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Archive for July 13th, 2025

The fate of dictators

Posted in news from around the world, tagged #dictators #trump on July 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Hitler committed suicide.
Mussolini was shot and then his corpse was attacked and hung.
Pinochet died under house arrest, while facing criminal charges in Europe and in Chile.
Idi Amin died in exile.
The Shah of Iran died in exile.
Pol Pot died under house arrest.
Mobutu died in exile.
Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad.
Saddam Hussein was hung.
The Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo was assassinated.
The last Somoza dictator was assassinated in exile after being overthrown.
Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner, Colombia’s Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, and Marcos Pérez Jiménez all died in exile.
Argentina’s Jorge Rafael Videla died while serving a fifty-year sentence.
Ferdinand Marcos died in exile, and Duterte is currently in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
Slobodan Milošević died in the Hague while on trial for war crimes.
Hashim Thaçi, former p.m. of Kosovo, is still being held in the Hague.
The Khmer Rouge’s Khieu Samphan is serving a life sentence in Cambodia.
Charles Taylor of Liberia is serving a 50-year sentence in the UK.
Chad’s Hissene Habre went into exile in Senegal, where he was tried on charges of crimes against humanity and given a life sentence; he died in prison.
Only last winter Assad fled Syria; only last summer Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh. And in December, South Korea successfully pushed back a coup attempt, arrested and impeached the president who tried, and he’s now in jail awaiting trial. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

That hasn’t been the fate of all dictators but for many of them the chapters after their power crumbled were not what they would have written. Nor is this reassurance that justice or democracy always wins or dismissal of the damage each of them did. I was just thinking and then decided to compile a list.

It’s not complete by any means. But let me add that right now Trump is threatening Brazil with tariffs for putting Bolsonaro, the chump who would be dictator (but didn’t get reelected then he threw a hissy fit coup attempt like Trump), on trial.

— Rebecca Solnit