known as the king of evidence . The truths they reveal can ’ t be cross-examined ; their memories do not fade .
According to the wording of a 1983 decree establishing its existence , the DDS was directly responsible to Habré in person . Whatever the agency did , Habré knew about it , as we could tell from the hundreds of documents keeping him informed on a daily basis of even the smallest details of its activities . And the DDS was never less than proud of doing Habré ’ s bidding . « Thanks to the spider ’ s web [ we ] have spun over the whole length of the national territory ,» the director boasted in one memorandum , «[ we ] keep exceptional watch over the security of the state .»
Arrest records documented the sorts of infractions that could land a citizen in serious trouble : making insulting remarks about the president , accusing the president of stashing money abroad , sorcery ( maraboutage ) on behalf of the enemy , possession of a photo of Qaddafi , possession of a letter describing the repression in the south of Chad , even being a member of a Rastafarian club .
Few documents explicitly mentioned torture , but the language did little to disguise what went on . « It was in compelling [ the prisoner ] to reveal certain truths that he died on October 14 at 8 o ’ clock », said one report . Another detainee « only admitted certain facts … after physical discipline was inflicted upon him ». In many places , the documents talked of “ muscular ” interrogations .
We found hundreds of death certificates . The causes listed included severe amebic dysentery , severe dehydration , arterial hypertension , severe edemas of the upper and lower limbs and what was often described as , « general deterioration of health ». The vaguer descriptions could sometimes be just as sinister as the more specific ones . One document listed fourteen Zaghawa prisoners , arrested in April 1989 , who « died due to illness » later that month . Another named 32 prisoners of war who all died « from their wounds » on the same day .
The bureaucratic language attested clearly to the waves of repression in the south of Chad and ethnic cleansing against groups like the Hadjerai and the Zaghawa . One report from 1989 was titled
« Situation of the traitorous Zakawa agents arrested for complicity » and it listed 98 people – shepherds , drivers , students and businessmen – who had been arrested as « suspected accomplices of the traitors ».
One of the first documents that Olivier and I found on the floor was a report by twelve Chadian security officials , including several later accused of torture , which described a “ very special ” training they attended near Washington in March 1985 . Another document spoke of a Chadian request to the United States for truth serum and a generator , to be used in “ interrogations ”. The United States had known about Habré ’ s atrocities , of course , but to what degree did it actively participate ? I would spend years trying to find out and never got as close to the truth as these documents were taking me . My dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests in the US only got back a lot of descriptions of military assistance and embassy meetings , but nothing regarding the training .
Habré ’ s first and longest-serving DDS Director , Saleh Younous , had told Chad ’ s Truth Commission in the early 1990s that « a certain John , an American , was acting as my advisor ». Bandjim Bandoum , a former sub-director of the DDS , would also later tell me about “ John ”. The veteran French war correspondent Pierre Darcourt told me he ’ d heard of an American advisor to the DDS director called “ Mr . Swicker ”, an account supported by DDS logbooks that recorded visits by “ Mr . George Swicken ” and “ Mr . Swica .” One such visit to DDS headquarters , on April 7 , 1989 , took place as the repression of the Zaghawas was at its height and the Piscine , only a few yards away ( and across the street from the USAID office ) was filling up with Zaghawa prisoners .
I checked the State Department ’ s staff listings and found a George S . Swicker , who served as the political and military counselor at the U . S . Embassy in Chad in the late 1980s . His predecessor was James L . Morris , a possible match for a person described in a DDS document as the « American Advisor to the DDS , Monsieur Maurice ».
I never found Morris , but I traced Swicker to an address in Virginia . He never returned my calls .
The documents also talked about a secret
Deep VIEW
9