Riding the Tiger: A Century of Dictators

A weekly illustrated blog about the world's worst people.

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Idi Amin 

“Politics is like boxing—you try to knock out your opponent.”

Country: Uganda

Born/Died: Mid-1920’s - August 16, 2003

Dates in Power: January 25, 1971- April 11, 1979

Also known as: Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular

Other titles held: Light heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda 1951-1960

Standing 6”4’ and weighing 280 lbs. at the height of his political power in 1974, Ugandan strongman Idi Amin challenged the coach of his national boxing team to a few friendly rounds. The former champion fighter-turned-dictator, always eager to display his physical prowess, quickly won the fight with a decisive KO. For eight long years, inside the ring and out, Idi Amin mercilessly beat up on his own people—forcing the opposition up against the ropes and jealously guarding his title.

Idi Amin was born around 1925 in Uganda, which was then a Crown Colony of the British Empire. He joined the King’s African Rifles as a young man, advancing from auxiliary cook to warrant officer by displaying that combination of brutality and obsequiousness that the British so loved in their colonial troops. He loyally helped his masters suppress nationalist uprisings in Kenya and Uganda, earning mild rebuke from superiors for his excessively cruel methods. Upon independence, Amin became commander of Uganda’s armed forces and seized power in 1971. The following day, he began murdering tribal elements in the army loyal to his predecessor. A failed incursion by rebels the following year fed Big Daddy’s paranoia and the killing spread beyond the military. Amin’s security force, known euphemistically as the State Research Bureau, stopped unlucky victims in the street and politely asked them to remove their shoes before they were trundled off in cars never to be seen alive again. Desperate families searched for loved ones in the forests around the capital Kampala. On one occasion, bodies dumped into the Nile clogged the Owen Dam.

Amin became famous in the Western media for his clownish behavior on the international stage. He organized a “Save Britain” food drive in poverty-stricken Uganda to aid impoverished Britons. He sent a telegram to Richard Nixon wishing him a “speedy recovery from Watergate.” Amin publicly praised the murder of Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics—even proposing to erect a monument to Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, his reign of terror at home continued, even turning on his own family. His second wife, suspected of adultery, was found dismembered in the trunk of a car. His own father was forced to flee with thousands of others to Sudan.

Amin declared “economic war” on Uganda’s Asian minority in 1972, expelling thousands from the country and turning over their substantial property to his supporters. The resulting mismanagement left factories idle and shops empty—completing the African dictatorial one-two punch of political violence and economic collapse. With his regime rapidly losing public support, Amin sought a distraction in a long-simmering border conflict with neighboring Tanzania. After Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere declined his challenge to settle their dispute in the boxing ring, Amin started the war that would be his undoing. An invasion force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels took the capital in 1979. Amin fled into exile in Saudi Arabia, where he lived comfortably until his death in 2003.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Idi Amin’s dictatorship degenerated into an 8-year long orgy of tribal, ethnic, and political violence. 300,000 people were murdered by the regime as he attempted to purge Uganda of opposition. Thousands more fled into exile, even Amin’s sick and aged father.

Legacy: Amin’s son Jaffar, angered by the unflattering portrayal of his father in the 2007 movie “The Last King of Scotland,” started a website to defend Big Daddy’s reputation.

Fun Fact: Idi Amin had a voracious sexual appetite, marrying at least six women and fathering over 30 children. He reportedly ate 40 oranges a day to maintain his sexual powers during his elderly years in exile.

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P.W. Botha 

“I never have the nagging doubt of wondering whether perhaps I am wrong.”

Country: South Africa

Born/Died: January 12, 1916 – October 31, 2006

Dates in Power: September 28, 1978 – August 15, 1989

Also known as: Die Groot Krokodil (The Big Crocodile), P.W. (pronounced Pee Veeh in Afrikans).

