Hissein Habré, a Chadian Tragedy

The Chadian dictator Hissein Habré’s reign of terror lasted from 1982 to 1990. It was the domestic population of Chad that suffered, but this tragedy was thoroughly international in nature, because Western countries – particularly the United States and France – supported the dictatorship with both guns and money. People disappeared for all sorts of reasons into torture prisons run by the regime’s secret police force, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS). Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun wanted to document these virtually unknown events through the victims’ testimonies, so he visited some of them, accompanied by the chairman of the Association of the Victims of the Hissein Habré Regime. He gives them a voice and in some cases brings them into contact with former members of the secret police. On May 30, 2016, a Senegalese court sentenced Hissein Habré to life in prison for genocide, torture and other crimes against humanity. For the first time in world history, an African leader was prosecuted in another African country.