civil servants and senior administrative officials, all of whom were suspected of collusion with the rebels. In certain prefectures, widespread arrests and massive executions of civilians were carried out intentionally with the sole aim of spreading terror.
Many witnesses have given evidence on the eight years of the Hissène Habré regime during which there were widespread arrests, mass murders, and persecutions against certain ethnic groups whose leaders appeared to him to be a threat to his regime. Notably amongst such groups which were periodically targeted were the Sara and other southern groups( in 1984), the Hadjarai (in 1987), Chadian Arabs and the Zaghawa (1989-1990). In 1992, the Truth Commission of the Chadian Justice Minister, established by President Déby, accused the Habré government of some 40’000 politically motivated murders and of systematic torture. The major part of these predations were carried out by Habré’s political police- the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS)- whose leaders were accountable only to Hissène Habré and who were all members of his own small Gorane ethnic group.
After Hissène Habrés came to power, the GUNT still continued its resistance in exile with the support of Libya. In June 1983, the GUNT forces took over Faya-Largeau in the far North of Chad with the help of Libyan troops. The Libyan troops were to occupy the North of Chad up until the counter-offensive by Habré’s forces which was launched in 1986 and continued until March 1987, at which time the movement began the re-conquest of the North with the support of the French army. Habré and Qaddafi then concluded a cease fire agreement in September 1987. Diplomatic relations between Chad and Libya were re-established in October 1988. The Baghdad Accords were signed a month later thereby sealing the reconciliation between Habré and Acheikh Ibn Oumar a former leader of the GUNT.
On 1st December 1990, after a year of rebellion, the Patriotic Movement of Salvation, a rebel force led by President Idriss Déby, forced Hissène Habré from power. Prison doors were subsequently opened up and hundreds of political prisoners who had been held in various secret detention centres in the capital of Chad were thus liberated.
Mandate
The new government led by President Idriss Déby established, by decree, the “Commission of Inquiry into the crimes and misappropriations committed by the ex-President his accomplices and/or accessories” It was given the task to “investigate the illegal imprisonments, detentions, assassinations, disappearances, tortures and practices of acts of barbarity, the mistreatment, the other attacks on the physical or mental integrity of persons, and all violations of human rights and illicit trafficking in narcotics” under the regime of Hissène Habré.
Composition
 Established by decree in 1990, the Commission was originally composed of twelve members of which two were magistrates, four judicial police officers, two civilian administrative officers, two records clerks and two secretaries. From the very outset, the Commission came up against several problems. It had to fight to obtain even a minimal budget. It had no headquarters and was obliged to hold its hearings in the offices of the DDS, which was not exactly helpful in encouraging victims to come forward with their testimony. Furthermore, former members of the DDS who had been re-employed in the new Centre for Research and Coordination of Intelligence (CRCR-French acronym) were accused of intimidating witnesses. Six months later, the President of the Commission of Inquiry asked for the replacement of certain members of the Commission who, apparently, were too afraid to show real commitment to their assignment and it was only after they had been replaced that the real work of the Commission could get underway.
Operations
The Commission of Inquiry was forced to work under extremely difficult conditions of both personal security and financing. Apart from the abundant advice provided by Amnesty International, which had made public the crimes of the Hissène Habré regime and which had waged campaigns for the liberation of political prisoners, no international participation, or technical or financial help from abroad was provided to the Commission. Despite these and other difficulties(such as obstruction on the part of “rehabilitated” members of the previous government who were still occupying important positions, the impossibility of conducting inquiries in certain regions where anti-insurrection operations were underway, the fear on the part of the population to give testimony, and threats aimed at investigators), the Commission interrogated more than 1700 persons, of which 662 were former prisoners, 786 close relates of prisoners who had died in detention or were illegally executed, 236 prisoners of war, 30 former DDS agents and 12 former leading politicians in the Habré government. It inspected several mass graves, illegal execution sites and detention centres before finally publishing its report. It also identified the branches of the security services which were mostly involved in these violations, namely the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), Presidential Security (SP). the Presidential Investigation Service (SIP) and the General Intelligence(RG) service.