Hobbies other than dictating: Reading, horse back riding, walking

In a speech delivered shortly after taking power, South African dictator P.W. Botha told an all-white audience that, in order to preserve the institution of Apartheid, it was necessary to make a few small concessions. Although still deprived of any political rights, black South Africans would soon be permitted to reside in white communities, eat at their restaurants, and even have consensual sex with them. “We must adapt or die,” Botha said wistfully. It was an ironic appeal for change from a man who spent his entire political life battling for the status quo of white rule in South Africa- and who took his name from a prehistoric monster that hasn’t evolved since the Cretaceous Period.

Botha was born to a long line of Afrikaners, an inter-mixed group of Dutch and German settlers, and French colonists who had been oppressing the indigenous population of Southern Africa since 1652. As a member of the ultra-conservative National Party he helped institute the suite of discriminatory policies known as Apartheid in the 1950’s, keeping blacks in a state of virtual serfdom and maintaining minority white rule for the next 40 years. By the time he became Prime Minister in 1978 white governments in Africa were toppling one by one, but Botha stubbornly resisted efforts at reform.

By the 1980s South Africa was the only minority-ruled country left in Africa, and Botha remained convinced his nation faced a “total onslaught” from the twin menaces of African nationalists and godless communism. To combat this threat he advocated “total strategy” - a sophisticated state security apparatus designed to identify and eliminate black leaders and preserve white supremacy in perpetuity. Throughout the 1980s the South African Defense Forces used torture, imprisonment, and murder to crush a growing nationalist insurgency. During the resultant campaign of terror 73,000 people were detained without trial by the Botha government and thousands were killed or tortured by defense forces in dismal state prisons.

P.W. Botha resigned in 1989 and the savage institution of Apartheid went extinct with this disgusting dinosaur’s political influence. Die Groot Krokodil went on to a comfortable retirement on the family farm before dropping dead of a heart attack at the ripe old age 90.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: After the fall of the Apartheid regime, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found P.W. Botha guilty of gross human rights violations. During the 1980s, he directly authorized South Africa’s security forces to murder black nationalists and during the course of his rule illegally detained 73,000 people.

Legacy: Botha’s successor F.W. de Klerk, released ANC leader Nelson Mandela from prison and oversaw the transition to majority rule in South Africa.

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Rafael Trujillo

“Above all, I am against dictators.”

Country: Dominican Republic

Born/Died: October 24, 1891 - May 30, 1961

Dates in Power: August 16, 1930 - May 30, 1961

Also known as: El Jefe (The Boss), El Chivo (the proverbial “horny goat”- so named for his insatiable sexual appetites), Chapitas (“bottlecaps” for a love of wearing cheap medals)

Three weeks after Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo seized power in a rigged presidential election, a deadly hurricane struck the capital of Santo Domingo — leveling the city and leaving thousands dead or displaced. The incipient despot immediately assumed god-like authority to rebuild his shattered country. Over the next 30 years, he boldly refashioned the Dominican Republic in his own image, naming streets, schools, and mountains after himself and even rechristening the capital “Ciudad Trujillo.” Billboards bearing the slogan “Dios y Trujillo” appeared everywhere, proclaiming the tyrant’s divine associations. On second thought, these signs and placards were later changed to read “Trujillo y Diós” — making it clear to Dominicans who was really in charge.

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina was born to a shopkeeper father and half-Haitian mother in 1891. As a boy he joined a street gang, “The 44,” and later made a living as a cattle rustler, forger, and pimp. The ambitious young Trujillo joined the US-trained National Guard during America’s 8-year long occupation of the Dominican Republic and when the Marines pulled out in 1924, he was left in command of a small but capable army. The general ran for president in 1930 and with the help of his loyal troops and fellow gang members murdering opponents and intimidating voters, he won a landslide victory.

After the storm, Trujillo promoted himself to Generalísimo and ruled like a Caribbean Napoleon, prancing about in elaborate gold-braided uniforms, plumed bicorne hats, and elevator shoes. During his reign, some 1,800 statues of the dictator were erected — one for every 10 square miles of his tiny country.

