Friendly Dictators
by Dennis Bernstein and Laura
Sydell
Eclipse Enterprises, 1995
Many of the world's most repressive dictators
have been friends of America. Tyrants, torturers, killers, and
sundry dictators and corrupt puppet-presidents have been aided,
supported, and rewarded handsomely for their loyalty to US interests.
Traditional dictators seize control through force, while constitutional
dictators hold office through voting fraud or severely restricted
elections, and are frequently puppets and apologists for the military
juntas which control the ballot boxes. In any case, none have
been democratically elected by the majority of their people in
fair and open elections.
They are democratic America's undemocratic allies. They may rise
to power through bloody ClA-backed coups and rule by terror and
torture. Their troops may receive training or advice from the
CIA and other US agencies. US military aid and weapons sales often
strengthen their armies and guarantee their hold on power. Unwavering
"anti-communism" and a willingness to provide unhampered
access for American business interests to exploit their countries'
natural resources and cheap labor are the excuses for their repression,
and the primary reason the US government supports them. They may
be linked internationalIy to extreme right-wing groups such as
the World Anti-Communist League, and some have had strong Nazi
affiliations and have offered sanctuary to WWll Nazi war criminals.
They usually grow rich, while their countries' economies deteriorate
and the majority of their people live in poverty. US tax dollars
and US-backed loans have made billionaires of some, while others
are international drug dealers who also collect CIA paychecks.
Rarely are they called to account for their crimes. And rarely
still, is the US government held responsible for supporting and
protecting some of the worst human rights violators in the world.
Friendly dictators
Abacha, General Sani ----------------------------Nigeria
Amin, Idi ------------------------------------------Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo ---------------------------Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio --------------------------------Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal ----------------------------Brunei
Botha, P.W. ---------------------------------------South
Africa
Branco, General Humberto ---------------------Brazil
Cedras, Raoul -------------------------------------Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio -----------------------------------Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ---------------------------------Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ------------------------Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo -------------------------------El
Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ---------------------------------Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel ----------------------------Liberia
Duvalier, Francois --------------------------------Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude-----------------------------Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King
---------------------Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco -----------------------Spain
Hitler, Adolf ---------------------------------------Germany
Hassan II-------------------------------------------Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand -------------------------------Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano
Hernandez ---El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko -------------------------------Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ------------------------Panama
Ozal, Turgut --------------------------------------Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza
---------------Iran
Papadopoulos, George --------------------------Greece
Park Chung Hee ---------------------------------South
Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ---------------------Chile
Pol Pot---------------------------------------------Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ------------------------Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios
---------------------Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ------------------------------------Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira
--------------------Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. --------------------------Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. -------------------------Nicaragua
Smith, Ian ----------------------------------------Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo -----------------------------Paraguay
Suharto, General ---------------------------------Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas -----------------------Dominican
Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael
------------------Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ----------------------Pakistan
GENERAL SANI ABACHA
President of Nigeria
General Sani Abacha is a corrupt and repressive
dictator in the oil-rich country of Nigeria. Supported by oil
wealth, Abacha has tried to cover his repression under a mantle
of democracy by allowing fraudulent elections which only serve
to guarantee his continued control. During elections in 1994,
Chief Moshood Abiola, considered to be the likely winner, was
arrested and placed in prison before the rigged results were announced;
Abacha retained control. More than 100 government executions occurred
in 1994, and numerous pro-democracy demonstrators were killed
by police. Shell Oil provides most of the country's wealth by
extracting oil from the Ogoniland region, while in the process
causing severe environmental destruction and devastating the local
economy. More than 700 Ogoni environmentalists protesting the
destruction of their way of life, were executed in recent years.
The greatest travesty occurred in November 1995, when environmental
leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 associates, were hanged despite an
international outcry. Shell supported Abacha's policies by its
silence. Despite an outcry that Nigerian oil be boycotted, the
US government refused to do so.
IDI AMIN
General of Uganda
Amin was one of the most notorious of
Africa's post-independence dictators. A former heavyweight boxing
champion in Uganda and a non-commissioned officer in the British
Army there, Amin caught the attention of his superiors because
of his efficient management of concentration camps in Kenya during
the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s, where he earned the title
of "The Strangler". Because of his loyalty to Britain
and his strongly anti-communist stance, Amin was picked by the
British to replace the elected Ugandan government in a 1971 coup.
While in power, he earned a reputation as a "clown"
in some circles in the West, but he was no joke at home. Amin
brutalized his people with British and US military aid and with
Israeli and CIA training of his troops. The body count of his
friends, the clergy, soldiers, and ordinary Ugandans rose daily,
but the West ignored his cruelty. As he continued to demand more
aid and sophisticated weapons, he finally lost support. In 1979,
his quest for more power lead him to invade Tanzania. In retaliation,
he was overthrown by an invading Tanzanian / Ugandan army. Amin
fled to Saudi Arabia, where he now lives a quiet life in a modest
villa outside Jeddah, looking after his goats and chickens and
cultivating his vegetable garden. Traditional Arab garb has replaced
the bemedalled Field Marshal's uniform of his heyday.
COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia
In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President
Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines
owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations
with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The
coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil
beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When
Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air
Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer
began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of
political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people
were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina
and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and
deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South
Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen
from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When
Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA
help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer
Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout
Latin America.
FULGENCIO BATISTA
President of Cuba
Cuban Army Sergeant Fulgencio Batista
first seized power in a 1932 coup. He was President Roosevelt's
handpicked dictator to counteract leftists who had overthrown
strongman Cerardo Machado. Batista ruled or several years, then
left for Miami, returning in 1952 just in time for another coup,
against elected president Carlos Prio Socorras. His new regime
was quickly recognized by President Eisenhower. Under Batista,
U.S. interests flourished and little was said about democracy.
With the loyal support of Batista, Mafioso boss Meyer Lansky developed
Havana into an international drug port. Cabinet offices were bought
and sold and military officials made huge sums on smuggling and
vice rackets. Havana became a fashionable hot spot where America's
rich and famous drank and gambled with mobsters. As the gap between
the rich and poor grew wider, the poor grew impatient. In 1953,
Fidel Castro led an armed group of rebels in a failed uprising
on the Moncada army barracks. Castro temporarily fled the country
and Batista struck back with a vengeance. Freedom of speech was
curtailed and subversive teachers, lawyers and public officials
were fired from their jobs. Death squads tortured and killed thousands
of "communists". Batista was assisted in his crackdown
by Lansky and other members of organized crime who believed Castro
would jeopardize their gambling and drug trade. Despite this,
Batista remained a friend to Eisenhower and the US until he was
finally overthrown by Castro in 1959.
