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WASHINGTON, Sep 17 (OneWorld) - After a nearly 20-year wait, victims of deposed Chadian dictator Hissene Habre may finally see their nemesis tried for crimes against humanity.

Former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre"This is our last hope," said Clement Abaifouta, leader of the 14 victims pressing the case against Habre in Senegal, where he has been living in exile since 1990. "We have been fighting for 18 years to bring Habre to justice, and most of the survivors have already died."

After ridding Chad of the dictator, a large number of victims of torture and abuse formed a group to seek prosecution and reparations, but Senegal lacked a legal framework for prosecuting human rights abuses that took place in another country.

The International Court of Justice and the African Union have been pressing Senegal since 2000 to re-vamp its laws and bring Habre to justice.

In July the legal obstacles were overcome, and on Tuesday the 14 survivors filed charges of torture and crimes against humanity against the man known as the "Pinochet of Africa."

Senegalese rights defenders are pleased with the change. Said one, journalist Alioune Tine: "The time when brutal despots could just take their bank accounts and move next door has ended."

"The trial of Hissene Habre must become an example so that this never happens again either in Africa or anywhere else in the world."
- Bechir Bechara Dagachene, witness against HabreThe Chadian victims and their lawyers are confident that at last, Habre will be charged. "The evidence we presented today makes clear that Habre was not only politically responsible but also legally responsible for massive crimes," said Demba Cire Bathily, who coordinates the victims' legal team in Senegal.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, which helped unearth reams of documents revealing Habre's close involvement with his bloodthirsty security apparatus, known as DDS (Security and Identity Agency), agrees.

"The evidence shows that Habre was not a distant ruler who knew nothing about these crimes," said Reed Brody, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch who has been working to bring Habre to justice since 1999.

"Habre directed and controlled the police force which tortured those who opposed him or those who simply belonged to the wrong ethnic group," Brody charged.

Among the documents brought to court in Senegal this week are those showing DDS involvement in more than 12,000 cases of severe rights abuse and over 1,200 extra-judicial executions -- in a country whose population was under 10 million.

One of those imprisoned under Habre and today seeking justice is Souleyemane Guengueng, whose scars are still visible and whose eyesight was permanently affected by his two years in a DDS facility where his job was to bury executed fellow prisoners.

Another, Bechir Bechara Dagachene, was an opposition fighter arrested in 1983, who has attested to massacres of prisoners, especially Arab prisoners accused by Habre's regime of being pro-Libya.

In mid-2006, after the African Union formally asked Senegal to create a channel for prosecuting Habre, Dagachene told Amnesty International: "The trial of Hissene Habre must become an example so that this never happens again either in Africa or anywhere else in the world."

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