In 1937, despite his mixed parentage and suspiciously dark complexion (concealed beneath heavy pancake makeup), Trujillo sent the army to the border with Haiti on a genocidal killing spree to purge the Dominican Republic of “inferior” Haitians. Over 20,000 black Haitians were murdered by Trujillo’s machete-wielding henchmen in what became known as the “Parsley Massacre.” Nor were domestic victims spared Trujillo’s unspeakable cruelty. Prominent enemies were taken before the Generalissimo and beaten about the face with his riding crop before being shot, boiled alive, or fed to sharks. In 1961, on his way to see one of his many mistresses, Rafael Trujillo’s limousine was ambushed by assassins and El Chivo was shot to death in the street.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship remains one of the bloodiest in the Western hemisphere. Uncounted thousands of his own people lost their lives during his 30-year regime — the 1960 beating deaths of the Mirabel sisters, vocal opponents of the regime, is but one example of Trujillo’s brutality. Over 20,000 Haitians were murdered during the “Parsley Massacre.”

Fun Fact: Trujillo was an avid baseball fan and hired several ringers from the American Negro Leagues to play in the DR. The great “Satchel” Paige pitched for the championship-winning “Team Ciudad Trujillo.”

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Gamal Abdel Nasser

“There were two Nassers and one of them was a tyrant.” -Wilton Wynn

Country: Egypt

Born/Died: January 15, 1918 - September 28, 1970

Dates in Power: July 23, 1952 - September 28, 1970

Also known as: Al Raïs (The Boss)

Hobbies other than dictating: Chess, home movies, ping pong

Favorite American film: It’s a Wonderful Life

On July 23, 1952 Gamal Abdel Nasser led a revolution which deposed the corrupt king of Egypt Farouk I. Since Pharaoh Nectanebo II fled before the Persians in 343 B.C., the world’s oldest nation-state had been ruled by a succession of foreign conquerors- Alexander the Great, Roman Caesars, Byzantine Greeks, Ottoman sultans, Napoleon, and finally the British-backed Farouk. But when the fat, debauched, French-speaking Albanian monarch boarded his royal yacht and sailed into exile, control of Egypt passed into the hands of a native Egyptian for the first time in over 2 millennia. Nasser would go on to rule over his people for the next 18 years with the iron fist and god-like authority of some latter-day pharaoh.

Born near Alexandria in 1918, young Gamal joined the Egyptian Army and served in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Embittered by defeat and the loss of Palestinian lands, Nasser began plotting the nationalist coup which would topple the ineffectual King Farouk 4 years later. After taking power he banned opposition parties, nationalized the press, and used a bungled assassination attempt to justify a brutal crackdown on the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian communists alike. His decision to nationalize the Suez Canal made him a wildly popular figure at home and throughout the Middle East.

But a disastrous intrvention in Yemen’s Civil war, his support of a CIA-sponsored coup in Iraq that brought the  Ba’ath party (and ultimately Saddam Hussein) to power, and the collapse of a proposed Egyptian union with Syria tarnished his reputation as unofficial leader of the Arabs. Nasser’s desperate desire to rebuild his prestige and unite the Arabs under his personal leadership led him to blunder into the Six-Day War with Israel — during which three Arab armies were crushed and the West Bank and Gaza occupied by the Israelis. After this humiliating defeat Nasser purged the military and secret police of his inept cronies and grew increasingly isolated and suspicious. During his final months he slept with a revolver at his bedside.

Gamal Abdel Nasser died of a massive heart attack in 1970. His funeral was a huge spectacle, worthy of a 20th century Pharaoh, attended by millions of mourners. King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat were left in tears. An inconsolable Muammar Gaddafi fainted not once, but twice.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government detained 20,000 Communists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early years of his rule. An unknown number were tortured and killed. Under Nasser’s leadership, the Egyptian Army deployed poison gas against royalist forces during the Yemeni Civil War (1962-1970).

