SADDAM HUSSEIN AND FORMER DICTATORS, HOW THEY MET THEIR END

When death summoned dictators
Monday, 13 November , 2006, 11:57
Dying a natural death or dying in peace is something that no dictator can even dream of. They create turbulence around them and they die a violent death. Saddam Hussein (born April 28, 1937), who was the president and dictator of Iraq from July 16, 1979 until April 9, 2003, has been sentenced to death by hanging for ‘crimes against humanity.’ His case is in the appeals court which, most probably, will uphold the verdict of the special tribunal which has sentenced him to death. Once the appeals court upholds the sentence, the Justice Ministry should carry it out within 30 days. As the process has started and it is moving towards a definite end, let us dig the tomb of history to find out how some of the dictators of the 20th century surrendered to the ultimate reality.

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Page 2: Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) - who gained power in a Germany facing crisis after World War I, using charismatic oratory and propaganda - can be called the most evil man in history. Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German Lebensraum (living space), which triggered World War II when Germany invaded Poland. Hitler's racial policies resulted in genocide of approximately eleven million people, including about six million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust. As Russians closed on Berlin in April of 1945 in the final days of the war, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin with his newlywed wife, Eva Braun.

Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) established a repressive fascist regime in Italy. He became a close ally of Adolf Hitler, whom he influenced. He entered the World War II in June, 1940 on the side of Nazi Germany. Three years later, the Allies invaded Italy. On April 27, 1945, Mussolini and his mistress attempted to escape to Switzerland, only to be captured. The next day, they were shot along with fifteen others. Their bodies were found hung upside down on meat hooks in Piazzale Loreto (Milan).

Stalin

Joseph Stalin (Dec 18, 1878 - March 5, 1953), who obtained power of the USSR after the death of Lenin, was one of the most influential dictators of the 20th century. On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and others, Stalin collapsed in his room, having probably suffered a stroke that paralysed the right side of his body. He died four days later, on March 5, at the age of 74. Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral haemorrhage. However, it has been suggested that Stalin was assassinated. Ex-communist exile Avtorkhanov argued this point as early as 1975. The political memoirs of Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claimed that Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin: "I took him out." In 2003, a joint group of Russian and American historians announced their view that Stalin ingested warfarin, a powerful rat poison that inhibits coagulation of the blood and so predisposes the victim to hemorrhagic stroke.

Idi Amin

Idi Amin’s (Jan 1, 1925? – August 16, 2003) tenure as President of Uganda (1971–1979) witnessed much sectarian violence, including the persecution of the Acholi, Lango, Indian and other ethnic groups as well as Hindus and Christians in Uganda. The death toll during Amin's regime will never be accurately known. An estimate from the International Commission of Jurists is that it was not less than 80,000 and more likely around 300,000. On 11 April 1979, Amin was forced to flee the capital, Kampala, when the Tanzanian army, aided by Ugandan exiles who had united as the Uganda National Liberation Army, took the city. Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia on 16 August 2003, aged 79, and was buried in Jeddah.

Pol Pot

Pol Pot (May 19, 1925 – April 16, 1998), who was the ruler of the Khmer Rouge and the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1979, instigated an aggressive policy of relocating people to the countryside in an attempt to purify the Cambodian people as a step toward a communist future. Today the excesses of his government are widely blamed for causing the deaths of up to three million Cambodians. He was arrested by Khmer Rouge military chief Ta Mok in 1997 and was subjected to a show trial for the death of his lifelong right-hand man Son Sen. He was sentenced to a lifelong house arrest. On the night of April 15, 1998 the Voice of America, of which Pol Pot was a devoted listener, announced that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to turn him over to an international tribunal. According to his wife, he died in his bed later in the night while waiting to be moved to another location. Ta Mok claimed that his death was due to heart failure.

Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic (August 20, 1941 - March 11, 2006), who was President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia, was one of the key figures in the Yugoslav wars during the 1990s and Kosovo War in 1999. He was indicted in May 1999, during the Kosovo War, by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. After demonstrations following the disputed presidential election of October 2000, he conceded defeat and resigned. Less than a year later, he was extradited to stand trial in the The Hague. He died after five years in prison with just fifty hours of testimony left before the conclusion of the trial. Milosevic died of a heart attack brought on by unclear circumstances. Some of his supporters believe that he was murdered in prison prior to the rendering of a verdict by his accusers.

Ferdinand Marcos

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralín Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was the tenth president of the Philippines. In 1972, he declared martial law, which allowed him to stay in power until lifting it in 1981. He was elected the same year to another full term, which was marred by personal health issues, government mismanagement, political repression, human rights violations, and rampant graft and corruption. In 1986, he was re-elected for the fourth time, in a disputed snap election. As a result, he was removed from office peacefully by the ‘People Power’ EDSA Revolution. Marcos died in Honolulu on September 28, 1989 of kidney, heart and lung ailments. President Aquino refused to allow the return of the Marcos remains due to national security.

Discuss: Saddam should not be hanged