Uzair Ali draws attention towards high-handed dictatorial rule
Ruthless rulers & Dictators, army leaders, monarchs, presidents, and totalitarian heads of state keep on breaking out on the scene and creating difficulties for their country and countrymen. Such rulers had no qualms about resorting to repression, torture, propaganda, murder, and even genocide to stay in power. Their legacy is widely recognised to be bloody and a great number of their people complain against their rule. It usually takes a long time to heal the wounds caused by such rulers and in certain cases the atrocities never heal. It is painful to review such rulers and their conduct at the top during which they became tyrants for all.
Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan Milosevic stood trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, notably for the deaths of some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre, but died before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reached its verdict.
Benito Mussolini
Following the tumult that led to his appointment as prime minister of Italy, Il Duce — a Nazi collaborator, an admirer of Hitler, and the founder of Italian Fascism—terrorised the country with his racist, anti Semitic views and did away with democracy for two decades.
Idi Amin Dada
After overthrowing Uganda’s elected government in 1971, Idi Amin Dada led an eight-year reign of terror that led to the expulsion of 70,000 people, the massacre of 300,000 civilians, and the collapse of the Ugandan economy.
Augusto Pinochet
Months after staging a successful military coup, Augusto Pinochet became head of the Chilean government in June 1974. The move was swiftly followed by the death or disappearance of more than 3,200 people, while 38,000 others were tortured and tens of thousands of political dissidents sent to prison.
Kim Jong-il
From 1994 to 2011, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” led what Human Rights Watch has deemed one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Kim Jong-il’s rule encompassed 200,000 political prisoners, zero freedom of the press or religion, and a food crisis that devolved into famine in the mid-nineties, causing the deaths of at least 200,000 people.
Pol Pot
Leader of the communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Pol Pot is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people—20 per cent of the population of Cambodia at the time—between 1976 and 1979. He was at the helm of one of the most violent dictatorships the world has ever seen.
Joseph Stalin
In 1924, after the death of Lenin, Joseph Stalin eliminated his rivals one by one to become leader of the Soviet Union. Historians estimate that, during his tyrannical totalitarian regime, the dictator was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of between 3 million and 20 million people. He also went on to create the infamous Gulag system of forced labour camps. TW