SIR HASSANAL BOLKIAH
The Sultan of Brunei
To illegally fund what they referred to
as the "Democratic Resistance" in Nicaragua, Oliver
North and Former Assistant Secretary d State Elliot Abrams solicited
funds from several authoritarian regimes, including Taiwan, South
Korea and the more obscure Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam. Sir
Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, the world's richest monarch,
was indeed generous to the Contras -- to the tune of $10 million.
But, this generosity was not because of any commitment to democracy
in Nicaragua or anywhere else, for Brunei is a monarchical dictatorship,
under a State of Emergency since 1982. The Sultan also allows
Brunei to be the ClA's ears on the explosive Malaysian-lndonesian
border. His Royal Highness was also involved with the infamous
Nugan Hand Bank of Australia, a 1960s-70s CIA front for South
East Asian drug operations and money laundering. In fact, according
to a secret 1978 memo, Nugan Hand submitted a proposal to provide
His Highness the Sultan with a bank structure and depository system
which he alone can control should any change of government take
place. The Sultan lives in a new palace that may have cost as
much as a billion dollars, while over 90% of his subjects live
in abject poverty. Those who protest such inequalities don't fare
well with the authorities. According to Amnesty International,
Brunei's jails hold "at least five prisoners of conscience
who have spent 25 years in detention without having been convicted
of any crime."
P.W. BOTHA
President of South Africa
During P.W. Botha's first term as President,
the former Secretary of Defense altered the structure of government,
giving the military and police unprecedented power. To justify
this, he pointed to increasingly vocal discontent among South
Africa's disenfranchised blacks, the large number of black states
In Africa, and a so-called "growing Marxist" threat
in the region. South Africa, he said, was engaged in a "total
war' and must develop a "total strategy" to fight the
battle. South Africa's apartheid regime was quietly supported
by the US government, despite a UN boycott and Congressional efforts
to reduce US investment there, Ronald Reagan significantly increased
military expenditures in the country. But few Americans realized
that Botha's total strategy against blacks had turned his nation
into a ruthless aggressor. When Portugal withdrew from its colonies
in Mozambique and Angola, Botha, claiming he wanted to strengthen
capitalism on the continent, financed the Mozambique National
Resistance (MNR) against the country's popular government. The
MNR, who receive direct training from South Africa, cut off the
ears, noses, and limbs of civilians. After killing their parents
and raping young women in front of 10 year old boys, they recruited
these boys to fight. In 1989, P.W. Botha suffered a stroke and
later resigned. In early 1990 his successor, F.W. De Klerk, watching
as international sanctions ruined S. Africa's economy, legalized
political opposition parties and freed several important black
political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela who had been imprisoned
for 27 years for political activities against apartheid. Apartheid
finally fell when Nelson Mandela was elected President of South
Africa.
GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO
President of Brazil
In 1961, Brazilian President Jaao Goulart
sought to trade with communist nations, supported the labor movement,
and had limited the profits multi-nationals could take out of
the country. These policies were clearly unacceptable to the American
business interests. In 1964, the US took part in the overthrow
of Goulart by General Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, although
US government officials have denied involvement. As an example
of US support for Branco, just prior to the coup, US officials
cabled Washington a request for oil for Branco's soldiers in case
Goulart's troops blew up the refineries. Brancos regime was short
but brutal. Labor unions were banned, criticism of the President
became unlawful, and thousands of suspected communists (including
children) were arrested and tortured. As in Paraguay, Argentina,
and Bolivia, land was stolen from native Indians and their culture
was destroyed. Drug dealers, many of them government officials,
were given protection because they maintained national security
interests. Brazil formed ties with the World Anti-communist League
and assisted General Videla in his takeover of Argentina. When
Branco stepped down in 1967, he left behind a constitution with
greatly increased military and executive powers, crippling Brazil's
efforts to restore democracy.
RAOUL CEDRAS
General of Haiti
General Cedras seized power in Haiti in
1991 after the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He ruled with
the rod of iron associated with Haiti's infamous former dictators,
the Duvaliers -- there were at least 4.000 political assassinations
and more than 40,000 fled the country in boats for the US. He
fled into exile in September 1994 when the US sent an invasion
force under the banner of the UN.
Cedras is now in Panama, the only rival
to France as the favorite haven for former dictators -- Juan Domingo
Peron of Argentina and the Shah of Iran once took refuge there,
and Guatemala's Jorge Serrano is a great success as a racehorse
owner. Cedras has a penthouse suite in Panama City's wealthy Punta
Paitilla area. He is not short of cash -- the US State Department
alone pays him $5,000 a month in rent for his properties in Haiti.
Panama University Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal complains: 'Our
country is being used as a wastebasket for the political toxic
waste of the world.'
VINICIO CEREZO
President of Guatemala
According to Amnesty International, arbitrary
arrest, torture, disappearance, and political killings were everyday
realities for Guatemalans during decades of US financed military
dictatorship. In January 1986, Christian Democrat leader Vinicio
Cerezo was elected President and said he had "the political
will to respect the rights of man", but it didn't take long
to find out that his political will was irrelevant in the face
of Guatemala's well-oiled military machine. Hopes for change were
dashed when Cerezo announced that Guatemala would continue to
provide amnesty for all past military offenses committed from
General Elrain Rios Montt's coup in 1982 through the 1986 elections.
Although Ronald Reagan's State Department asserted "there
has not been a single clear-cut case of political killing, within
months of Cerezo's inauguration, opposition leaders attributed
56 murders to security forces and death squads, while Americas
Watch claimed that "throughout 1986, violent killings were
reported in the Guatemalan press at the rate of 100 per month".
Altogether, Americas Watch says, tens-of-thousands were killed
and 400 rural villages were destroyed by government death squads
during Reagan's term in office. Colonel D'Jalma Dominguez, former
army spokesman, explains "For convenience sake a civilian
government is preferable, such as the one we have now. If anything
goes wrong, only the Christian Democrats will get the blame. It's
better to remain outside. The real power will not be lost."
Today, the real power still resides with the military.
CHIANG KAI-SHEK
President of Taiwan
The Chinese civil war pitted Mao Tse-Tung's
Communists against Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists. The US-backed
Chiang, but when he couldn't do the job they also supported Japanese
troops fighting the Communists, even before WWll had ended. Hated
for his wanton cruelty, corruption, and decadence, Chiang did
not enjoy the support of the Chinese people; entire divisions
of the Nationalist army defected and fled to the island of Formosa
(Taiwan). A presidential commission appointed by Harry Truman
reported after Chiang's arrival there that his forces "ruthlessly,
corruptly, and avariciously imposed their regime on the population.
