{"id":1101,"date":"2008-04-14T21:36:38","date_gmt":"2008-04-15T01:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2018-08-14T13:01:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T17:01:16","slug":"monday-april-14-2008-jeune-afrique-8-avril-2008-afp-les-deputes-modifient-la-constitution-pour-juger-hissene-habre-a-personal-ghost-comes-back-in-a-brief-news-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"Monday, April 14, 2008 \u2014 Jeune Afrique 8 avril 2008 AFP<\/span>: Les d\u00e9put\u00e9s modifient la Constitution pour juger Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9 \u2014 A Personal Ghost Comes Back in a Brief News Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems that a relent\u00adless tread\u00admill of events forces me to write, in this blog, about noth\u00ading but dic\u00adta\u00adtors, famines, and wars. For those of you who are tired of it, let me con\u00adfess that I am, too. I want\u00aded to devote a new entry to one of my real pas\u00adsions \u2015 land\u00adscape, music, read\u00ading, nature, erot\u00adic plea\u00adsure, the exquis\u00adite free\u00addom of the road. But an arti\u00adcle for\u00adward\u00aded to me unleashed a flood of mem\u00ado\u00adry and opened up pri\u00advate box\u00ades that I\u2019ve gen\u00ader\u00adal\u00adly kept shut. And it was about a dic\u00adta\u00adtor. Now, I write a lot about dic\u00adta\u00adtors, and the obser\u00advant among you will notice that I don\u2019t much like them. But, in most cas\u00ades, this is the result of study\u00ading his\u00adto\u00adry. Dic\u00adta\u00adtors are peo\u00adple I\u2019ve most\u00adly encoun\u00adtered in books. But there is one excep\u00adtion. There is a dic\u00adta\u00adtor with whom my rela\u00adtion\u00adship is more con\u00adcrete, and has noth\u00ading to do with books. He is one of the \u201csmall-fry\u201d. His crimes are mon\u00adstrous, but his numer\u00adous vic\u00adtims were peo\u00adple the world cared noth\u00ading about. The slaugth\u00ader and hor\u00adror took place right next door to the cur\u00adrent slaugh\u00adter in Dar\u00adfur, and was on the same scale, but in those pre-inter\u00adnet days it might as well have tak\u00aden place in anoth\u00ader solar sys\u00adtem. The man I\u2019m talk\u00ading about is Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A mount\u00aded Daza\u00adga (Gourane).\u2026 not quite a match for the more remote (and sel\u00addom pho\u00adtographed) Teda.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to write this item now, in one slug, with\u00adout ref\u00ader\u00adence mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal, so it will depend entire\u00adly on my per\u00adson\u00adal mem\u00ado\u00adry of events a quar\u00adter cen\u00adtu\u00adry ago, so bear with me. I may get some details wrong. If so, I will cor\u00adrect them when the cast\u00ading cools.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jeune Afrique news item reveals that Habr\u00e9 may actu\u00adal\u00adly face a court of law. L\u2019Assem\u00adbl\u00e9e nationale du S\u00e9n\u00e9\u00adgal a mod\u00adi\u00adfi\u00e9 mar\u00addi la Con\u00adsti\u00adtu\u00adtion, en intro\u00adduisant de mani\u00e8re \u201cexcep\u00adtion\u00adnelle\u201d une r\u00e9troac\u00adtiv\u00adit\u00e9 pour des infrac\u00adtions comme les crimes con\u00adtre l\u2019hu\u00adman\u00adit\u00e9 pour lesquels est pour\u00adsuivi l\u2019ex-chef d\u2019E\u00adtat tcha\u00addi\u00aden, Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9, au pou\u00advoir entre 1982\u201390.<\/em> it reads. Sene\u00adgal has changed it\u2019s con\u00adsti\u00adtu\u00adtion so that a for\u00adeign head of state can be tried for human rights vio\u00adla\u00adtions. Habr\u00e9 may pos\u00adsi\u00adbly come to tri\u00adal for his crimes. But don\u2019t count on it. The strug\u00adgle to bring him to jus\u00adtice, ini\u00adti\u00adat\u00aded by human rights activists in Bel\u00adgian courts, has been con\u00adsis\u00adtent\u00adly resist\u00aded by both the Sene\u00adgalese gov\u00adern\u00adment, and the African Union. Bel\u00adgium has been seek\u00ading his extra\u00addi\u00adtion, but Sene\u00adgal has refused it. The African Union, an orga\u00adni\u00adza\u00adtion dom\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded by dic\u00adta\u00adtors, does not approve of the idea of dic\u00adta\u00adtors being tried.and it has done every\u00adthing in its pow\u00ader to dis\u00adcour\u00adage the extra\u00addi\u00adtion. Instead, they have insist\u00aded on a tri\u00adal in Sene\u00adgal. So the \u201ctri\u00adal\u201d may prove to be a potemkin vil\u00adlage. On the oth\u00ader hand, Habr\u00e9 may be sac\u00adri\u00adficed in the inter\u00adest of head\u00ading off the extra\u00addi\u00adtion prece\u00addent, at least to the extent of being found offi\u00adcial\u00adly guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n