Fun Fact: To complete what Nasser referred to his “modern-day pyramid”— the Aswan High Dam — sand and stones roughly equaling 27 Great Pyramids at Giza were thrown into the Nile.

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Gnassingbé Eyadéma

“Democracy in Africa moves along at its own pace and in its own way.”

COUNTRY: Togo

BORN/DIED: December 26, 1937 - February 5, 2005

DATES IN POWER: April 14, 1967 - February 5, 2005

ALSO KNOWN AS: Born Étienne, he adopted the name Eyadéma (courage) as well as the titles Guide de la Nation, The Savior of the Common Man

ARCH ENEMIES: The Union of the Forces of Change, an opposition league

On January 24, 1974, a DC-3 carrying Gnassingbé Eyadéma attempted a desperate crash landing in the West African Savannah. The stricken plane spun in and there were no survivors. But wait! Over there, emerging from the twisted wreckage—faster than a cheetah, more powerful than a gnu, able to alter the constitution with a single decree—it’s Superdictator! Eyadéma’s miraculous escape from this near disaster, and other true-life adventures, were chronicled in a popular government-published comic book that cast the lucky tyrant of Togo as an invincible superhero. Such extraordinary claims of greatness became a hallmark of the personality cult that flourished that during Eyadéma’s reign.

The son of less-than-super peasants, Gnassingbé Eyadéma joined the French Colonial Army when he was only 16 and saw combat during the attempted re-conquests of Algeria and Indo-China. When France granted Togo independence in 1960, the young sergeant returned home and along with a group of disgruntled fellow officers forced the elected president, Sylvanus Olympio, from office. The putschists pursued the fleeing leader through the streets of the capital Lomé and as he sought asylum at the American embassy, Eyadéma personally gunned him down in the parking lot. In 1967, on the anniversary of Olympio’s ouster, Eyadéma led another coup and seized the presidency for himself. In an attempt to bolster support for his illegitimate regime, Eyadéma established a cult of personality of laughable proportions. His image appeared everywhere—on billboards, wristwatches, and of course splashed across the colorful pages of a graphic novel. Employing his fearsome superpowers of violent repression and voter fraud, Eyadéma murdered hundreds of his own people and maintained his iron grip on power for 38 years. His security forces were known to dump their mutilated victims from helicopters far out to sea and it was even rumored that Eyadéma himself fed opponents to crocodiles.

He died en route to France for medical treatment. It turns out Superdictator was not impervious to myocardial infarction.

CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS: Hundreds of civilians and soldiers were the victims of extrajudicial killings by the government of Gnassingbé  Eyadéma. Arbitrary arrest followed by torture and ill-treatment was the fate of hundreds more.  

LEGACY: Faure Gnassingbé, one of Eyadéma’s many sons, succeeded him as president of Togo. Human rights abuses continue under his administration.

FUN FACT: Gnassingbé Eyadéma was quite the ladies man. He fathered over a hundred children and maintained an entourage of 1,000 dancing women to sing his praises.

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Georgios Papadopoulos

“Hippyism... long hair... the hirsute flag of their nihilism.”

Country: Greece

Born/Died: May 5, 1919 - June 27, 1999

Dates in Power: April 21, 1967 - November 25, 1973

Also known as: Papadopoulos’ government was known variously as “The Regime of the Colonels,” “The Junta,” and “The Seven Years”

Georgios Papadopoulos seemed destined for mediocrity. The eldest son of a poor village schoolmaster, little Papadopoulos’ gradiose predictions that he would one day rule Greece only earned dismissive laughter from friends. Later, when the pudgy, little army officer was discovered plotting to overthrow the Republican government, an unworried Prime Minister sent him away with a warning saying, “Democracy has nothing to fear from a Colonel.” Even his surname, among the most common in Greece, seemed to be a sign of his remarkable averageness. But Papadopoulos surprised everyone. On April 21, 1967, he seized power in a bloodless coup and established an anything-but-ordinary dictatorship in the very cradle of democracy.

