YOUR article (Habré’s rise from war specialist to dictator, May 31) offered a glimpse into the brutal dictatorship of Hissène Habré, who seized power in 1992 and ruled Chad with terror. However, glaringly absent from this analysis is any mention of the role played by the US.US involvement with Habré began when the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Casey, and Reagan decided to back Habré, who was then one of many warlords fighting for Chad. The CIA and the state department’s Africa bureau had secretly armed Habré and trained his security service in exchange for his commitment to attack Libyan troops in northern Chad.Habré was just one of the dictatorships the Reagan administration supported and armed in Africa and Latin America. The victims of these dictators deserve justice, and one way to bring a sense of closure is for the media to report all the murky facts.Andile SongezoEltonhill
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