Are we under a dictatorship already? (Part 2)
| Friday August 29, 2014 14:56
Saddam Hussein
Leader of Iraq – 1979-2003
Saddam’s uncle, an ardent Arab nationalist, introduced him to the world of politics. Iraq, which had been a British colony from the end of World War I until 1932, was bubbling with internal power struggles.
He started out as a low-ranking member of the Party responsible for leading his schoolmates in rioting. However, in 1959, he was chosen to be a member of an assassination squad. On October 7, 1959, Saddam and others attempted, but failed, to assassinate the prime minister.
In 1963, the Baath Party successfully overthrew the government and took power, which allowed Saddam to return to Iraq from exile. However, the Baath Party was overthrown after only nine months in power and Saddam was arrested in 1964 after another coup attempt. He spent 18 months in prison, where he was tortured, before he escaped in July 1966.
In July 1968, when the Baath Party re-gained power, Saddam was made vice-president. Over the next decade, Saddam became increasingly powerful. On July 16, 1979, the president of Iraq resigned and Saddam officially took the position. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with a brutal hand. He used fear and terror to stay in power.
On March 19, 2003, the United States attacked Iraq. During the fighting, Saddam fled Baghdad. On December 13, 2003, US forces found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole in al-Dwar, near Tikrit.
After a trial, Saddam was sentenced to death for his crimes and later executed by hanging on December 30, 2006.
Before his downfall, his two sons ruled the world and did as they pleased - from drug trafficking to murder - but have never been arraigned before any court to face justice. Of Saddam’s two sons, Uday was the flamboyant one - towering well over 6ft, with a penchant for fast cars and loud and drunken parties, expensive suits and flowing robes, as well as murder, rape and torture.
The UK Guardian of – 23 July 2003, had this to report about Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday. “He was a monster even by the standards of Saddam’s Iraq, a sadist with a taste for cruelty so extreme that even his father was forced to acknowledge that his first-born son would not be a worthy heir”.
And yet for all that Uday Saddam Hussein symbolised the brutality of the Iraqi regime, his powers were severely circumscribed. Although he retained the privileges of the much-indulged son of a dictator, he was shunted from the real centres of power in the military and security services by his quieter, younger brother Qusay, reported the GuardianUK.
As football overseer, amongst other official duties, Uday kept a private torture scorecard, with written instructions on how many times each player should be beaten on the soles of his feet after a particularly poor showing.
Uday’s excesses carried over in his private life where he had a reputation for ordering any girl or woman who caught his eye to be brought to his private pleasure dome, The Guardian reported.
Muammar Gadaffi
Muammar al-Gaddafi seized control of the Libyan government in 1969 and ruled as an authoritarian dictator for more than 40 years before he was overthrown in 2011.
Muammar al-Gaddafi was born in a Bedouin tent in Sirte, Libya, in 1942. He joined the military and staged a coup to seize control of Libya in 1969, ousting King Idris, who was abroad in Turkey for medical treatment.
Though his Arab nationalist rhetoric and socialist-style policies gained him support in the early days of his rule, his corruption, military interference in Africa, and record of horrific human rights abuses turned much of the Libyan population against him.
After graduating from military school, Gaddafi steadily rose through the ranks of the military. As disaffection with Idris grew, Gaddafi became involved with a movement of young officers to overthrow the king. A talented and charismatic man, Gaddafi rose to power in the group. Gaddafi was named commander in chief of the armed forces and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Libya’s new ruling body. At age 27, he had become the ruler of Libya.
Gaddafi’s first order of business was to shut down the American and British military bases in Libya; demanded that foreign oil companies share a bigger portion of revenue with the country; replaced the Gregorian calendar with the Islamic one; and forbade the sale of alcohol.
Gaddafi’s inner circle of trusted people became smaller and smaller, as power was shared by himself and a small group of associates. His intelligence agents travelled around the world to intimidate and assassinate Libyans living in exile.
In the mid-1970s, Gaddafi published the first volume of the Green Book, an explanation of his political philosophy. The three-volume work described the problems with liberal democracy and capitalism, and promoted Gaddafi’s policies as the remedy
Gaddafi had appointed himself or close family and friends to all positions of power, and their corruption and crackdowns on any kind of civic organizing meant much of the population lived in poverty.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi and those close to him were amassing fortunes in oil revenue while the regime murdered those it deemed as dissidents.