For eigh\u00adteen years, now, Habr\u00e9, oust\u00aded by a coup, has lived in com\u00adfort\u00adable exile in Dakar, the clean West African city with pleas\u00adant boule\u00advards, where one can stroll on Plage Bel-Air or the Anse-Bernard, shop for high-fash\u00adion boubous at Islam Cou\u00adture, and where the aro\u00adma of roast\u00aded peanuts and fresh\u00adly baked baguettes per\u00adme\u00adates the air. Now there is a dif\u00adfer\u00adent dic\u00adta\u00adtor in far\u00adaway, mind-bog\u00adgling\u00adly poor Chad, cut from the same cloth, but not as extreme. Few peo\u00adple out\u00adside of Africa know of Habr\u00e9\u2019s crimes, and even few\u00ader care. He is one of those blood\u00adthirsty mon\u00adsters who was cre\u00adat\u00aded, installed, encour\u00adaged, pam\u00adpered, and financed by Amer\u00adi\u00adcan Con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtives, and com\u00admit\u00adted sick\u00aden\u00ading atroc\u00adi\u00adties. He mur\u00addered tens of thou\u00adsands of inno\u00adcent men, women and chil\u00addren, and prac\u00adticed tor\u00adture on a mas\u00adsive scale.<\/span><\/p>\n

But my mem\u00ado\u00adries date from the peri\u00adod when he was not yet in pow\u00ader, still essen\u00adtial\u00adly a trib\u00adal chief\u00adtain in one of the remotest, most inhos\u00adpitable parts of the world, one of many char\u00adac\u00adters in a war that last\u00aded from 1978 to 1987. At the time, I had no idea that he was on Ronald Reagan\u2019s pay\u00adroll, and that the chil\u00addren being burnt alive, or sold into slav\u00adery, the women and old peo\u00adple shot or hacked to death, could thank the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan tax-pay\u00ader for their expe\u00adri\u00adence. Nor did I know that Reagan\u2019s CIA<\/span> hench\u00admen were pay\u00ading and train\u00ading what would become the DDS<\/span>, Habr\u00e9\u2019s secret police, assas\u00adsi\u00adna\u00adtion and tor\u00adture squads. Some esti\u00admates put the num\u00adber of tor\u00adture vic\u00adtims as high as 200,000 \u2014 mak\u00ading Sad\u00addam Hus\u00adsein look like a dilet\u00adtante, by comparison.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this stuff was just start\u00ading to roll, when I start\u00aded pok\u00ading around. All I knew was that Habr\u00e9 was a Daza of the Anakaze clan, and was lead\u00ading an army of Daza and Teda war\u00adriors against the cur\u00adrent dic\u00adta\u00adtor of Chad, Gouk\u00adouni Oued\u00addei, who was a Teda of the Toma\u00adgra clan, and the grand\u00adson of the Derde of Bar\u00addai, in the high Tibesti. The Derde was asso\u00adci\u00adat\u00aded with the Senus\u00adsi school of IsI\u00adam, which Islamized the Teda in the 19th cen\u00adtu\u00adry. I knew that Habr\u00e9 had stud\u00adied polit\u00adi\u00adcal sci\u00adence in Paris, spout\u00aded the usu\u00adal moron\u00adic Marx\u00adist clap\u00adtrap, and had formed part of Oueddei\u2019s gov\u00adern\u00adment, until he retreat\u00aded to his desert fast\u00adness. I also knew that he had, a few years ear\u00adli\u00ader, kid\u00adnapped a French archae\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgist named Fran\u00e7oise Claus\u00adtre, her assis\u00adtant, and a Ger\u00adman doc\u00adtor, whose names I can\u2019t remem\u00adber, hid\u00adden them in the remote Tibesti, and demand\u00aded a ran\u00adsom. He exe\u00adcut\u00aded a French army offi\u00adcer sent to nego\u00adti\u00adate for the cap\u00adtives. Her hus\u00adband attempt\u00aded to nego\u00adti\u00adate, but he, too was cap\u00adtured. France paid a hefty ran\u00adsom, but Habr\u00e9 kept it, with\u00adout releas\u00ading the hostages. Lat\u00ader, he released them as part of anoth\u00ader deal. I also knew that most of the seden\u00adtary peo\u00adple on the edge of the Sahara feared him, and that his forces were some\u00adhow