Under Nationalist rule, 85% of the population was disenfranchised,
but the onset of the Korean War and the anti-communist hysteria
of the McCarthy era led the US to declare that the tiny island
represented the real government of China. The US was crucial in
keeping mainland China out of the UN until 1971. Chiang gave the
World Anti-Communist League (an international organization with
links to Nazis, drug smugglers, and the CIA) its first home, permitting
WACL members to use a military academy there to train troops for
Latin American military coups. President Carter tried to cut US
ties to WACL, but Ronald Reagan received campaign funds from the
group, and WACL became involved with training and supplying contras
in Argentina and Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975, but many
of his policies continue in Taiwan.
ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA
President of Honduras
Honduras was the original "Banana
Republic" -- its history inextricably intertwined with that
of the US-based United Fruit Company, but in 1979, when Anastasio
Somoza was overthrown in Nicaragua, Honduras got a new nickname
-- "The Pentagon Republic". In 1978 Honduras received
$16.2 million in US aid. By 1985, it was getting $231 million,
primarily because President Suazo Cordova, working with the US
Ambassador and the Honduran military, allowed Honduras to become
a training center for U.S. funded Nicaraguan contras. General
Alvarez assisted in training programs and founded a special "hit
squad", the Cobras. Victims of the Cobras were stripped,
bound, thrown into pits, and tortured. The Reagan Administration
claimed ignorance of these human rights violations, but US advisors
have admitted knowledge. Alvarez who made enemies among his troops
because he pocketed U.S. aid and because he belonged to the "Moonies",
a far-right South Korean religious cult, was overthrown by the
military in 1984. Suazo's ties to Alvarez cost him his bid in
the next election, but death squad activity and US aid to Honduras
continued. Many high ranking government and military personnel
during and after Suazo's term were drug traffickers, and although
the US government denies knowledge of this, there is evidence
to the contrary. In fact, the US embassy was renting space from
known drug dealers.
ALFREDO CRISTIANI
President of El Salvador
General Hernandez Martinez's 1932 anti-communist
purge, was carried out on behalf of El Salvador's rich coffee
oligarchy, the so-called "Fourteen Families". New president
Alfredo Cristiani is a member of those same " Fourteen Families",
and his ARENA party is linked to brutalities surpassing Hernandez
Martinez's. Cristiani is moderate-sounding, schooled in Washington
D. C., and indebted to the military for power. As puppet - president,
he yielded to ARENA founder Roberto D'Aubuisson, whom a former
US Ambassador called a "pathological killer". D'Aubuisson,
a former Army Major with ties to Jesse Helms and the US right,
studied unconventional warfare in the U S and Taiwan. According
to D'Aubuisson, "the Christian Democrats (Ex-President Jose
Napoleon Duarte's party) are communists, but Jesuit priests are
"the worst scum of all". US State Department cables
indicate D'Aubuisson "planned and ordered the assassination
of the late Archbishop Oscar Amulfoo Romero". It's believed
he was behind the White Warriors Union (UGB), whose slogan was
"Be patriotic-kill a priest". In 1989 six priests were
slain and Cristiani soon admitted his US trained soldiers had
committed the murders. Yet, although assassinations of priests
are notable, 70,000 other civilians were killed by the Salvadoran
military and the death squads since 1980.
NGO DINH DIEM
President of South Vietnam
Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese
people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for
protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted
that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population
would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader".
Yet Diem, who had once lived in the US, had connections, in Washington,
who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP),
a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and
Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three were notorious for their ineptitude
and cruelty. The CLP was not even their idea, it was originally
promoted by the US State Department to rid the country of communists.
Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition
to his regime. He alienated peasants by canceling their age-old
local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them
into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire, which even
US officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to concentration
camps. Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because
he promoted on the basis of loyalty, not merit. In an effort to
keep Diem in power, the US tried to persuade him to make political
reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make military reforms.
But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963,
none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the US, which,
after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.
GENERAL SAMUEL DOE
President of Liberia
Samuel Doe came to power in a bloody 1980
coup, a Master Sergeant in military gear. Today, he is a self-made
General in a suit, living on US aid and corporate kickbacks. But
while Doe and his cronies live in luxury, the rest of Liberia
dwells in squalor. Under his regime, the gross domestic product
has decreased by 13%, the country's health statistics are among
the world's worst, 80% of the population is illiterate, all opposition
parties but one were forbidden to participate in the 1985 national
elections, and those who protest these inequities are jailed or
killed. Doe, a pro-American anti-communist, received $500 million
in U.S. aid between 1980 and 1985. When Congress threatened to
cut off funds because of Liberia's human rights abuses, Doe requested
"American financial advice" as a show of good will.
The U.S. sent 17 accountants, bank examiners, and economists to
help Doe balance his budget, but they realized a difficult task
lay ahead when they learned that Doe had purchased over sixty
$60,000 Mercedes Benz cars for his government ministers and had
given the Liberian soccer team $1 million for winning a match
against rival Ghana. Ultimately Doe refused to allow access to
records concerning 40% of Liberia's funds, for this "second
budget", revenues from gasoline and lodging taxes, goes directly
into the President's bank account. The American advisors returned
home in 1989, mission not accomplished, and Samuel Doe remains
in office, despite early 1990 rumblings of rebel plots against
him.
FRANCOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER
Presidents of Haiti
In 1957 Francois "Papa Doc"
Duvalier became Haiti's President-For-Life, establishing a strategic
relationship with the US that lasted until 1971, when he was succeeded
by his son Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. During the
30 years that they ruled with an iron hand, 60,000 Haitians were
killed and countless more were tortured by the Duvaliers' Tonton
Macoutes death squads. While Haiti became the poorest country
in the Western Hemisphere, the Duvaliers enriched themselves by
stealing foreign aid money. In 1980, for instance, the International
Monetary Fund granted Haiti a $22 million budget supplement. Within
weeks, $16 million was "unaccounted for". Baby Doc made
Haiti into a trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine. Nevertheless,
as long as Papa and Baby Doc were anti-communists, they could
do no wrong in the US government's eyes. Their regime finally
ended in 1986, when Baby Doc fled angry mobs of Haitians for asylum
in France, with a fortune estimated at $400 million. It has been
estimated that under Baby Doc's rule 40,000 Haitians were murdered.
KING FAHD BIN 'ABDUL - 'AZIZ
King of Saudi Arabia
King Fahd bin 'Abdul -'Aziz is the absolute
monarch of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Fahd and 2000 related
royals rule with an iron grip of medieval feudalism. Control over
the lives of their citizens is total and arbitrary. Torture is
common, and amputation is frequently ordered by the courts. Women
have few rights, and adultery by women is punished by death by
stoning. Executions by hanging are public -- there were at least
60 such executions in 1994. The main opposition is from Sunni
Islamists, and hundreds are in prison. Saudi Arabia is supported
by the United States and other western democracies because of
the enormous oil wealth that lies below the country's desert sands,
its pro-West stance, and the royal family's staunch anti-fundamentalist
position. The irony of American policy in Saudi Arabia is that
the US, the world's most vocal advocate for democracy, supports
one of the most undemocratic regimes in the world.
GENERAL FRANCISCO FRANCO
President of Spain
General Francisco Bahamonde Franco was
not the most popular leader in Spain during the early 1930s. A
man of humble origins, he had worked his way up the military ladder
fighting colonial wars in Africa. Franco, a staunch conservative,
was infuriated when a Republican alliance of socialists, Marxists,
and liberals won Spain's first free elections in 1936. So the
General decided to restore order by force. Franco's Nationalists
were losing the civil war, but military support from Hitler, Mussolini,
and the US corporations that backed Hitler, turned the tide in
his favor. Italy and Germany sent 6,060 trucks to Franco's fascists,
but 12,000 were supplied by Ford, General Motors and Studebaker.
The US claimed neutrality but didn't stop these companies from
aiding Franco. The failure of the US and other democratic nations
to assist Spain's democratic government was ultimately responsible
for Franco's victory in 1939, and sadly, American volunteers who
fought for the Republic were relentlessly persecuted during the
US anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s. Under Franco, all political
parties and labor unions were banned, books were burned, and dissenters
were tortured and executed. Spain was ostracized by the international
community, but the US considered Franco a Cold War ally and sank
millions into the country. After Franco's death in 1975, Spain
became a democratic republic once again.
ADOLF HITLER
Chancellor of Germany
As German bombs fell on London and Nazi
tanks rolled over US troops, Sosthenes Behn president and founder
of the US based ITT corporation, met with his German representative
to discuss improving German communication systems. ITT was designing
and building Nazi phone and radio systems as well as supplying
crucial parts for German bombs. Our government knew all about
this, for under a presidential order, US companies were licensed
to trade with the Nazis. The choice of who would be licensed was
odd, though. While the Secretary of State gave the Ford Motor
Company permission to make Nazi tanks, he simultaneously blocked
aid to German-Jewish refugees because the US wasn't supposed to
be trading with the enemy. Other US companies trading with the
Third Reich were General Motors, DuPont, Standard Oil of New Jersey,
Davis Oil Co., and the Chase National Bank. President Roosevelt
did not stop them, fearing a scandal might lead to another stock
market crash or lower US moral. Besides, the same companies that
traded with Hitler were supplying the US with its armaments, and
some corporate leaders threatened to withdraw their support if
Roosevelt exposed them. Henry Ford was a good friend of Hitler's.
His book -- The International Jew -- had Inspired Hltler's Mein
Kampf. The Fuhrer kept Ford's picture in his office, and Ford
was one of only four foreigners to receive Germany's highest civilian
award. As for Sosthenes Behn, at the end of the war, he received
the highest civilian award for service to his country -- the United
States of America.
HASSAN II
King of Morocco
Like his former ally, the Shah of Iran,
King Hassan ll of Morocco spares himself no earthly delight. He
has seven principal palaces, keeps 260 horses in just one of his
many stables, boards most of his camels, ostriches, and zebras
with his 945 head of cattle at his 1500 acre dairy farm, and he's
got a couple of harems. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Morocco
is over 20%, and 95% of the population lives in abject poverty,
sheltering in makeshift huts in the country's increasingly swollen
cities. Citing dubious historical ties, in 1975, Hassan took his
nation into a war in the Western Sahara that is costing the country
over $l million a day. Although the International Court of Justice
ruled that Morocco has no historical claims to the territory,
the US continues to back Hassan diplomatically and financially
in his war to annex the area. The US also takes an active role
in stopping coup attempts against the King. According to one dissident,
the CIA gave Hassan a video tape that enabled him to catch the
plotters in the act. The favor was returned when Hassan visited
Washington in 1982 -- he and President Reagan agreed that the
US could use Morocco as an emergency base for its planes. Although
Hassan has been less repressive in recent years, members of the
opposition are still arrested and tortured. But as his people
start to make connections between the rising cost of living and
the war in the Sahara, criticism grows, and even the CIA has admitted
that Hassan may not be able to keep the lid on dissent much longer.
FERDINAND MARCOS
President of the Philippines
Ferdinand Marcos began his career with
a bang. At age 21, convicted of gunning down Julio Nalundasan,
his father's victorious opponent in the Philippines first national
elections, he went to prison. He was later release by a Supreme
Court Justice who, like Marcos and his father, was a Nazi collaborator.
Despite Marcos's record as murderer, fake WWll hero and Nazi agent,
he was elected Philippine President in 1965. Under Marcos, the
Philippine national debt grew from $2 billion to $30 billion,
but US corporations in the Philippines prospered, perhaps explaining
why the US didn't protest Marcos's imposition of martial law in
1972. The Marcoses enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, and they salted
away billions of dollars in the course of their US-backed rule
between 1965 and 1986.
The Carter Administration engineered an
$88 million World Bank loan to Marcos, increased military aid
to him by 300%, and called him a "soft dictator". But
a 1976 Amnesty International report identified 88 government torturers,
and stated that alleged subversives had their heads slammed into
walls, their genitals and pubic hair torched, and were beaten
with clubs, fists, bottles, and rifle butts. By 1977, the armed
forces had quadrupled and over 60,000 Filipinos had been arrested
for political reasons. Yet, in 1981, Vice President George Bush
praised Marcos for his "adherence to democratic principals
and to the democratic processes". Marcos was overthrown in
1986 by followers of Corazon Aquino, widow of an assassinated
opposition leader.
Ferdinand and Imelda fled to Hawaii, only
to be indicted in 1988 for fraud and tax evasion. Marcos died
in 1989. Imelda returned to the Philippines in 1991 and stood
unsuccessfully in the Presidential elections of 1992. In 1993
she was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for criminal graft
and to other long sentences for corruption. She is still free
while she appeals. She was elected to Congress in May 1995. Meanwhile,
in it attempts to recover the lost Marcos billions from Swiss
bank accounts and other shadier locations the Philippines Government
has, after paying its US lawyers, recovered the princely sum of
$2,000.
MAXIMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTlNEZ
General of El Salvador
Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez seized
power El Salvador in a 1931 coup. His philosophy with regard to
human rights was clear -- "It is a greater crime to kill
an ant than a man," said the General.
Hernandez Martinez initiated an anti-communist
purge in 1932 in El Salvador. Subsequent massacres left 40,000
peasants dead and wiped out the country's Indian culture. An uprising,
six weeks later, organized by El Salvador's Communist Party founder,
Farabundo Marti, failed, and was followed by the crackdown on
"communists". Roadways and drainage ditches were littered
with bodies. Hotels were raided, individuals with blond hair were
dragged out and killed as suspected Russians. Many were executed
and then shoved into mass graves they had first been forced to
dig. U.S. warships were stationed off-shore, ready to send in
Marines to aid the General in case he ran into serious opposition.
Hernandez Martinez was run out of the country in 1944, but his
memory was celebrated as recently as 1980, when the Maximiliano
Hernandez Martinez Brigade carried out a series of death-squad
assassinations of prominent Salvadoran leftists. Farabundo Marti,
killed during the purge, has also left a legacy -- the rebels
who fought the U.S. backed government of El Salvador during the
1980s, call themselves the FMLN, the Farabundo Marti Liberation
Front.
MOBUTU SESE SEKO
President of Zaire
When Zaire's first elected President,
Patrice Lumumba, appeared to be getting too close to socialism,
US companies feared they might lose control of Zaire's precious
cobalt, copper, and diamonds. So the CIA stepped in, assassinated
Lumumba, and replaced him with Mobutu Sese Seko. Since 1965, Mobutu
has been the US's main man in Central Africa. Mobutu has amassed
an estimated $5 billion personal fortune at his nation's expense.
He is perhaps the only world leader who could pay his national
debt from his own bank account. In fact, there seems to be no
division between his pocket and the national treasury. In 1974,
when the US sent $1.4 million to assist troops fighting a civil
war, Mobutu pocketed the entire sum. And no foreign company sets
itself up in Zaire without a tribute to Mobutu. Although Zaire
has more resources than most other countries in the region, it
is the fifth poorest. Malnutrition takes the lives of one-third
of Zaire's children, and one child out of two dies before age
five. But Mobutu has vowed to keep the world safe for democracy
and according to Amnesty International, in the name of anti-communism,
he imprisons and tortures, often without trial, anyone who threatens
his power base. While some members of Congress grumble about giving
assistance to Mobutu, they continue to reward his work against
communism and his warm reception of American corporations.
GENERAL EFRAIN RIOS MONTT
President of Guatemala
"A Christian has to walk around with
his Bible and his machine gun", said born-again General Efrain
Rios Montt, military ruler of Guatemala from March 1982 to August
1983. Rios Montt was one in a long series of dictators who ran
Guatemala after the Dulles brothers and United Fruit, backed by
the CIA, decided that democratically-elected President Jacobo
Arbenz was too reform-minded. And so, they overthrew the country's
constitutional democracy in 1954. The succession of corrupt military
dictators ruled Guatemala for over 30 years, one anti-communist
tyrant after another receiving U.S. support, aid, and training.
After the 1982 coup that brought Rios Montt to power, the U.S.
Ambassador to Guatemala said "Guatemala has come out of the
darkness and into the light". President Reagan claimed Rios
Montt was given "a bum rap" by human rights groups,
and that he was cleaning up problems inherited from his predecessor,
General Romeo Lucas Garcia. Ironically, Garcia had given $500,000
to Reagan's 1980 campaign, and his henchman, Mario Sandoval Alarcon,
the 'Godfather' of Central American death squads, was a guest
at Reagan's first inaugural celebration. Sandoval proudly calls
his National Liberation Movement " the party of organized
violence". Montt simply moved Garcia's dirty war from urban
centers to the countryside where "the spirit of the lord"
guided him against "communist subversives', mostly indigenous
Indians. As many as 10,000 Indians were killed and over 100,000
fled to Mexico as a result of Rios Montt's "Christian"
campaign.
GENERAL MANUEL NORIEGA
Chief of Defense Forces, Panama
The US command post for covert Latin American
operations is located in the Canal Zone where a series of figurehead
presidents, some backed by General Manuel Noriega, had involved
Panama in US intelligence operations. General Noriega became commander-in-chief
of the National Guard in Panama in 1983, and for the next six
years was more powerful than the President. He was the kind of
ruthless leader the US favored in the rest of Central America.
Noriega first met with then CIA Director George Bush in 1976,
while Noriega was collecting $100 thousand a year as a CIA asset.
Their friendly relationship persisted even after Noriega's drug
dealing was revealed by a 1975 DEA investigation. During the Reagan
era, Noriega collaborated with Oliver North on covert actions
against Nicaragua, training contras and providing a transshipment
point for CIA supported operations that flew weapons to the contras
and cocaine into the US.
But he fell foul of the US when he failed
to support their plan to invade Nicaragua -- they withdrew aid
and imposed sanctions. In 1987, a Miami grand jury indicted him
for drug-trafficking, and the CIA tried to destabilize his regime.
Noriega warned Bush that he had information which could change
the course of the 1988 US elections and the CIA backed off. When
Noriega annulled Panama's 1989 elections, citing CIA interference,
Bush renewed attempts to unseat his one-time ally. Critics called
Bush's failure to support an abortive 1989 coup "indecisive",
but his response to that criticism, the December 1989 invasion
of Panama, led to world condemnation. Noriega eventually surrendered
to face US drug charges. The invasion of 26,000 American troops
led to over 4,000 Panamanian deaths and installed a regime with
similar close links to drugs, plus a willingness to alter Panama
Canal treaties to serve US interests.
Noriega was taken prisoner and stood trial
in Miami on charges of drug trafficking and was sentenced to 40
years' imprisonment. He is still in a Florida jail contemplating
the irony that he was once also the protégé of the
US Drug Enforcement Agency. Meanwhile the legal office of the
President the US installed in his place was discovered to have
connections with 14 companies that had laundered drug money.
TURGUT OZAL
Prime Minister of Turkey
Turgut Ozal was elected prime minister
of Turkey in 1983, after several years of harsh military rule.
