A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, May 7, 2017
WORLD VIEW: US Ally Gets Life for Crimes Against Humanity
President-Ronald-Reagan, with Hissene Habre, at the White House
LAST MAY a court in Senegal convicted and sentenced to
life-imprisonment Hissene Habre, the former ruler of Chad, for the crime
of torture and crimes against humanity.
On Thursday last, an appeal court upheld the sentence and now Habre, who
ran from Chad after a coup in a military transport that airlifted him,
his entourage and a Mercedes to what he hoped would be a luxurious exile
in Senegal, is languishing in an ordinary prison cell.
Habre’s government killed more than 40,000 people during his presidency
from 1982 to 1990, when he was deposed. The American government made a
last-minute effort to save Habre but failed.
He had long been an important, if secret, ally. He was, according to Michael Bronner, writing in the respected Foreign Policy magazine
in January 2014, “The centrepiece of the Reagan Administration’s
attempt to undermine Muammar Gadaffi who had become an increasing threat
and embarrassment to the US with his support of international
terrorism”.
Senegal became the first country in the world to ratify the treaty
establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Hugh
Brody, the head of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Senegal “is a
country that always considered itself to be in the avant-garde of
international law and human rights”. Nevertheless, for years it gave
Habre refuge, before finally succumbing to pressure from human rights
organizations, Belgium and the African Union to put him on trial.
One of the people who staggered to freedom from his jail in Chad, the
moment of the release of all Habre’s political prisoners, was Souleymane
Guengueng. He was a former accountant, nearly blind and barely alive.
In 2013 he would prove to be Habre’s undoing.
792 Witnesses Brody
sent a student law team to Senegal to interview him. While in prison
Guengueng had compiled 792 witness accounts that he had coaxed out of
fellow prisoners. The students hid copies of the documents in the
laundry room of the monastery in which they were staying. One of them
took the risk of an airport search by putting them in his bag and taking
a plane home.
The next step was for Brody and his colleagues in January 2000 to file a
case against Habre. Brody says, “When we began we didn’t know who was
who- who would give information back to Habre. We were really afraid he
would try to escape from Senegal”.
Fortunately, they had had Guengueng’s documents which were the
documentary core of the case. They filed the case on January 26th. Two
days later the senior investigating judged summoned the Chadians to tell
their stories. The case made headlines across Africa. Four days later
the judge indicted Habre and placed him under house arrest. The New York
Times editorialised: “An African Pinochet…a welcome new chapter in the
evolution of international law.”
But the drama still had many acts to go. On July 4th the judge was
removed from the case. The following year the country’s top court ruled
that Senegal didn’t have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Habre in
another country.
Then Brody helped Chadian victims, who had been given refuge in Belgium,
to file a criminal complaint under the country’s law of universal
jurisdiction.
In 2009, after Senegal had repeatedly failed to respond to an
extradition request, Belgium took the case to the World Court, the
International Court of Justice. In March 2012 the court convened. Days
later Senegal elected a new president, Macky Sall. He announced that
Habre would be tried in Senegal. Senegal’s minister of justice, Aminata
Toure, told Bronner, “We have to walk the talk”. On July 20th the World
Court issued its unanimous decision, ordering Senegal to “without
further delay submit the case to its competent authorities for the
purpose of prosecution.”
On June 30th 2013 the police arrested Habre at his house where he had
lived in gilded exile for 22 years. The Obama Administration welcomed
the trial. It began in the summer of 2015 and finished in May last year.
It was the first time that a former head of state has been prosecuted
for human rights abuses in a country other than his own, (and where
until recently he had enjoyed the hospitality and protection of his
hosts). The conviction is also significant as it required the
intervention of courts across several jurisdictions. It also required
the African Union with its 54 member states to mandate Senegal’s
prosecution and judges to proceed with the case. It has allowed the
African Union to reclaim some of the moral high ground it has lost
during its campaign of threatening to withdraw from the ICC because of
its alleged bias against Africa. It points the way to reconciling the
conflicting demands of international law, regional politics and national
sovereignty. Other parts of the world could emulate it with their own
human rights criminals.
For 17 years Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune.