The 20th century witnessed death and slaughter on an unprecedented scale.
It was the century of the Holocaust and two World Wars; of communist, Nazi, fascist and military dictators who between them killed more than 200 million people.
Some people make horrible decisions, others are just bad presidents, a few are bloodthirsty, many are extremists, a couple are warmongers, and all of these guys are a mix. Fifteen of our political leaders in the last 130 years have been the architects of the most horrific genocides, systematic murders, blockades, brutal wars, and policy reforms history has ever recorded.
Scroll down for the leaders themselves, listed in order of the numbers who died as a result of their rule.
Here is a list of top 26 most evil dictators and mass murderers of all time.
| # | Name: | Victims: | Location: |
| 1. | Mao Zedong | 65 - 78 million | China (1949-1976) |
| 2. | Joseph Stalin | 40 - 60 million | Soviet Union (1929-1953) |
| 3. | Adolf Hitler | 40 - 45 million | Germany (1933-1945) |
| 4. | Emperor Shōwa | 17 - 27 million | Japan (1926-1945) |
| 5. | King Leopold II | 8 - 15 million | Belgium (1886-1908) |
| 6. | Ismail Enver Pasha | 2.5 - 4 million | Ottoman Turkey (1915-1920) |
| 7. | Pol Pot | 1.7 - 3 million | Cambodia (1975-1979) |
| 8. | Kim Il-sung | 1.6 million | North Korea (1948-1994) |
| 9. | Mengistu Haile Mariam | 1 - 2 million | Ethiopia (1974-1978) |
| 10. | Yakubu Gowon | 1.1 million | Nigeria (1966-1970) |
| 11. | Josip Broz Tito | 1 - 1.1 million | Yugoslavia (1945-1980) |
| 12. | Leonid Brezhnev | 900,000 | Afghanistan (1979-1982) |
| 13. | Jean Kambanda | 800,000 | Rwanda (1994) |
| 14. | Saddam Hussein | 600,000 - 800,000 | Iraq (1979-2003) |
| 15. | Sukarno | 500,000 - 1 million | Indonesia (1945-1966) |
| 16. | Ante Pavelić | 400,000 - 1 million | Croatia (1941-1945) |
| 17. | Bashar al-Assad | 500,000 | Syria (2000- ...) |
| 18. | Mullah Omar | 400,000 | Afghanistan (1996-2001) |
| 19. | Idi Amin | 300,000 - 500,000 | Uganda (1971-1979) |
| 20. | Yahya Khan | 300,000 | Pakistan (1970-1971) |
| 21. | Benito Mussolini | 300,000 | Italy (1922-1945) |
| 22. | Mobutu Sese Seko | 230,000 (?) | Zaire/Congo (1965-1997) |
| 23. | Charles Taylor | 220,000 | Liberia (1989-1996) |
| 24. | Foday Sankoh | 210,000 | Sierra Leone (1991-2000) |
| 25. | Ho Chi Minh | 200,000 | North Vietnam (1945-1969) |
| 26. | Michel Micombero | 150,000 - 200,000 | Burundi (1966-1976) |
(See also Top 10 Public Enemies)
(See also Top 25 Most Evil People in History)
(See also Top 30 Most Evil Women in History)
1. Mao Zedong (65 - 78 million)
 |
| (Mao Zedong (Tse-tung)) |
- China: (1949-1976) (27)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: 65 - 78 million
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and the founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he governed as Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.
China’s so-called ‘Great Helmsman’ was in fact the greatest mass murderer in history. Most of his victims were his fellow Chinese, murdered as ‘landlords’ after the communist takeover, starved in his misnamed ‘Great Leap Forward’ of 1958-61, or killed and tortured in labour camps in the Cultural Revolution of the Sixties. Mao’s rule, with its economic mismanagement and continual political upheavals, also spelled poverty for most of China’s untold millions.
According to the authoritative “Black Book of Communism,” an estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with -- by execution, imprisonment or forced famine.
For Mao, the No. 1 enemy was the intellectual. The so-called Great Helmsman reveled in his blood-letting, boasting, “What’s so unusual about Emperor Shih Huang of the China Dynasty? He had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.” Mao was referring to a major “accomplishment” of the Great Cultural Revolution, which from 1966-1976 transformed China into a great House of Fear.
The most inhumane example of Mao’s contempt for human life came when he ordered the collectivization of China’s agriculture under the ironic slogan, the “Great Leap Forward.” A deadly combination of lies about grain production, disastrous farming methods (profitable tea plantations, for example, were turned into rice fields), and misdistribution of food produced the worse famine in human history.
Deaths from hunger reached more than 50 percent in some Chinese villages. The total number of dead from 1959 to 1961 was between 30 million and 40 million -- the population of California.
Only five years later, when he sensed that revolutionary fervor in China was waning, Mao proclaimed the Cultural Revolution. Gangs of Red Guards -- young men and women between 14 and 21 -- roamed the cities targeting revisionists and other enemies of the state, especially teachers.