But while free expression in Turkey has opened up somewhat in
recent years, torture and long prison terms for political opponents
and government critics have remained a way of life. In 1988, according
to Amnesty International, "thousands of people were imprisoned
for political reasons...and the use of torture continued to be
widespread and systematic". Turkey's torturers are ruthless.
Says one victim: " I loosened the blindfold and looked around.
The scene was horrific. People were piled up in the corridor waiting
their turn to be tortured. Ten people were being led, blindfolded
and naked, up and down the corridor and were being beaten to force
them to sing reactionary marches. Others, incapable of standing,
were tied to hot radiator pipes. A man was forced to watch while
his children were tortured." Regardless of the repression
that a succession of governments have subjected the country to,
US-Turkish relations remain cordial. In the past, US officials
have even attributed the torture problem to "the violent
nature of the Turkish people." Retired Turkish General Turgut
Sunalp explains it a different way. "There has been, still
is, and will be torture in Turkey because there is torture everywhere
in the world," he said. But despite its human rights abuses,
Turkey can do no wrong in US eyes, for it is one of the CIA's
key listening posts on the Soviet border. Not surprisingly, in
1987, Turkey was the third largest recipient of U.S. aid.
MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI
Shah of Iran
1953 was a busy year for Allen Dulles.
Even as he readied the CIA for a coup in Guatemala, his agents
were toppling the liberal left government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq
and paving the way for the Shah of Iran. With Dulles' encouragement,
the Shah made the Iranian people an offer they couldn't refuse
-- join his party or go to jail. Thousands who refused to yield
were imprisoned or murdered. During regional elections in 1954,
the Shah's agents raided a religious school and hurled hundreds
of students to their deaths from the roof. His regime received
100% of the vote that year, in an election which registered more
votes than there were voters.
The Shah's subsequent solidification of
power led to an iron fisted rule enforced by fear and torture.
His secret police agency, SAVAK, was created in 1957 and managed
by the CIA at all levels of daily operation, including the choice
and organization of personnel, selection and operation of equipment,
and the running of agents. SAVAK's torture methods included electric
shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling
water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the
extraction of teeth and nails. Iran under the Shah became a devoted
US ally and a base for spy operations on the border of the Soviet
Union. But eventually, the Shah was overthrown in 1978 by an indigenous
people's revolution that held sway until fundamentalist religious
leader Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile and reasserted
his power during the 1979 US hostage crisis.
GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS
Prlme Minister of Greece
When President Lyndon Johnson offered
a solution to the Greek Ambassador for the dispute between Greece
and Turkey over Cyprus, the Ambassador protested, saying the solution
was unacceptable to the Greek parliament and constitution. Three
years later, in 1967, a military coup overthrew the freely elected
government of Andreas Papandreou. The coup was headed by CIA employee
and ex-Nazi George Papadopoulolis. He had been on the CIA payroll
for 15 years when he came to power, and during WW ll he was a
captain in the Nazi Security Battalions, whose main purpose was
to catch members of the Greek Resistance. Almost anyone who even
said the word "communist" was jailed. During Papadopoulos's
first month in power, 8,000 so-called "leftist" were
imprisoned and tortured. Greece was expelled from the European
Commission on Human Rights, but continued to receive US aid. In
return, Greece kept the world safe for democracy by housing US
military bases. Papadopoulos was ousted in 1973 after falling
from grace with the inner clique that helped him rule. When the
entire government fell in 1974, he and his comrades were tried
for human rights abuses.
PARK CHUNG HEE
President of South Korea
Free and open expression has not come
easily to South Koreans. Beatings, torture, and execution of the
regimes' political opponents have been a way of life since the
Korean War. The tenure of former President Park Chung Hee, who
came to power in a 1961 military coup, exemplifies the kind of
leader South Koreans have been forced to endure. Park's virulent
anti-communism won him U.S. support. The water torture, which
leaves no physical marks on the victim, was a favored technique
of Park's security forces. Cold water was forced up the nostrils
through a tube, while a cloth was placed in the victim's mouth
to prevent breathing. Many anti-communist interrogations were
run by the KCIA, a US creation modeled after the American CIA.
One victim told Amnesty International, " I was taken to KCIA
headquarters, my hands tied together, and I was tied to a chair.
I was not allowed to have any sleep. At night, they would drag
me to the basement where they would beat me with a long, heavy
stick, and jump on me. They were trying to make me confess that
I was a spy. Despite such brutal behavior, the US has maintained
a first-rate strategic relationship with South Korea, providing
successive repressive regimes with extensive US aid. Park Chung
Hee was assassinated by the KCIA in 1979, but South Korea is still
a nation troubled by lack of human rights.
GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET
President of Chile
Augusto Pinochet deposed democratically
elected President Salvador Allende in 1973, and buried Chile's
150 year old democracy. "Democracy is the breeding ground
of communism", says Pinochet. The bloody coup, in which Allende
was assassinated, was carefully managed by the CIA and ITT. Tens
of thousands of Chileans have been tortured, killed, and exiled
since then, according to Amnesty International. A U.S. congressional
delegation was told by inmates at San Miguel Prison that they
had been tortured by "the application of electric shock,
simultaneous blows to the ears, cigarette burns, and simulated
executions by firing squads." Despite Chile's bad human rights
record, the U.S. government continued to support Pinochet with
international loans. Even the state-sponsored car-bomb assassination
of Chile's former Ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier, did
not convince the U.S. to break with Pinochet. In 1988 a plebiscite
refused to extend Pinochet's rule, so he altered the constitution
to reduce the powers of the incoming elected President, and left
himself head of the armed forces. All the other South American
dictators are gone but Pinochet has found the perfect solution:
Chile now has the squeaky-clean sheen of democracy yet he still
has his finger on the trigger.
POL POT
Commander of the Khmer Rouge
The bombing of Cambodia by the US from
1969 to 1972, left 600,000 civilians dead, millions of refugees,
tens-of-thousands dying from disease and starvation, and the Cambodian
economy and culture in ruins. Cambodians blamed the US and the
puppet regime of Lon Nol for the country's destruction, and gradually
sided with the guerrilla army of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot,
which finally defeated Lon Nol, and took power in April, 1975.
Once in power, Pol Pot emptied the cities, forcing the people
into the countryside. Virtually all educated people were killed
and more than 1.5 million people perished in this "holocaust".
