Faces of Evil

Augusto Pinochet (born 25th November, 1915, in Valparaiso, died 10th December, 2006, in Santiago de Chile)

He ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He first headed a Military Junta and then became the official President after a coup against the former president Salvador Allende. Whilst Pinochet was internationally condemned for the uncounted cases of human rights violations, he was defended by many in his country. At his eventual trial he was declared to unhealthy to be tried and died before he could be sentenced.

Benito Mussolini (born 29th of July, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio; died 28th of April, 1945, in Giulino di Mezzegra)

Mussolini was a fascist dictator who ruled Italy from 1922 until 1943. He called himself the ‘Duce del Fascismo’ (leader of fascism). His support of Franco’s fascist war in Spain led to a pact with Hitler and the German Third Reich. After several embarrassing defeats, Mussolini was arrested in 1943 when allied troops entered Italy. He was quickly freed again by German reinforcements but the end of the war came soon after and he was eventually shot trying to escape to Switzerland.

Francisco Franco (born 4th of December, 1892, in Ferrol; died 20th of November, 1975, in Madrid)

Franco was a Spanish General and from 1939 to 1975 was Head of State of Spain. In July 1936, his right-wing military army launched a coup against the democratically elected republican government of Spain. After the rebel’s victory in the ensuing civil war (1936-1939), Franco governed Spain until his death and was known as ‘El Caudillo’ (the leader). After a heart attack in October, 1975, he was admitted to a hospital in Madrid and died on the 20th of November that year.

Adolf Hitler (born 20th of April, 1889, in Braunau, Austria; died 30th of April, 1945, in Berlin)

Hitler was head of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party from 1921 until his death in 1945. From 1933 he was also Chancellor of the German Third Reich. As a dictator, he managed to impose his anti-Semitic tendencies and racist ideology on Germany and created a state apparatus for the mass destruction of Jews. The Holocaust, the war crimes and violations of human rights only became possible because of a politically and morally unstable population tha provided him with many fellow runners, accomplices and executors.

Idi Amin (born between 1924 and 1928, in Koboko, Uganda; died 16th of August, 2003, in Dschiddas)

From 1971 to 1979, Amin was president of Uganda. His brutal military dictatorship earned him the reputation of the ‘butcher of Africa’. He could neither read nor write, is said to have eaten the flesh of his murdered enemies and suggested himself as a lover to the Queen of England. It is estimated by Amnesty International that up to 500,000 people were killed during his reign of terror. In 2003, he died in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Kim Il-Sung (born 15th of April, 1912, in Mangyongdae, P’yongyang; died 8th of July, 1994, in the Myohyang-san mountains)

From 1948 until his death, Kim Il-Sung was the undisputed leader of North Korea. On the 25th of June, 1950, his army attacked South Korea and thus started the three-year long Korean War. During his dictatorial reign he relentlessly persecuted dissidents and opponents until in 1994, he died of a heart attack in his residence „Hyangsan Chalet“. His body is publicly laid out in the Kumsusan Palace in P’yongyang and he is still regarded as the ‘eternal president of North Korea’.

Mao Zedong (born 26th of December, 1893, in Shaoshan, Hunan province; died 9th of September, 1976, in Beijing)

Mao was chairman of the Communist Party and leader of the People’s Republic of China since 1949. For almost three decades he dictated China’s history, imposing his own political ideals on the country and implementing a number of incompetent economic policies that caused the death of many millions of his people.

Slobodan Milosevic (born 29th of August, 1941, Pozarevac, Serbia; died 11th of March, 2006, The Hague, Netherlands)

Milosevic was President of Serbia (1989-1997) and later President of Yugoslovia (1997-2000). He was also leader of Serbia’s Socialist Party. During the time of his government, Yugoslavia was shaken by wars in its constituent republics. As a result, Milosevic was tried by The Hague War Crimes Tribunal for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and offences against the Geneva Conventions. However, he died during the proceedings and was never sentenced.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born 21st of February, 1924, in Masvingo)

Mugabe heads the ‘Zimbabwe African National Union’ (ZANU) and has been Zimbabwe’s Head of State since 1980. Whilst in the beginning he was widely accepted as an adept president and a spokesman for Southern Africa as a whole, he has since become a brutal dictator. Due to his repeated violations of human rights Zimbabwe has been excluded from the British Commonwealth and receives widespread condemnation from the international community.

Nicolae Ceauşescu (born 26th January, 1918 in Scornicesti; died 25thDecember, 1989 in Târgoviste)

Nicolae Ceauşescu was president (1974-1989) and communist dictator (1965-1989) of Romania. During his career he ruined the country’s economy and caused the death of around 60,000 people. Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena were shot together in December 1989, after being sentenced in summary proceedings before a military court.

Pol Pot (probably born 19th May, 1928 in Kompong Thom province; died 15th April, 1998 in Ânlóng Vêng)

Pol Pot was a Cambodian dictator and until 1997 leader of the Khmer Rouge. His government was of such paranoid character that it punished everybody for treason who turned up late to work. It is estimated that 1.7 to 2 million people were killed under the Khmer Rouge. In 1998, after he found out that General Ta Mok had offered to hand him over to the USA, Pol Pot is thought to have committed suicide.

Saddam Hussein (born 28th of April, 1937, in Al-Awja; died 30th of December, 2006, in Al-Kazimiyya)

From 1979 to 2003, Hussein was State President of Iraq and from 1979 to 1991 and then 1994 to 2003 he was Prime Minister. In 1991, his invasion of Kuwait provoked the Gulf War, prompting a much debated US intervention in 2002. In 2006, an Iraqi court sentenced Hussein to death because of his participation in the Dudschail massacre in 1982, in which 150 people were killed. The verdict was executed on the 30th of December, 2006, when he was hanged.

Josef Stalin (born 18th December 1878 in Gori; died 5th March, 1953 in Kunzewo).

Josef Stalin was a Soviet politician and dictator. In 1922 he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR and from 1941 to 1945 he was supreme commander (‘Generalissimus’) of the Soviet Army. Throughout this period his position of power remained unchallenged due to an unscrupulous and bloody ‘cleansing’ process he applied to his political opponents.