In the 1970s, he publicly hung students who were marching, demonstrating, demanding rights in Benghazi and in Tripoli and many other squares, Aljazeera reported in 2011.
The news channel added: “He executed, in probably the most brutal massacre that ever seen, 1,200 prisoners in the Abu Salim prison who were unarmed, they were already in jail, he executed them in less than three hours.”
His vision of a United States of Africa resulted in the foundation of the African Union.
In 2001, the United Nations eased sanctions on Libya, and foreign oil companies worked out lucrative new contracts to operate in the country.
The influx of money to Libya made Gaddafi, his family and his associates even wealthier. The disparity between the ruling family and the masses became ever more apparent.
After more than four decades in power, Gaddafi’s downfall happened in less than a year in 2011.
Despite the atmosphere of severe repression, demonstrations broke out in the city of Benghazi and spread throughout Libya.
On October 20, 2011, Libyan officials announced that Muammar al-Gaddafi had died near his hometown of Sirte, Libya.
Post Gaddafi, Libya continues to be embroiled in violence. Experts argue that the turmoil is a result of the fact that Gadaffi centralised power on himself, and made sure that State institutions were weakened and dependent on him.
“He called the shots. He was the State unto himself. Knowing that his leadership was illegitimate, and always in fear of being removed, Gadaffi made sure that the army was weak, the police were weak, traditional leadership weak, and divided Libyans along ethnic groupings. He also made sure that there was distrust among Libyans,” one commentator told CNN during the Arab Spring in 2011.
Like Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi had two sons who were feared in Libya, as they were the law unto themselves.
At the UN General Assembly in 2009, Gaddafi accused the body of being a terrorism group like al-Qaeda [EPA]
His speech was supposed to be 15 minutes, but exceeded an hour and a half. He tore up a copy of the UN charter, accused the Security Council of being a terrorist body similar to al-Qaeda, and demanded $ 7.7 trillion in compensation to be paid to Africa by its past colonial rulers.
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro was born near his father’s farm, in southeast Cuba.
In 1959, Castro took control of Cuba by force and remained its dictatorial leader for nearly five decades who had prospered in Cuba as a sugarcane farmer.
In 1945, Castro began law school at the University of Havana and quickly became involved in politics. In 1947, Castro joined the Caribbean Legion, a group of political exiles from Caribbean countries who planned to rid the Caribbean of dictator-led governments.
On July 26, 1953, Castro, his brother Raúl, and a group of about 160 armed men attacked the second-largest military base in Cuba - the Moncada Barracks. Confronted with hundreds of trained soldiers at the base, there was little chance that the attack could have succeeded. Although 60 of Castro’s rebels were killed, Castro and Raúl were captured and then given a trial.
In January, Manuel Urrutia was selected as president of the new government and Castro was placed in charge of the military. However, by July 1959, Castro had effectively taken over as leader of Cuba, which he remained for the next four decades.
During 1959 and 1960, Castro made radical changes in Cuba, including nationalising industry, collectivising agriculture, and seizing American-owned businesses and farms.
Over the next four decades, Castro ruled Cuba as a dictator. While some Cubans benefited from Castro’s educational and land reforms, others suffered from the food shortages and lack of personal freedoms. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have fled Cuba to live in the United States.
Having relied heavily on Soviet aid and trade, Castro found himself suddenly alone after the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the fall which badly impacted on the economy.
In July 2006, Castro announced that he was temporarily handing over power to his brother, Raúl, while he underwent gastrointestinal surgery.
There are indications that Cuba is now transforming into a modern society. The Huffington Post reported recently that Raul’s first presidential term was marked by economic reform and political liberalisation.
“The strategic nature of the economic transition is expressed in the changes in the composition of the labor force. In less than three years between 2010 and 2013, the number of individuals working in small businesses practically tripled, from around 160,000 to 390,000,” the Huffington Post reported.
The liberalization of the licensing process and the amplifying of the production scale on which these businesses operate are significant. Likewise, contracts between state and non-state sectors have been liberalized, opening the possibility for improved productivity.
By the end of 2012, the law of cooperatives was approved, indicating a move away from government control over significant areas of agricultural production, services, small industries and transportation.
Additional reporting, Aljazeera, Guardian UK, Human Rights Watch, Huffington Post