Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410140013
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL KILIAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But he will definitely take up residence in that hall of historical has-beens: the Pantheon of Fallen Dictators.
Given their druthers, most El Supremos yearn to follow the examples of Spain's Francisco Franco and the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin, who hung on to power into their decrepitude - going into their graves only after they had seen to it that nearly all their enemies had gone into their graves first.
And certainly many dumped despots would happily settle for the fate of Egypt's King Farouk, who was tossed off his country's throne in 1952 but allowed to maintain a well-heeled Riviera life in exile devoted to the conspicuous consumption of strong drink, food, nymphets and other fleshly pleasures until he died, sated and obese, in 1965 at age 45.
Given their choice, the constituents of overthrown dictators tend to favor a low-cost tyrant retirement plan amounting to a quick walk to the nearest firing squad - the fate that befell Italy's Benito Mussolini at the end of World War II and Romania's communist boss Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 at the close of the Cold War.
But for most failed despots, life after absolute power offers a bit more leeway, even if post-dictatorhood is a mixed bag. Here's what has happened to just a few terrifying tyrants after their suns set:
Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier: With Haiti in the news, one must recall Baby Doc, the doltish, overweight, bumblingly bad boy heir to dictator Francois ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier, famed for the cruelty of his fiendish Tontons Macoutes militia.
Baby Doc, with the help of assorted greedy relatives, some of whom deposited American economic assistance checks directly into their personal bank accounts, managed to preside over the Haitian government for 16 years. When tossed out in 1986 at age 35, he was flown into exile on the French Riviera by U.S. Air Force jet, with some $120 million in personal funds having preceded him into various Swiss bank accounts. France offered only temporary asylum but got stuck with Duvalier fils for good when no other country would have him.
With the help of his shopping-crazed wife, Michele, and free-spending entourage, Baby Doc ran up enormous debts and ran through much of his ill-gotten fortune. Banks have frozen what's left. Divorced, he now lives alone in a seedy house in Cannes far from the beach, and it has been reported that he can't even afford a phone.
Idi Amin: The one-time British army sergeant who became a general in Uganda's armed forces first seized power in 1971. He threw all 45,000 of Uganda's Asian residents out the following year, had himself declared president for life in 1976 and was driven from power and Uganda in 1979 by the Tanzanian army, whose country Amin had tried to invade several times.
While master of Uganda, he amused himself mostly by torturing and killing people. Of his estimated 300,000 victims, thousands were fed to crocodiles. One unfortunate female American tourist, traveling alone, involuntarily accepted an Amin dinner invitation. According to reports, after he had his way with her, he had her tossed into a dungeon and beaten to death.
Amin had initially gone into exile in Saudi Arabia in 1979, but was picked up in Zaire in 1989, apparently plotting a return to his homeland. He was sent to Senegal, which in turn put him back onto a plane for Saudi Arabia.
Now 67, he is believed to be under a loose form of house arrest in Saudi Arabia, which tolerates his presence because he is so unpopular elsewhere, and because Ugandan authorities fear he could come back and cause trouble if allowed to travel freely.
Pol Pot: In terms of sheer horror and mindless, wholesale mass murder, few despots in this century compare to Cambodia's Pot, the communist Khmer Rouge leader who took over his country in 1975 in a Maoist revolution so primitive, savage, ruthless and absolute that its goal virtually became the elimination of all civilization within Cambodia's borders.
At least 1 million (and probably substantially more) Cambodians perished at Pot's demonic command - about one-fourth the country's population. The film ``The Killing Fields'' reflects just a few aspects of the mind-numbing genocide he inflicted on his people.
Driven from Phnom Penh in 1979 by Vietnamese communist armed forces, allied with anti-Khmer Rouge Cambodian rebels, Pot retreated into the bush and jungle, protected by Cambodians still loyal to his communist insurgents. Now 65, he is believed to be living with his second wife (his first reportedly committed suicide) along the Thai border in western Cambodia, moving from place to place in the midst of a stealthy Khmer Rouge army still 10,000 strong.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa: A one-time French army captain who won the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre fighting in Vietnam when it was French Indochina, Bokassa was asked by Central African Republic President David Dacko in 1961 to become commander in chief of the country's armed forces.
Bokassa took the job, and then overthrew Dacko in 1966, assuming the presidency. An obsessive admirer of Napoleon, he decided to emulate the legendary French despot by declaring himself emperor and his nation the Central African Empire in 1977. His coronation reportedly cost his country's treasury in excess of $200 million and bankrupted it.
The emperor was given to other forms of excess. He and his Romanian wife loved hunting and depleted much of his country's wildlife. In a famous photograph, they posed cradling the huge liver of a slain rhinoceros in their arms.
When Bokassa had his imperial guard kill 100 schoolchildren (reportedly for making fun of his son), French paratroopers moved in and helped his countrymen overthrow him. Bokassa fled to the Ivory Coast, then accepted exile in France.
Though he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1980, he for some reason returned in 1986. He was convicted of mass murder (though acquitted of cannibalism) and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and later reduced to 10 years.
Last year, the feeble 73-year-old was released from prison in a general amnesty granted to all imprisoned Central African Republic criminals by outgoing dictator Andre Kolingba in a gesture of contempt toward the democracy that since has taken over the country.
Augusto Pinochet: Chilean Gen. Pinochet, the kind of medalled, torture-chamber despot Hollywood moviemakers really love to hate, won international scorn in the violent 1973 coup that led to the overthrow and murder of Chile's freely elected leftist president, Salvador Allende.
After the coup, which was believed to have been backed by the United States, Pinochet ruled absolutely until 1990, when he stepped down after losing a 1988 plebiscite on military rule and a 1989 presidential election. Though a 1991 international report attributes some 2,100 deaths to Pinochet's government, the 79-year-old soldier has been allowed to stay on as army chief of staff and recently made an official trip to the Czech Republic that stirred enormous controversy in Europe.
Anastasio Somoza: Another medalled Latin American generalissimo, Somoza did not fare so well. He became president of Nicaragua in 1967, succeeding a dictator father and dictator older brother. He followed family tradition in using the Nicaraguan national guard as a personal Roman Legion and in using his office to fatten his pockets and beat up on his enemies.
The leftist Sandinistas drove him from power in 1979, compelling him to seek exile in dictator-friendly Paraguay.
But Somoza just wouldn't leave well enough alone. He fell in love with a beautiful Paraguayan nightclub dancer who also shared her favors with a powerful and well-connected Asuncion newspaper editor.
The editor reportedly was responsible for an attack on two of Somoza's Mercedez-Benz luxury cars with a construction bulldozer that flattened them. Shortly afterward, gunmen believed to be in the pay of Somoza shot up the editor's newsroom.
Shortly after that, Somoza was blown up with a bomb.
There's a lesson in that for despots everywhere - and maybe even newspaper editors.
by CNB