The trial of "Our Sonofabitch" in Africa

This originally appeared in POLITICO Europe.

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DAKAR, Senegal — They’re working on the hotel pool, which only reminds me of the mass atrocities we’re all here for.

The trial of former Chadian president Hissène Habré on charges of crimes against humanity, torture and war crimes started Monday. Or, more accurately, “restarted,” because at the formal beginning of the trial in July, the accused caused a commotion, and his lawyers failed to appear, forcing the judges to appoint him lawyers, who were then given 45 days to study the case.

The extra six-and-a-half weeks was but a blip in the 25 years the victims of abuses in Habre’s Chad have been waiting for justice — those who survived his rule (1982-90), anyway. It’s alleged that perhaps as many as 40,000 did not, having succumbed to torture, inhuman conditions of imprisonment and summary executions.

Some of those survivors are here at the steamy seaside hotel, along with activists, lawyers, experts and journalists all somehow involved in or covering the high-profile case. The air is sticky and humid; the atmosphere is a strange combination of relief and expectation.

It’s a mix because, after two and a half decades of countless contortions in various legal jurisdictions and deliberate diversions due to west African politics, the victims will finally face their tormentor in a court of law. Being tried at the ad hoc Extraordinary African Chambers, part of the Senegalese legal system but supported financially and diplomatically by a number of countries, Habré will have to answer for some of the most appalling criminal acts imaginable.

Detaining the President’s Daughter

I wrote this with my Human Rights Watch colleague Steve Swerdlow for openDemocracy.

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A year ago, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president disappeared from public life. Arrested under corruption allegations in February 2014 and apparently detained at her Tashkent home ever since, Gulnara Karimova – former ambassador, singer, fashion guru, social media star, and business tycoon – remains in a kind of sealed limbo, apparently unable to communicate directly with the outside world.

Karimova’s treatment over the last 12 months is far superior to that of thousands of other people in Uzbekistan suffering severe human rights abuses. Yet her high-profile case provides a telling insight into the dire state of human rights in Uzbekistan today.

Uzbekistan and the American Myth of “Strategic Patience”

I wrote this with my Human Rights Watch colleague Steve Swerdlow for EurasiaNet.

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When it comes to authoritarian Uzbekistan’s dismal human rights record, the Obama administration says “strategic patience” should characterize its relationship with Tashkent. But the premise of strategic patience in Uzbekistan’s case is flawed because Tashkent plays by a different set of rules.

Uzbekistan is one of the most repressive states on earth. It also happens to be a northern neighbor of Afghanistan, so for most of the 21st century, Tashkent has been as a key cog in the US-led struggle to contain Islamic militants. These days, geopolitical circumstances are changing, yet US policy seems to be lagging behind the times.

Nisha Biswal, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, summarized the administration’s position on Uzbekistan in a recent interview. US policy should be “the right balance of pressure, partnership, and a certain amount of strategic patience in how change can take place,” Biswal said, without mentioning Washington’s recent gift of hundreds of military vehicles to the Uzbek government.