con\u00adnect\u00aded to the slave trade. More recent\u00adly, Libyan forces, heav\u00adi\u00adly armed with mod\u00adern weapons, had invad\u00aded Chad and annexed much of the emp\u00adty Saha\u00adran part of the coun\u00adtry, at least the parts you could get to in a tank. But in the remote and rugged Tibesti, they con\u00adtrolled noth\u00ading except the for\u00adti\u00adfied posi\u00adtion at Bar\u00addai. Habr\u00e9\u2019s desert war\u00adriors drove this army out of Bar\u00addai and now, from the moun\u00adtains, indi\u00adrect\u00adly con\u00adtrolled much of the north\u00adern half of the coun\u00adtry. Oued\u00addei remained in con\u00adtrol of the Cap\u00adi\u00adtal, and the pop\u00adu\u00adlat\u00aded south. That was just start\u00ading to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Teda are the north\u00adern divi\u00adsion of the Toubou peo\u00adple, the south\u00adern divi\u00adsion usu\u00adal\u00adly being called Daza\u00adga or Gourane. A Teda desert war\u00adrior is one of the most fright\u00aden\u00ading things you can ever see, and you can eas\u00adi\u00adly under\u00adstand their supe\u00adri\u00ador\u00adi\u00adty in com\u00adbat over even the most well-armed mod\u00adern armies. Even the Tuareg, the famous war\u00adriors of the Sahara to the west of them, who kept the French army at bay for a hun\u00addred years, do not care to tan\u00adgle with them. Like the Tuareg, the men are veiled, and tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly nev\u00ader show their faces. Habr\u00e9, how\u00adev\u00ader, did show his face, puffy and beard\u00aded then, though he now appears slim\u00admer and the beard is now grey\u00ading. Like most dic\u00adta\u00adtors, he changes looks to suit the audi\u00adence (he now affects the air of a sim\u00adple, pious Mus\u00adlim). Many of his sol\u00addiers, a rab\u00adble of hooli\u00adgans of var\u00adied ori\u00adgins, were dressed in French-style com\u00adbat uni\u00adforms, or frac\u00adtions there\u00adof. But the ones who real\u00adly count\u00aded were the old-style mount\u00aded Teda war\u00adriors, because it was they who could fight in the Tibesti, an envi\u00adron\u00adment in which every\u00adthing is extreme, and every\u00adthing is dan\u00adger\u00adous. The Teda have inhab\u00adit\u00aded this land for no one knows how many thou\u00adsands of years. They may have been the Gara\u00admantes who defeat\u00aded Roman legions. Their cus\u00adtoms show more influ\u00adence from Ancient Egypt than from their nom\u00adi\u00adnal Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For, at the time I speak of, Tibesti was one of the remotest and most dif\u00adfi\u00adcult places to reach on Earth, and though it can be more eas\u00adi\u00adly reached now, it remains one of the harsh\u00adest land\u00adscapes on the plan\u00adet. Afghanistan, by com\u00adpar\u00adi\u00adson, is Cen\u00adtral Park. The Tibesti mas\u00adsif is a com\u00adplex of sev\u00aden giant vol\u00adca\u00adnoes, each reach\u00ading ten or eleven thou\u00adsand feet in height (3,000\u20133,500 m), gigan\u00adtic lava flows, and two immense mete\u00ador impact craters. The land\u00adscape is like giant pieces of jagged, bro\u00adken glass scat\u00adtered in a maze of tan\u00adgled ridges, pil\u00adlars, craters, stink\u00ading natron pits, and the occa\u00adsion\u00adal lake of boil\u00ading mud. Hid\u00adden in a labyrinthine maze of geo\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal for\u00adma\u00adtions, most of which can\u2019t be crossed by any vehi\u00adcle or ani\u00admal, are a hand\u00adful of oases, and wadis with a lit\u00adtle veg\u00ade\u00adta\u00adtion and mois\u00adture. This lost world of strange, almost Mar\u00adt\u00adian land\u00adscapes cov\u00aders an area about 300 km (or 200 miles) from east to west, and a lit\u00adtle less from north to<\/span> south.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems that a relent\u00adless tread\u00admill of events forces me to write, in this blog, about noth\u00ading but dic\u00adta\u00adtors, famines, and wars. For those of you who are tired of it, let me con\u00adfess that I am, too. I wanted \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-as-blog-2008","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8587,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/8587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}