The great Greek philosopher Aristotle remarked “Politics is the noblest profession”. Karl Marx remarked “Democracy is the road to all well-being”. Well the world has witnessed such great people, and has also witnessed such dictators who have known only one way to rule as long as they wish: Kill and perish opposition, repression and ruthlessness raging all around. Whenever a country’s democracy is curbed a dictator rises up. Usually the dictators are from military, much like Pakistan which has been ruled by Military generals for a long time. From Adolf Hitler to Stalin and General Gaddafi here is the list of 10 of the most cruel and worst dictators in the world.
Here we witness such Top 10 murderers in the history of world politics, in no particular order:
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Idi Amin Dada
He ate raw flesh of his opponents or fed them to crocodiles, and despised at the very sight of USA, and carried on mass persecutions based on ethnicity, race topped by widespread corruption and political authoritarianism. He had earned wrath of his own countryman, fled to Saudi Arabia and died there in 2003. In all 3 lakh people murdered in his 8-year regime and expelled Asians from Uganda. Idi Amin Dada was 3rd Ugandan President, he ruled from 1971 to 1979. He died on 16th August 2003, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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Kim Jong-il
While his country reeled under extreme poverty, severe economic downturn, starvation and agricultural distress, Kim Jong-il, or “The Dear Leader” as he was fondly called followed ‘military first policy’ and mindless nuclear expansion, executing all his dissidents and following shrill rhetoric against every superpower in the world. He had more than 2 lakh as political prisoners. His atrocities was adopted under the warp of his personality cult, and no one in his administration dared to speak against his policies. No wonder, the nation he headed till his death in 2011 had a misnomer in every sense: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Kim Jong-il was the military ruler of North Korea, from 1994 to 2011 he has been succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un. He died on December 17, 2011, Pyongyang, North Korea.
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Pol Pot
His Khmer Rouge was notorious for its ethnic pogrom which was responsible for wiping out 25% of his countrymen in a matter of 4 years from 1975-79 during ‘Killing Fields’ era! Executions and hard working conditions apart, he and his associates wiped out all dissensions to his Communist regime – in all cleansing 3 million people. His regime’s notoriety is still evident throughout Cambodia. Pol Pot was born in Saloth Sar, Cambodia, he led the Khmer Rouge revolution from 1963 to 1997. He died on 15 April 1998
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Joseph Stalin
The ‘Man of Steel’ ensured his totalitarian regime went to great heights to leave lasting legacy on Russia – Gulag labour camps, collective farming, aggressive industrialisation and militarisation, followed by Great Purge between 1934 – 39 when more than a million people were incarcerated, imprisoned and executed. This caused the worst man made famine in human history. Though post Stalin era has been denounced by de-Stalinization, Stalin’s attempts to thump his imprint on Russia’s legacy which has its reverberations even today. Born in Georgia 1878, Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.
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Adolf Hitler
As German Chancellor, leader of Nazis and Third Reich, his intentions were only one – make Germany the most powerful country in the world. This he sought to do through making ever political dispensation except Nazis illegal, employing suppression, propaganda and mass massacre on a scale witnessed never before. His concept of Lebensraum and failed Operation Barbarossa against Russia made him to adopt the infamous Final Solution – Holocaust of Jews, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals, disabled and others he deemed unfit for Germany. His forceful personality and powerful conviction trait notwithstanding, he’s despised as one of the most brutal dictators to have lived. Hitler was born in 1889 in Austria, and was the part of the two world wars. He initiated the world war 2 and was the leader of the Nazi Party. He is said to have died in 1945 in Berlin, Germany.
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Mao Tse-Tung
This Communist ideologue became a source of inspiration to many, and a hero to all his countrymen as he found People’s Republic of China in 1949. He’s known for initiating one of the most barbaric and unsettling forced changes through Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, which revealed itself in forced labour, widespread executions and famines, causing somewhere between 50 – 70 million deaths. Though attributed with China’s ascent to superpower status, his record on human rights abuses and blatant abuse of power has been widely under reported due to Chinese media censorship.
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Vlad III the Impaler
Sadistic in his rule of people from 1431 – 1467, and posthumously earning the sobriquet ‘Impaler’ for his fetish for impaling his enemies from cervix to mouth, one of his ways to destroy was to roast children and feed them to mothers, cut off women’s breasts and feed them to husbands and then impaling all. Estimates range from 50,000 to 1 lakh of such killings. No wonder the famous Dracula in the famous 1897 novel is inspired by Vlad’s reputation. Born in 1431 Romania. Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia was a member of the House of Drăculești, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known as Vlad Draculea or Vlad Dracula, the movies on count Dracula are inspired from him. After his death he was called Vlad the Impaler.
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Saddam Hussain
Once called the world’s most dangerous man, this CIA agent remains one of the few dictators who was tried and executed for his crimes against humanity. He hated dissidence, used oil and power to invade neighbouring Kuwait and Iran and triggered wars, unrest and uprisings against him. Allegations of using Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) ultimately led to his downfall, though it is generally conceded that Iraq was better off during his time than it is now. Born in Iraq, in 1937. Saddam was the 5th President of Iraq. He was hanged in 2006 after a death penalty.
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Ratko Mladić
The chief propagandist of Srebrenica massacre of 1991 in which 8000 Muslim Bosniaks, the largest mass murder in Europe since IInd World War. This planned genocide and ethnic cleansing showed clear failure of UN and has been imprinted as a massacre which had struggle for state and xenophobia as its core theme. It is under the investigation of International Court of Justice currently for war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.
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Benito Mussolini
The Fascist who had dreams of establishing his authority and dictatorship and brought Italy to the brink of economic collapse and together with Germany had evil designs. Ubermensch, and Black Shirts ruled mercilessly, torturing all dissidents until Allied invasion of Italy made him to run for cover and was summarily executed by Communists at the same place where he had hung many of his opponents.
Vlad the Impaler is still considered a hero in his hometown. What is never mentioned about Vlad is how he came to be the way he was. At an early age Muslim’s forced his father as a form of tribute that him and his older brother be raised in an Islamic upbringing. His brother fell for the brainwashing of the sadistic Muslims and Vlad did not. When Muslims tried to invade his country he used Islam’s own tactics he learned from them on themselves – terror. That terror was impalement and those ‘citizens’ of his country were Moslem converts. Vlad is credited with holding off Moslem invasion in that part of the world for centuries longer. Sure he was a real psychopath but he also saved Western Christian civilization from the violent Moslem hordes. You had to be a real nutbag in those days to make a real difference in the way Vlad did. He knew his Muslim enemies did nothing half hearted – they were and still are zealot fanatics. He used what he learned from them to beat them. He’s the only one on this list that deserves any positive credit for anything.