Papadopoulos was born in the little town of Elaiohori on the Peloponnese. He briefly fought against the Nazi invasion of Greece in World War II, but once the swastika was raised over the Acropolis he became a tax collector for the collaborationist government. After liberation, the reactionary Papadopoulos rejoined the army and became a Colonel in 1967, just before staging a putsch to prevent what he claimed was an imminent Communist takeover.

On the eve of the “Summer of Love,” his tanks rumbled into Athens and loyal troops arrested thousands of suspected Communists and opposition leaders at bayonet point. Portraying himself as a defender of the traditional Greek values of family and Orthodox faith, the staunchly conservative Papadopoulos and his ruling junta targeted anyone with leftist sympathies, from Marxists to hippies. The press was censored, the Communist Party was banned, and such youthful fashion statements as mini-skirts and long hair were forbidden. Sunday school was made mandatory for children to inculcate them against the radicalism of their bell-bottom-wearing, socialist-leaning older siblings. Although Papadopoulos took great pains to connect his rule to Greece’s illustrious past (demanding that government documents and newspapers use a rarified, “classic” form of the language), he went so far as to ban plays by Sophocles and Aristophanes. Even the lively Greek tradition of spasimo, breaking plates, was proscribed by the joyless Colonel and his henchmen.

After his fall from power in 1973, the reestablished Greek Republic convicted Georgios Papadopoulos of high treason and sentenced him to death. This was later commuted to life in prison and Papadopoulos spent his last 25 years in jail before succumbing to cancer in 1999.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Under Papadopoulos some 8,000 suspected Communists were arrested following the 1967 coup. Of them, 3,500 suffered torture while in the hands of military police and 6,188 were forced into exile on remote Greek isles.

Legacy: Papadopoulos was deposed by even more radical elements in the army who unleashed another wave of repression before democracy was restored in 1974.

Fun Fact: Papadopoulos’ Minister of Public order personally beat up two journalists for printing an article that suggested such Ancient Greek luminaries as Plato and Alexander the Great were gay.

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In 2002 unknown perpetrators exploded a giant concrete bust of Ferdinand Marcos in Benguet province. It is rumored that they were searching for some of the Marcoses hidden treasure.

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Imelda Marcos had a collection of over 3000 shoes– all paid for by the people of Philippines. After fleeing the country much of her collection was divided up, lost, and damaged, however over 200+ pairs are included the Marikina Shoe Museum outside of Manila. Pictured is part of her collection on view.

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Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos

“I get all my fingers in all the pies. Before you know it your little fingers, including all your toes, are in all the pies.”

Country: The Philippines

Born/Died: Him- September 11, 1918 - September 28, 1989

Her- July 2, 1929 - not dead yet

Dates in Power: December 30, 1965 - February 25, 1986

Also known as: Her-The Steel Butterfly

Him- The Man of “Steal”

Ferdinand Marcos, a promising young Filipino legislator, business criminal, and convicted murderer had just stopped in at the congressional cafeteria for a bite to eat one evening when he saw her — a ravishing beauty with large, dark eyes and a coquettish smile sitting all alone enjoying some watermelon seeds. Insecure about his height, he introduced himself and politely asked the young lady to stand up. Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t too tall for him, Ferdinand became determined to make the 36-23-25 former Miss Manilla Imelda Romualdez his wife. Within a few weeks the future kleptocrat was slipping a huge wedding ring on the beauty queen’s finger — set with 11 diamonds, one for each day of their whirlwind courtship.

Thus began the personal and political marriage of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, who would go on to become the conjugal dictators of the Phillippines and oversee one of the most corrupt regimes in history.

Both the Marcoses came from politically influential Filipino families- he from the rugged northern islands of the archipelago and she from the lush, tropical south. Although convicted of a politically motivated slaying in his youth, Ferdinand’s family connections got the sentence overturned and he followed his father into a successful career in Congress. With the help of the charming and photogenic Imelda — his “secret weapon” — Ferdinand was elected president of the Phillippines in 1965 and their ensuing 20-year reign became an unrestrained orgy of graft and corruption. The Marcoses enriched themselves with shady business deals and government monopolies on everything from garlic to bananas. Billions of dollars were salted away in foreign banks and Malacañang Palace in Manilla became a vast repository for their pilfered wealth, where Ferdinand stashed his gold ingots and Imelda maintained a huge wardrobe of gowns, diamond necklaces, tiaras, 2,500 pairs of shoes, and dozens of girdles. To maintain their profitable grip on power in the face of student demonstrations, Ferdinand declared martial law in 1972, suspending the Constitution, jailing dissidents, and padlocking TV stations. Government forces killed murdered some 3,000 regime opponents and suspected Communists during the next decade of military rule, and  illegally detained and tortured thousands more.

Simmering anger over the suspicious assassination of prominent Marcos critic Benigno Aquino, Jr. and a blatantly stolen election boiled over in the “People Power Revolution” of 1986. On February 25, thousands of protesters surrounded Malacañang Palace demanding that the Marcoses step down and that evening the couple fled to Hawaii by helicopter. Imelda was forced to leave behind her girdles and shoes but managed to escape with most of her valuable jewelry concealed in empty boxes of her incontinent husbands Pampers. Ferdinand Marcos died in exile of the kidney ailment that necessitated all those diapers but Imelda returned home to the Philippines in 1991 and to date has made two unsuccessful bids for a presidency of her own.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Ferdinand Marcos, together with his wife Imelda, stole anywhere from $5 to $10 billion dollars over the course of their 20-year reign. Transparency International named Ferdinand the most corrupt head of state ever behind Suharto. The massive robbery financed the couple’s ridiculously extravagant lifestyle, most famously Imelda’s vast collection of shoes, while the overall economy stagnated. The regime was also responsible for human rights violations during the period of martial law 1972-1981.

Legacy: The Philippines is only now recovering from the Marcoses’ decades of anti-democratic government and economic mismanagement.

Fun Fact #1: In 2010 world music lover and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne released an album of songs inspired by the life of Imelda Marcos entitled “Here Lies Love.”

Fun Fact #2: In 2002 unknown perpetrators exploded a giant concrete bust of Ferdinand Marcos in Benguet province. It is rumored that they were searching for some of the Marcoses hidden treasure.

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Engelbert Dollfuss

Country: Austria

Born/Died: October 4, 1892 – July 25, 1934

Dates in Power: May 20, 1932 – July 25, 1934

Also know as: Millimeter Metternich and The Jockey (due to his short stature), Machine Gun Dolli (received during his enthusiastic stint in the Austrian army during World War II).

Engelbert Dollfuss became chancellor of Austria just eight months before Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany and his brief dictatorship was dominated by conflict with the Nazi leader. Dollfuss was a fervent nationalist, intent on maintaining an independent Austria in the face of National Socialist expansionism. He would, he said, “out-Hitler” Hitler by employing Nazi-style political repression and thuggery to ensure that Austria remained a Catholic, fascist, and authoritarian state, free from German domination. The “Littlest Dictator” paid dearly for his attempt to beat Der Führer at his own game.

Born a bastard in Texing, Austria (only a hundred miles from the birthplace of his future nemesis), Engelbert Dollfuss was a lonely boy, unwanted and unloved by an abusive stepfather. He found a second home in the bosom of the Catholic church and his devout faith came to shape his later political views. Although initially rejected for military service on account of his short stature, he served with distinction in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I and after the conflict went into politics, becoming chancellor of the Austrian Republic in 1932. Mistrustful of both godless Communism and pagan Nazism, Dollfuss espoused a neo-feudal, authoritarian state in which the Catholic Church wielded extensive influence over the government. By aping the violent tactics of Hitler and the Nazis, Dollfuss was able to establish the conservative, clerico-fascist regime of which he had long dreamed. When a procedural dispute led to gridlock in the National Council, Dollfuss dissolved the legislature and ruled, like Hitler, by decree. Protests were forbidden, the press censored, and Dollfuss’ right-wing militia, the Heimwehr, ruled the streets.

His victory was short-lived. On July 25, 1934 a group of Austrian Nazis staged a putsch in Vienna. They burst into the chancellery and Engelbert Dollfuss was shot in the throat as he attempted to escape through a side door. The pious Catholic bled to death while his killers denied him last rights.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: During the Austrian Civil War (February 12-16, 1934) Engelbert Dollfuss ordered the police and rightwing paramilitary groups to crush leftist resistence to his clerico-fascist regime. All opposition parties were eliminated and several hundred combatants died in four days of street fighting.

Fun Fact: Dollfuss began his studies as a boy with the intention of becoming a priest but after much soul-searching, feared he could not keep the vow of celibacy and pursued Law instead.

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Mobutu was so fond of his wife that he doubled his pleasure—taking her twin sister as his mistress.

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Sitting with President Nixon, Mobutu Sese Seko is seen with his ebony walking stick that he believed imbued him with magical powers.

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Mobutu Sese Seko

“Steal cleverly, little by little”

Country: Zaire

Born/Died: October 14, 1930 - September 14, 1997

Dates in Power: November 24, 1965 - May 26, 1997

Also know as: The Leopard, The Guide, Mulopwe (God-king), Jeff

Signature beverage: Laurent Perrier Pink Champagne

Favorite outfit: A blue or gray Mao-style tunic, a leopard-skin hat, and an ebony walking stick which he believed gave him magical powers.

Mobutu Sese Seko, inspired by a meeting with older, more experienced dictator Mao Zedong, made a communist-style cult of personality a prominent feature of his own rule. Describing so-called “Mobutism,” a former underling wrote: “Nothing is possible without Mobutu. He created Zaire... You do not even use the toilet without the authorization of Le Guide.”

The future kleptocrat was born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in the Belgian Congo. A flamboyant figure known for his leopard-skin hats, silk scarves, and Buddy Holly glasses, Mobutu seized power in a military coup in 1965. Beginning in the early 1970s, he undertook a program of authenticité, encouraging his people to reject Western influences and embrace an exclusively African identity. European names and dress were discouraged. The Congo was re-christened Zaire and Joseph-Désiré, known to his childhood playmates as “Jeff,” became Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (The all-powerful leader who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake). His government seized all foreign-owned farms, ranches, factories and shops and handed them over to Zaireans. Within weeks massive layoffs and shortages were reported as these enterprises floundered in the hands of Mobutu’s inept cronies. While the average citizen’s annual income plummeted to just $120, Mobutu pocketed $15 billion in bribes, foreign aid, and business deals—amassing a personal fortune equal to Zaire’s national debt. He openly encouraged government officials to join in the plunder and corruption swiftly came to permeate every level of society.

Unfortunately for Mobutu Sese Seko, several of his generals were enriching themselves by selling arms to rebels. In 1997, he was forced out of office and fled with his family into exile. At The Leopard’s opulent villa on the banks of the Congo river all that remained after thorough looting were hundreds of adult diapers. Mobutu, who presumed control over the bladders of an entire nation, was left incontinent by prostate cancer. He died four months late in Rabat, Morocco.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Mobutu Sese Seko was one of the most corrupt dictators of all time. Over the course of his disastrous 32-year reign he stole an estimated $15 billion from state coffers. In the 1990’s he gave refuge and aid to the Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.  

Legacy: Mobutu left his homeland bankrupt and riven by faction A four-year-long civil war erupted soon after his ouster.

Fun Fact: Mobutu was so fond of his wife that he doubled his pleasure—taking her twin sister as his mistress.

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Under the Jaruzelski martial law that ended in 1989 telephone lines were disconnected, mail subjected to postal censorship, and all official organizations independent of the state were criminalized. Many industries such as healthcare, transportation, media, factories, and trade were taken over by the military. Employees underwent “tests” that verified their attitudes toward the state. Consequently, thousands were barred from working in their qualified occupations. 

