/ 24 May 2013

Africa: On a human rights mission

Africa: On A Human Rights Mission

As protesters marched in the Senegalese capital of Dakar last year against former president Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term, the stocky figure and trademark grin of human rights activist Alioune Tine was not to be missed.

"Elected officials shouldn't be allowed to proclaim themselves president for life, turning their ­countries into a monarchy or producing banana republics that are very ­unstable," says Tine, an out­spoken figure who has led numerous ­campaigns for human rights in the past two decades.

"The problem with the members of the OAU [the Organisation for African Unity] and of the AU [African Union] is one of bad governance," he said in a telephonic interview this week.

As secretary general of the African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights, Tine was already well known in the country and the region when he became the co-ordinator of the protest movement against Wade, which brought together civil society organisations, cultural activists like the singer Youssou N'Dour and the political opposition.

"We managed to bring change, without resorting to the violence of the Arab Spring," says Tine.

Wade refused to withdraw from the presidential race, but lost dismally in the March 25 2012 poll and stepped down.

The movement to try to force 85-year-old Wade to stick to the Constitution was for Tine the culmination of many years of activism in Senegal and in the region.

Modest headquarters
The African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights has since 1990 mobilised against abuse of power, torture, censorship of the media and all manner of human rights abuses across Africa, churning out press releases and launching campaigns from its very modest headquarters in Dakar at a pace that could rival those of any Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International office.

In January, Tine was given a job as head of the Human Rights Council by President Macky Sall to thank him for his efforts last year, and he is set to step down as head of the African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights in June.

For Tine, creating independent institutions that cannot be manipulated by those in power is the only answer to protecting citizens from human rights abuses in Africa.

Institutions created by the AU, like the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, have not played their role sufficiently to speak out against the numerous cases of human rights abuses on the continent, he says.

Civil society organisations and individuals should also, in principle, have recourse to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights in Arusha, but this is not happening.

"To be honest, African heads of state don't want it. States don't want to give up any of their sovereignty," he says.

"It is important for the African court to have the independence, credibility and legitimacy as an institution that protects human rights."

The justice systems in most African states also don't have the capacity to hear big human rights cases. "When heads of state are accused of ­wrongdoing we have to send them to The Hague."

Excision
Tine was one of those activists who, for many years, campaigned for the trial of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré to take place in Senegal. Habré has been living in exile in Dakar since he was deposed in 1990 and it now seems as though the judicial process has started and the trial will eventually take place.

"This is excellent and something that the rest of Africa should follow," says Tine.

Tine believes now is not the time to say things have improved sufficiently in his country.

"There are always threats: in ­prisons and everywhere security forces intervene. There is violence against women, young girls being forced into marriage and there is still the issue of excision."

Africa is facing a range of new threats like the buying up of agricultural land on a huge scale across the region by foreign companies.

"This threatens the livelihood of so many people and creates a lot of tension," he says.

Lately, West Africa has been faced with the threat of growing Islamic fundamentalism, especially in Nigeria and Mali, but also elsewhere. "Even in Senegal the threat of Salafism and Wahhabism is not excluded," he says.

Tine believes poverty and under­development are two of the root causes of instability.

"Africa has been totally powerless when it came to dealing with the situation in Mali. West Africa clearly didn't have military or political capacity for it."