Only when the Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnam in 1979, did the
terror stop. Washington took steps to preserve the Khmer Rouge
as a counter force to the Vietnamese. International relief agencies
were pressured by the US to provide food and humanitarian assistance
to the Khmer Rouge, which had fled to Thailand, and the US sent
military aid as well. In 1982, in an effort to isolate the Vietnamese,
the US forced together the three contending anti-Vietnamese groups,
insisting that the Khmer Rouge be part of the negotiations. Cambodia
continues to suffer from the devastation produced by both the
US bombing and the Khmer Rouge atrocities. Pol Pot is considered
to still be the power behind the Khmer Rouge, which has a strong
presence in Cambodia today, thanks to the US.
GENERAL SITIVENI RABUKA
Commander, Armed Forces of Fiji
On May, 1987, General Sitiveni Rabuka
stormed the Fijian Parliament and arrested the newly elected Prime
Minister, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. Bavadra's fledgling Labor Party
had just defeated Fiji's pro-US puppet Prime Minister, Ratu Slr
Kamese Mara, and although Bavadra's support for a nuclear free
South Pacific was welcomed by the regional populace, a nuclear
free zone was be unacceptable to the US. Thirty-two days after
his electoral victory, Dr. Bavadra was overthrown by the pro-nuclear
General Rabuka, with the help of the US. Once in control, General
Rabuka quickly allied himself with some of the most brutal regimes
in the world. "Military dictators seem to like other military
dictators", says deposed Fijian Prime Minister Bavadra. "It
did not take long for our illegal rulers to establish strong ties
with Indonesia, Taiwan, and South Korea". Under General Rabuka's
US supported police state, Amnesty International has reported,
for the first time in Fijian history, cases of illegal detention
and torture -- the beginning of the Latinization of the Pacific.
ANTONIO DE OLIVEIRA SALAZAR
Prlme Minister of Portugal
Antonio de Oliveira Salazar worshipped
Hitler and Mussolini, but after they lost, he joined the Allies
and became a card-carrying member of NATO. However, he always
kept a piece of fascism alive in Portugal. His secret police,
the PIDE, were much like the Gastapo; concentration camps were
set up for "enemies of the state", news organizations
were merely propaganda machines, and all schools had their lesson
plans carefully monitored by "Big Brother". Salazar
also kept a little piece of the Dark Ages alive in Western Europe.
In 1970, 30% of the population was illiterate, and the infant
mortality rate was the second worst in Europe. The Portugese economy
stagnated. Most of the land was held by 5% of the population,
the vast majority of Portuguese worked in agriculture, and all
union activities were forbidden. Portugal was the last stronghold
of European colonialism. Salazar refused to give up colonies in
East Timor, Portuguese Guiana, Mozambique, and Angola. He believed
the "white man" must bring higher civilization to the
" black man". The U.S. openly backed Portugal's colonial
claims, due to the strategic importance of military bases such
as the one in the Portugese Azores. Salazar died in 1968, after
40 years in power. His regime fell in 1974, at which point Portugal
left Angola, but the US continued to back South African efforts
there.
HALIE SELASSIE
Emperor of Ethiopla
Emperor Halie Selassie may have been a
better king to the animals of Ethiopia than to its people. In
1973, during the height of a drought in which 200,000 Ethiopians
died of starvation, Salassie fed beef to his Great Danes. Selassie
was a fairer ruler than many of those around him. For example,
as a young provincial governor, he only took 50% of his peasants
crops while other governors were taking 90%, and in the 1950s
as few as 100 political prisoners were tortured in his jails at
one time. But, under his long rule, Ethiopia remained in the dark
ages. Just after his overthrow in 1974, the annual per capita
income was $90, the literacy rate was 7% and Ethiopia was the
poorest nation in Africa. Under Selassie, Ethiopia received more
US aid than any other African country and Washington purchased
a $2 million yacht for the Emperor. When Selassie faced an uprising
in the province of Eritrea, the US sent advisors and arms to help
him smash the revolt. In return for our support, Selassie provided
the United States with a naval oasis in the Red Sea and a place
for a strategic communications station. Selassie's kindness to
his animals was his downfall; he was overthrown when photos of
him feeding his dogs during the 1973 famine were circulated among
his outraged troops.
IAN SMITH
Prime Minister of Rhodesia
lan Smith promised the whites who elected
him Prime Minister of Rhodesia in 1982 that he would keep Rhodesia
white, at any cost. To stop the black guerrilla fighters trying
to overthrow his regime, Smith rationed food for Africans whom
he believed were feeding the guerrillas. This cruel measure only
served to starve the already undernourished black population.
Studies found that over 90% of Rhodesia's black children were
malnourished and nutritional deficiencies were the major cause
of infant death. Smith rounded up blacks into concentration camps
he called "protective" villages. Believing that ignorant
people were less likely to revolt, he cut funding for black education,
spending $5 on each black child compared to $80 on each white
child. His all white Parliament passed a law protecting officials
who took actions for the suppression of "terrorism",
enabling the police and military to commit atrocities. An international
trade boycott against Rhodesia arose, but while the US publicly
condemned the government, it continued to do business there. In
1971, President Nixon lifted the chrome embargo against Rhodesia
at a time when there was a surplus of chrome in the US. Blacks
were eventually given the right to vote for some officials, but
the opposition to Smith's government grew so strong that he was
ultimately forced to give up some power to blacks. In 1979, Rhodesia
became Zimbabwe, a country primarily ruled by blacks.
ANASTASIO SOMOZA, SR. AND JR.
Presidents of Nicaragua
The Marines invaded Nicaragua in 1912,
and stayed until 1933, fighting but never defeating the revolutionary
Augusto Sandino. They created the Nicaraguan National Guard and
installed Anastasio Somoza Garcia in power. Then Sandino, who
had signed a truce and put down his arms, was assassinated by
Somoza. A general who led the Marines into Nicaragua, explained,
" I was a high class muscle-man for big business, for Wall
Street and for the banks. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
l helped purify Nicaragua for an International banking house."
President Franklin Roosevelt put it another way. "Somoza
may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch." Corruption,
torture, and wholesale murder of dissidents continued for 45 years
under two generations of Somozas, for after Somoza Garcia was
gunned down in the streets in 1956, his son Anastasio Somoza Debayle
took control. The Somozas plundered Nicaragua and became millionaires.
The younger Somoza, made $12 million a year buying the blood of
his people and selling it abroad at a 300% mark-up. In 1972 after
an earthquake killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans,
Somoza had his National Guard seize $30 million in international
relief supplies and sold them to the highest bidder. Near the
end of his reign, he aerially bombed his own capital to stay in
power, but he was overthrown in 1979 by a rebel group who called
themselves the Sandinistas, after the revolutionary hero his father
had slain.
