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In Africa, justice is a train that never arrives on time, especially when the cases involve heads of state and former heads of state. In Burkina Faso, the trial for the assassination of Thomas Sankara took place after the victory of the rebellion in 2014 that overthrew Blaise Compaoré. The 2021 trial took place seven years after the fall of the dictator, friend and assassin of the president, and 34 years after the crime of October 15, 1987. The trial for the massacre of September 28, 2009 took place in 2021. Fifteen years ago, on September 28, 2009, the unthinkable happened in the so-called “September 28” stadium in Conakry.
These two judgments were possible only because of the political will of the authorities of Guinea and Burkina Faso at the time. We can cite the trial of Hissen Habré, the former President of Chad, who was tried in Dakar, Senegal in 2016, 26 years after being driven from power by the action of the African Union. Since seizing power in 1982 and being forced into exile in Senegal in 1990, Hissen Habré has claimed more than 40,000 lives. What can we learn from the latest trial that condemned the former head of state, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara? Who was this young captain who, within a year of his tenure, caused Guinea to mourn so much? What is his responsibility when his superiors are condemned for crimes against humanity?
On July 31, 2024, the verdict was handed down in the trial of the massacre of September 28, 2009, which ended a two-year effort to clarify the massacre that left more than 150 people, more than 1,400 injured, all victims of demonstrators, military forces, and the rape of 109 women and girls in the stadium. The unprecedented surge in violence, rape and bloodshed, as demonstrators expressed their desire and feelings for Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to participate in the presidential elections, silenced the world and accelerated the fall of the National Democratic Council regime, which seized power after the death of General Lansana Conte. Especially since the demonstrators were only recalling the promise made by the military junta when it came to power, to exercise power temporarily and not to participate in the 2010 elections.
The history of human rights in Guinea is written in blood, with a pen dipped in the tears of the families of victims since independence. September 28 is a historic day when the Guinean people, by saying today “No” to the Franco-African Community during the 1958 referendum, embodied the dignity and independence of the Guinean people. September 28, 2009, a day of dignity, freedom, terror, barbarity, massacres, violence and rape. This has become one of the most terrible days in the history of this country, and the memory will be debated between joy and mourning. .
The leaders who sent masked soldiers armed and shooting at the people after gaining independence, and the opposition leaders who had no weapons other than the words and ideas they shared with the people. To what can we attribute what happened? Who could have thought of this plan, to fire live ammunition into a crowd gathered in a closed fence and decided to rape women and girls? It is certain that when the question of accountability for these events arose, the military government was divided, no one wanted to take responsibility for the massacre, and they tried in vain to cover it up by returning only a few bodies to the families of the victims.
On December 3, 2009, Aboubacar “Toumba” Diakité felt the situation was too dangerous and was abandoned by his superior, Captain Dadis Camara, who, along with his men, shot him. The head of the junta had a lead shot in his head and he was sent to Morocco and the international community was looking at Guinea, looking for an interim president who was less willing to shed civilian blood. If Toumba wanted to kill the people he had to protect by aiming at Dadis’s head, Dadis would be rescued by doctors, which Morocco, which was proposed to keep him, did not want. One day, Blaise Compaoré accepted the former president of Guinea as a gift from the King of Morocco. Just before the landing of the medical plane carrying the recovered to Ouagadougou, he received a warning.
Daddy’s Show
Moussa Dadis Camara is a fan of Captain Thomas Sankara. He came to power at an older age than his idol, so people compare him to him, with a certain feeling and taste for spectacle politics. It must be said that he has a military composure about him, which always attracts those who think that military men have not been to school. During his one-year tenure as head of state, Guineans were not bored. One magazine even called him “The Dadis Show”. One could see him on TV calling a Russian businessman a thief (which would surprise some people in the Sahel, who think that this side of the world has only saints). Or a bedside interview with a head of state.
Captain Moussa Dadis Camara smiles as he receives French TV channels at his home in the Alpha Diallo barracks in Conakry, inviting him into his room, where he talks about his belonging to the camp of the people, even the ordinary people. In his words, he was born in a hut in the forest to bear witness to this. How could ordinary people shoot ordinary people? Some explain the unique personality of the former Guinean head of state to the fact that his Muslim father died very early. His Christian mother (a single mother) took him to church, where he formed a bond with a missionary, who took the name of Dadis, but who at the same time left him as a father.
Golden Exile and Impunity for Power
Moussa Dadis Camara is said to have converted to Christianity during his exile in Burkina Faso. He can be seen at certain events at the Evangelical Church in Ouagadougou. On the other hand, some say that he was married at the Church of Our Lady of Ouagadougou, which is a Catholic parish. Moussa Dadis or Moïse Dadis lives in golden exile in Ouagadougou, he is no longer part of the common people. How does he live?
Some say he was doing business. This is not done to better illuminate the subject. Did France and the United States agree to deprive him of the right to pay for his management? One thing is certain, there is a significant difference between Dadis and his host, Blaise Compaoré: Captain Moussa Dadis Camara returned to Guinea freely out of a moral obligation to stand trial and did not ask his host for nationality to protect himself, as Captain Blaise Compaoré did.
Caught by Justice
The trial, which lasted two years, condemned not the perpetrators, but the planners who set these monstrous beasts in motion, unable to think about what they were doing. The former head of State of Guinea was condemned precisely in the name of superior responsibility, the responsibility of superiors for the crimes committed by their subordinates. The trial showed that the superiors neither condemned nor took action to foresee and punish these crimes.
That is why Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other members of the military junta were convicted of crimes against humanity. The accused had the right to a lawyer and were able to explain and defend themselves. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) recognized that this was a fair trial. Moussa Dadis Camara will have to brood in prison for 20 years because his year-long exercise of state power plunged the country into mourning, left widows and orphans, and ruined the lives of hundreds of young girls and women. Military superiors must stop and put an end to the illegal acts of their subordinates or bear legal responsibility.
Sanaa Gaye
Lefaso.net
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