Report
In its report, published in May 1992, after 17 months of investigations, the Commission stated: “ It would be honest to bring to the attention of the reader the fact that this inquiry only covers a minute fraction of what has been committed by the dictator Habré. Neither the time allocated to the Commission, the means at its disposal, nor the availability of the victims allowed it to accomplish its assignment completely.” The Commission drew up a list of 3806 persons, including 26 foreigners, who had either died in detention or had been illegally executed during the years 1982-1990 , and made an estimate that the final number could amount to 40’000 dead. It recorded a total number of 54’000 prisoners (including both dead and alive) during the same period. The Commission’s estimate was that the task it had carried out only dealt with 10% of the violations and crimes committed under Habré.
 The report of the Commission constituted an overwhelming condemnation of the Hissène Habré government, which was guilty, according to the investigators, of “widespread massacres and acts of dreadful savagery”, for the most part perpetrated against non armed civilians.
This report condemned the rehabilitation of many DDS members into key positions in the administration and also to positions at the core of the security apparatus of the Chadian State. When the report was published, a certain number of those agents whose names were mentioned therein fled the country to Cameroon in the fear, which turned out to be unfounded, that they would be made to answer for their responsibility in the events.
This Commission of Inquiry, was one of the only Commissions of its kind to have shown interest in the support given by one or more foreign powers to the abuses committed by the national regime. The report disclosed that the United States had been the principal financial, military, materiel and technical provider of support to the DDS. The same report established that certain American advisors were regularly welcomed by the director of the DDS in order to receive advice or to exchange information. The report also accused France, Egypt, Iraq and Zaire of helping to finance, train and equip the DDS. The Commission of Inquiry not only included in its report the names of the principal agents of the DDS but also included their photographs.
Its recommendations insisted on the necessity to exclude DDS agents, who had been rehabilitated and reintegrated into the army, from the police force and the new political police, and from the Centre for Research and Intelligence Coordination (the replacement body for the DDS and renamed later as the Agency for National Security). It recommended temporary detention whilst awaiting trial, of all the former members of the DDS who had broken the law, as well as the setting up of a National Commission on Human Rights.
The Commission of Inquiry also recommended the “a monument in memory of the victims of Habré’s repression be built” and that “a day of prayer and meditation for the said victims be decreed”. Furthermore it requested that the former headquarters of the DDS and its underground prison, known as “the swimming pool”, be converted into a museum. Finally, the Commission called for the creation of a National Commission on Human Rights.
The report received wide media coverage at a national level.
Postscript
As of today’s date The Commission’s recommendations have remained a dead letter, with the exception of the founding of the National Commission on Human Rights.
In 1993, the Sovereign National Conference, at which all sectors of Chadian society were represented, also called for the “expulsion of members of the DDS responsible for misappropriations, torture and political crimes who remain immune from prosecution or even continue to work within the CRCR itself”, and also for the creation of an independent criminal court with responsibility to try violent crimes, expropriations, and misappropriations.
In April 1996, during its visit to Chad, Amnesty International raised the question concerning the lack of action by the government on the facts reported by the Commission of Inquiry, and also asked the authorities if inquiries were to be made into crimes committed from the time general Déby had come into power. One of the ministers that met with Amnesty International replied that the report of the Commission of Inquiry was the subject of serious dispute within the government and that if sanctions were to be applied then all of Chad would have to be put on trial.
In January 2004, the Association of Victims of Crimes and Political Repression (AVCRP) officially submitted to the government a draft memorandum which recommended the attribution of a proportion of public finances in order to indemnify the victims. This project in concrete terms provided for reparations amounting to 40 million CFA francs per victim over 10 years (around $74’000). Furthermore additional reference was made in the memorandum to other existing national compensation mechanisms.
During this January 2004 meeting, the lady representative of the Ministry of Justice, gave assurances that the government would take all the necessary steps to indemnify the victims.
In January 2000, the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (ATPDH) asked Human Rights Watch to provide support to the Chadian victims in prosecuting Habré in the courts of Senegal. Click on the following link for further information on the various procedures against Hissène Habré: Fiche Trial Watch-Hissène Habré.
Sources
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