ALFREDO STROESSNER
President of Paraguay
Alfredo Stroessner seized power in Paraguay
in 1954. European correspondents who visited Paraguay during his
rule used the term the "poor man's Nazi regime" to describe
the Paraguayan government. Of German descent, Stroessner was a
great admirer of Nazism, and this showed not only in the refuge
he offered to many Nazi war criminals, such as Joseph Mengele,
but also in his ruthless methods.
From the Nazis the Paraguayan military
learned the art of genocide. The native Ache Indians were in the
way of progress, progress represented by American and European
corporations who planned to exploit the nation's forests, mines,
and grazing lands. The Indians were hunted down, parents killed,
and children sold into slavery. Survivors were herded into reservations
headed by American fundamentalist missionaries, some of whom had
participated in the hunts.
Between 1962 and 1975, Paraguay received
$146 million in U.S. aid. Paraguayan officials seemingly wanted
more, however, for in 1971, high ranking members of the regime
were implicated in the Marseilles drug ring, with Paraguay their
transfer point for shipments from France to the US. In the 1980s,
America finally condemned Paraguayan civil rights abuses and drug
trafficking. Stroessner still looked as if he'd be dictator for
life, but in 1988 one of his closest generals, Andres Rodriguez,
a known drug dealer, took over after a coup. Rodriguez promised
to restore democracy, and President Bush called the 1989 elections
a democratic opening, but opponents declared them a massive fraud.
Rodriguez's Colorado party won 74% of the vote. Stroessner took
refuge in Brasilia, Brazil. He still lives there, in comfort.
GENERAL SUHARTO
President of Indonesia
Indonesia is a totalitarian state and
its uncontested ruler for over 20 years, General Suharto, is one
of the most brutal dictators in history. After a CIA organized
coup brought him to power in 1965, Suharto, decided to purge every
communist subversive from Indonesian soil. General Nasution, a
close associate of Suharto, called for the extermination of three
million Indonesian communist party members, and with the CIA supervised
the murderous purge.
Paratroopers would arrive in a region
with a list of "subversives" and provide it to local
vigilante groups. Using machetes and other crude weapons, the
vigilantes would hack the alleged subversives to death. Entire
populations of towns and villages were herded to central locations
and massacred. Children would be asked to identify communists
who would then be executed on the spot. In addition to the half
million people who were killed outright after the coup, another
750,000 were arrested and tortured. Ultimately, one million people
died in one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political
history. The US continues to this day to train and arm the Indonesian
military with the latest high-tech equipment. (Suharto resigned
in 1999 after mass public protest)
RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO
President of the Dominican Republic
The US occupied the Dominican Republic
in 1916 and created the National Guard to put Rafael Leonidas
Trujillo into power. The fact that Trujillo was court-martialed
for kidnapping and rape in 1920 did not impede his rise to power
or taint his relationship with the US. As dictator of the Dominican
Republic for 30 years, Trujillo had a penchant for self-adulation,
and put his personal stamp on everything, including the capital,
village water pumps, and homes for the aged. Trujillo won the
1930 presidential election with more votes than there were registered
voters, but because he was anti-communist, Washington was happy.
He invoked anti-communism to justify mass deportations, torture
and summary executions. Workers who asked for wage increases were
labeled communists, and shot on the spot, as were farmers who
tried to stop Trujillo from confiscating their land. He eventually
controlled over 80% of the country's sugar plantations, using
slave labor provided by neighboring Haiti to keep profits high.
In 1937, he decided to blame depressed sugar prices on the Haitian
workers, and massacred 20,000 them. Trujillo was finally assassinated
by the CIA in 1961 after he attempted to have President Romulo
Betancourt of Venezuela murdered because of his criticism of Trujillo's
brutal regime. It was only then that the Marine Corps made public
the fact that our ally Trujillo was a convicted rapist.
GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA
President of Argentina
Soon after the coup that brought him to
power in 1976 General Jorge Rafael Videla began Argentina's dirty
war. All political and union activities were suspended, wages
were reduced by 60%, and dissidents were tortured by Nazi and
US-trained military and police. Survivors say the torture rooms
contained swastikas and pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.
One year after Videla's coup, Amnesty International estimated
15,000 people had disappeared and many were in secret detention
camps, but although the U.S. press admitted human rights abuses
occurred in Argentina, Videla was often described as a "moderate'
who revitalized his nation's troubled economy. Videla had a good
public relations firm in the U.S., Deaver and Hannaford, the same
firm used by Ronald Reagan, Taiwan, and Guatemala. Videla also
received aid from the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), through
its affiliate, CAL (Confederation AntiCommunists Latinoamericana).
CAL sent millions of dollars to Argentina from the US, including
old anti-communist organizations with alliances with the Italian
drug mafia. As part of its WACL affiliation, Argentina trained
Nicaraguan contras for the US. Videla left office in 1981, and
after the Falklands Crisis of 1982, he and his cohorts were tried
for human rights abuses by the new government.
MOHAMMED ZIA UL-HAQ
Presldent of Pakistan
In 1979, when General Mohammod Zia Ul-Haq
executed his elected predecessor, Zulfigar Ali Bhutto, and declared
martial law, drugs were unknown in Pakistan, but by 1984 Pakistan
was furnishing 70% of the world's high grade heroin. That same
year, George Bush addressed a group of Pakistani officials and
praised the government of President Zia for its anti-narcotics
program. However, among the guests listening to Vice-President
Bush were many high ranking officials with links to one of the
most lucrative heroin syndicates in the world. Although the US
government had some very capable drug enforcement agents in Pakistan,
they did not break even one narcotics case there. A senior Pakstani
narcotics officer said he had concluded the US was unwilling to
press for arrests that might embarrass a government so closely
tied to Washington. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
called Pakistan a "frontline state" defending "free
people everywhere'. That may explain why despite its unsavory
record of jailing and torturing dissidents, Pakistan under Zia
was the largest recipient of US. aid, receiving over $3 billion
in 1982, of which over half was for weapons. Zia eventually lifted
martial law and called for general elections in 1985. However,
many of his outspoken opponents were jailed during the elections
and for several days afterward. Zia died in a mysterious plane
crash in 1988, and the political party of his predecessor then
formed a government behind the late President Bhutto's daughter
Benazir Bhutto.
Authors - Dennis Bernstein and Laura Sydell,
Eclipse Enterprises trading card series, 1995
Dictators page
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