At last Hissène Habré to be tried by the Senegalese Court, will this deter other Habres on the African Continent?

http://www.inyenyerinews.org/afrika/the-untold-stories-at-last-hissene-habre-to-be-tried-by-the-senegalese-court-will-this-deter-other-habres-on-the-african-continent/   At last Hissène Habré to be tried by the Senegalese Court, will this deter other Habres on the African Continent?   December 23, 2012 By Rwema IT Webmaster 1 Comment   The political wrangling of whether the Pinochet of Africa (Hissene Habre) will be tried by the Senegalese courts was finally put to rest when recently the Senegalese government announced that it will try the former Chadian dictator who had evaded justice for almost 2 decades. It is unfortunate that Africa has more Hissene Habre who have not only terrorised their neighbors but have also killed their own people without legal consequences. President Kagame has behaved in almost the same way as Habre with his one party regime characterized by widespread human rights abuses and atrocities. Kagame's government is killing its people on daily basis, from what his regime calls political opponents to its security officers and government servants. Kagame's regime is killing and arresting group members in masses when it perceives them and their leaders that are posing a threat to the regime. Kagame has created a secret military and police force known for their brutality in suppressing all the people perceived to be political opponents. They are using all sorts of tactics in killing. They use poison or guns to exterminate their political opponents. Just recently a senior police officer Camarade Rubavu was poison and killed while on his way back from official duty in Darfur. Who is safe under the Kagame regime? Like all other regimes which are in their last days, they harass everybody, they kill even their comrades, and this has been the character of RPF right from the initials days of their struggle. Intrigues, greed, and power have corrupted Kagame that his attitude is satanic and irreversible. Unfortunately, the ICTR which was established after genocide to try both sides of the Rwandan war, has closed its doors without trying the RPF members who were named in many international reports for having committed gross human rights violations and still committing these crimes not only within Rwanda but also beyond borders. Impunity for the commission of grave infringements of humanitarian law and for the perpetration of mass violation of human rights having an international dimension has been and continues to be a most serious problem. It does not pertain only to the African continent but has been a cause for concern for almost all parts of the world (lest one forget that the culprits of World War I were never punished). Moreover, it is closely connected with the need to put into place a multilateral criminal justice system; in other words, impunity demands that a mechanism be devised, which will ensure that those responsible for heinous crimes do not avoid prosecution and, upon conviction, receive sentences commensurate to their offences. It has been argued that the assumption that the creation of an international justice system has always positive results is both wrong and naïve. However, given the lack of any other alternative that would stand the test of time, it is submitted that, even though there might be good courts and bad courts, the very creation of a court in itself cannot be wrong and assist sin making people less naive. Thus, the Preamble to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) affirms that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community must not go unpunished and determines to put an end to impunity for perpetrators. Equally, as I have mentioned above the (rather unorthodox at the time) creation by the UN Security Council of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court for Rwanda as well as the so-called hybrid Courts for Sierra Leone, for Cambodia, and for Lebanon could be legitimatized, if for no other reason, by the need to ensure that impunity does not prevail and that the alleged perpetrators are prosecuted effectively before a court that subscribes to the fundamental rules and principles of international criminal justice. Notwithstanding the global and regional initiatives to combat impunity, it is only true to say that in Africa an ethos of impunity has prevailed for a very long time. Somehow African leaders had come to believe that the perpetration of such crimes could and would be tolerated. When at the turn of our century the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) was negotiated, it was an achievement of some note that the rejection of impunity was inserted as an AU principle in Article 4(o) thereof and that the longstanding policy of non interference in the domestic affairs of Member States was partially overturned. It could be submitted that, while the African Charter on Human Rights is well codified, never the less, some African dictators have continued to sweep their dirt in their carpets and have managed to live for another day. However, this does not in any away exonerate them from future trials and most importantly these soldiers who have continued to kill innocent people on the orders of these dictators, they should also not forget the individual responsibility that saw many NAZI military officers tried under this principle. Comrades like Jack Nziza, James Kabarerebe, Charles Kayonga and many others do you really know this principle? Jacqueline Umurungi Brussels.