How to Trap a Dictator: Lessons for Nicaragua
To Catch a Dictator. the search for justice in a world of impunity, by Reed Brody (Spanish edition). Chronicling how Hissene Habre, former dictator of Chad fell.
By Silvio Prado (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – A few months ago, Reed Brody, a member of the UN Group of Experts on Human Rights in Nicaragua (GREN), published the Spanish translation of his 2022 book: “To Catch a Dictator: the pursuit and trial of Hissène Habré.” The Spanish version includes the subtitle: “The search for justice in a world of impunity.” The book chronicles the long process of bringing Hissène Habré, former dictator of Chad and one of the many bloody tyrants Africa has suffered, to international courts. I attended the book launch in Madrid, driven by my interest in learning what lies ahead for those of us who believe in a political, peaceful, and above all just solution for Nicaragua.
Key lessons can be drawn from the book about the advances and setbacks that mark the path that sometimes—very rarely—leads despots to prison.
Time… and patience
This is perhaps one of the most important keys. Anyone who embarks on these processes should abandon all hope of short-term results. The mission is long, complicated, and at times painful. Reed shows us that it is not enough to make grandiloquent statements, promising to put in the dock those who have used the power of the state to murder their people. You have to be prepared for a long struggle. In the case of the Chadian dictator, it took 18 torturous years, during which all those involved in the process tore at their hair (literally in some cases), lost lucrative job opportunities, and experienced family ruptures and disappointments, among other consequences. They endured all this armed with infinite patience, immune from discouragement, and sustained only by their faith in the final victory.
Capacity and experience to do it
In addition to good intentions, the enterprise requires knowledge of the structural framework of the international justice laws, and experience in previous battles with the resulting scars and teachings. The book notes two seminal events in the author’s life: his experience in Nicaragua in the mid-80s, documenting the crimes of the Contra, a mission that put a new spin on his vocation; and the capture of Pinochet in London in 1998, a cause he joined in with, putting to the test the structures for universal jurisdiction on the eve of the creation of the International Criminal Court. In taking on the mission for Habré, it was also crucial to have a team of professionals, and of the Chadian dictator’s victims, without whom Reed would have found it impossible to undertake a task that became so extremely arduous.
The protagonism of the victims
On the few occasions when the author acknowledges one of the keys to success, he states: “we understood that we had to put the victims – those directly affected – at the heart of the action and the narrative.” Regardless of how professional and experienced Reed’s team may have been, none of what was achieved would have been possible without the participation of the dictator’s victims in each phase of the process, particularly in the difficult moments when pessimism prevailed. The victims’ leading role was the grounding force behind the moral commitment with which the team began its journey.
Victims willing to show their faces
Although implicit in the above, the willingness of victims to give their testimonies, appear before commissions, courts, and the media should not be taken for granted. There have been other cases in which victims have refused to testify, out of fear, shame, or for other reasons. In the trial against Habré, the victims lined up outside the courthouse to give their testimony, even though many of the torturers and operators of the ousted dictator continued to hold important positions in the new regime’s state security apparatus. During the trial, the tortured and raped women had the fortitude to look the dictator in the face as they described the horrors they had suffered, even at the hands of the dictator himself.
Navigating the political traps
When attempting to try a former leader for their crimes, the obstacles that politics will inevitably put forward to prevent it from happening must be taken into consideration. Even in cases like that of Habré, with thousands of deaths on the table and overwhelming evidence of the assassinations, the greatest challenges that the fight for justice faced came from politics. Not even the fact that Habré at that time had fled to Senegal, without the political power of before, prevented the ex-dictator from maneuvering within and outside the country, including with the Organization for African Unity, Belgium and France, to frustrate the endeavor to hold him accountable for his atrocities. The principal source of impunity is politics, and that will always have to be considered. We need look no further than the history of the pacts in Nicaragua that have cemented impunity in our political culture.
Money to finance a long process
Bringing the Chadian dictator to justice required around US $18.5 million dollars: $11.58 million for the Extraordinary African Chambers that tried Habré; and just under US $7 million for Reed’s team. It took 18 years of back and forth between Chad and Senegal, between Europe and the United States, documenting the murders and, above all, accompanying the victims so they could give their testimonies before commissions, at preliminary hearings, and in trials that were postponed at the last minute. Without the support of Human Rights Watch (HRW), where the author worked, as well as of private donors, and European governments, it would not have been possible to put the dictator behind bars.
Documentation of the facts, the regime’s archives, and the testimonies of former officials
In short, without properly documented evidence, there would have been no trial. The files that a former prisoner had compiled on specific cases played a key role in this regard, triggering the involvement of HRW and, subsequently, Reed. The documentation was later expanded with files found at the main torture center after Habré’s overthrow and, of course, with the testimonies of the victims. In the case of Nicaragua, we should emphasize that no effort to document the crimes committed by the Ortega dictatorship is too trivial. Everything that is done to reconstruct memory is valuable, and will undoubtedly contribute to bringing to justice the criminals who have caused so much tragedy and pain in our country without ever having an armed conflict.
There will undoubtedly be other lessons to be learned from Reed Brody’s book on how to catch a dictator, but the ones listed above could be said to be the most basic, those that we cannot lose sight of from now on if we want to rebuild our country with justice. Those who work toward this goal in the field of human rights should read the book, but so should those who nurture the hope of seeing our country free, as we continue doing what each of us can do, without giving in to discouragement.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.