Pictured here is a censored telegram that roughly reads as, “Grandmother died. Funeral March 18 1400 hrs. –Dad”

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In 1981, Jaruzelski declared marital law in attempt to crush Solidarity (the largest workers’ union in Poland) and other pro-democracy movements. A curfew was imposed, the national borders sealed, airports closed, and road access to main cities restricted. Dozens were killed and some 10,000 people were detained. 

Pictured here is the Solidarity emblem followed by a line of tanks filing towards the city of Poznań soon after the declaration of martial law.

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Wojciech Jaruzelski

“We shall consistently purge Polish life from evil”

Country: Poland

Born/Died: July 6, 1923 - May 25, 2014

Dates in Power: February 11, 1981- December 21, 1990

Also known as: The Polish acronym for Jaruzelski’s ruling junta, the Military Council for National Salvation, was WRON. Wags quickly began referring to the regime as “wrona,” or “The Crow”

Favorite Fashion Accessory: Dark-tinted glasses

Solidarity, the anti-Soviet, pro-democracy coalition of Polish workers, intellectuals, and Catholic clergy, was born in the summer of 1980 when striking shipyard laborers began demonstrating against the repressive Communist regime. The strikes blossomed into a 10 million-strong popular movement. In less than a decade, Solidarity would lift the Iron Curtain and topple Poland’s dictatorship. But standing in their way was a short, bespectacled, ramrod-straight aparatchick named Wojciech Jaruzelski, determined to maintain one-party socialist rule.

Born the son of well-to-do gentry, a 16-year old Jaruzelski was deported to the Soviet Union following Hitler and Stalin’s bloody partition of Poland in 1939. While toiling in the coal mines of Kazakstan, Jaruzelski became a committed Marxist-Leninist and following World War II returned to Poland to establish a Soviet client state in Warsaw. After rising through the ranks of the Politburo, General Jaruzelski became Prime Minister in 1981, shortly after the emergence of the pro-democracy Solidarity. That same year, threatened by widespread strikes and a deteriorating economy, he declared martial law in an effort to stamp out the popular movement and protect the party. Poland’s borders were sealed, public gatherings were banned, and a curfew put in place. Overnight, thousands of Solidarity activists were arrested and often held under harsh conditions during the bitter Polish winter. The regime’s riot police, the ZOMO, broke strikes throughout the country, killing several dozen demonstrators. Continuing economic woes and the abiding strength the now-underground Solidarity movement, forced Jaruzelski into talks with the opposition in 1989. Following the election of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as president, Jaruzelski stepped down and the communist party was dissolved.

In 2006, the elderly Wojciech Jaruzelski was brought to trial for murder and other crimes committed by the ZOMO during the period of martial law. He has since apologized for the dictatorship but maintains he was acting in Poland’s best interest. He died of complications related to a stroke on May 25th, 2014.

Crimes & Misdemeanors: The regime of Wojciech Jaruzelski detained some 10,000 people during the period of martial law in Poland. Several dozen people were killed by police during strikes.

Legacy:The collapse of the regime in Poland led to a wave of non-violent revolutions throughout the Eastern bloc that ultimately toppled the U.S.S.R.

Fun Facts: During the period of martial law “V” for victory buttons were outlawed by the regime because, as an exasperated Jaruzelski exclaimed, “there is no such letter in the Polish alphabet.”

At the age of 90 and only three month before his death, his wife Barbara threatened to file for divorce claiming that she had caught him in a compromising position with his nurse.

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In 1979 after Somoza’s fall Nicaragua’s National guard, still loyal to the overthrown regime, fled to Honduras where they regrouped and created a counter-revolutionary force called the Contras. Like the former ruling elite, they received generous support, sometimes secretive, from the United States. This is where we get that affair called the Iran-Contra Scandal.