Professors were dressed in grotesque clothes and dunce caps, their faces smeared with ink. They were then forced to get down on all fours and bark like dogs. Some were beaten to death, some even eaten -- all for the promulgation of Maoism. A reluctant Mao finally called in the Red Army to put down the marauding Red Guards when they began attacking Communist Party members, but not before 1 million Chinese died.
All the while, Mao kept expanding the laogai, a system of 1,000 forced labor camps throughout China. Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in labor camps, has estimated that from the 1950s through the 1980s, 50 million Chinese passed through the Chinese version of the Soviet gulag. Twenty million died as a result of the primitive living conditions and 14-hour work days.
Such calculated cruelty exemplified his Al Capone philosophy: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
And yet Mao Zedong remains the most honored figure in the Chinese Communist Party. At one end of historic Tiananmen Square is Mao’s mausoleum, visited daily by large, respectful crowds. At the other end of the square is a giant portrait of Mao above the entrance to the Forbidden City, the favorite site of visitors, Chinese and foreign.
The most inhumane example of Mao’s contempt for human life came when he ordered the collectivization of China’s agriculture under the ironic slogan, the “Great Leap Forward.” A deadly combination of lies about grain production, disastrous farming methods (profitable tea plantations, for example, were turned into rice fields), and misdistribution of food produced the worse famine in human history.
Deaths from hunger reached more than 50 percent in some Chinese villages. The total number of dead from 1959 to 1961 was between 30 million and 40 million -- the population of California.
Only five years later, when he sensed that revolutionary fervor in China was waning, Mao proclaimed the Cultural Revolution. Gangs of Red Guards -- young men and women between 14 and 21 -- roamed the cities targeting revisionists and other enemies of the state, especially teachers.
Professors were dressed in grotesque clothes and dunce caps, their faces smeared with ink. They were then forced to get down on all fours and bark like dogs. Some were beaten to death, some even eaten -- all for the promulgation of Maoism. A reluctant Mao finally called in the Red Army to put down the marauding Red Guards when they began attacking Communist Party members, but not before 1 million Chinese died.
All the while, Mao kept expanding the laogai, a system of 1,000 forced labor camps throughout China. Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in labor camps, has estimated that from the 1950s through the 1980s, 50 million Chinese passed through the Chinese version of the Soviet gulag. Twenty million died as a result of the primitive living conditions and 14-hour work days.
Such calculated cruelty exemplified his Al Capone philosophy: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
And yet Mao Zedong remains the most honored figure in the Chinese Communist Party. At one end of historic Tiananmen Square is Mao’s mausoleum, visited daily by large, respectful crowds. At the other end of the square is a giant portrait of Mao above the entrance to the Forbidden City, the favorite site of visitors, Chinese and foreign.
2. Joseph Stalin (40 - 60 million)
 |
| (Joseph Stalin (Jughashvili)) |
- Soviet Union: (1929-1953) (24)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: 40 - 60 million
Joseph Stalin (birth surname: Jughashvili; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state.
Lenin’s paranoid successor was the runner-up to Mao in the mass-murder stakes. Stalin imposed a deliberate famine on Ukraine, killed millions of the wealthier peasants – or ‘kulaks’ – as he forced them off their land, and purged his own party, shooting thousands and sending millions more to work as slaves and perish in the Gulag.
Joseph Stalin, who died 60 years ago in Moscow, was a small man -- no more than 5-foot-4. The abused son of a poor, alcoholic Georgian cobbler, Josef Vissarionovich Djughashvili (the future Stalin) also had a withered arm, a clubbed foot and a face scarred by small pox, but he stood very tall as one of history’s most prolific killers.
Stalin’s extremely brutal 30-year rule as absolute ruler of the Soviet Union featured so many atrocities, including purges, expulsions, forced displacements, imprisonment in labor camps, manufactured famines, torture and good old-fashioned acts of mass murder and massacres (not to mention World War II) that the complete toll of bloodshed will likely never be known.
An amoral psychopath and paranoid with a gangster’s mentality, Stalin eliminated anyone and everyone who was a threat to his power – including (and especially) former allies. He had absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human life.
But how many people is he responsible for killing?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the literary giant who wrote harrowingly about the Soviet gulag system, claimed the true number of Stalin’s victims might have been as high as 60 million.
In his book, “Unnatural Deaths in the U.S.S.R.: 1928-1954,” I.G. Dyadkin estimated that the USSR suffered 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" during that period, with 34 to 49 million directly linked to Stalin.
In “Europe A History,” British historian Norman Davies counted 50 million killed between 1924-53, excluding wartime casualties.
In any case, if the figure of 60 million dead is accurate that would mean that an average of 2 million were killed during each year of Stalin’s horrific reign – or 40,000 every week (even during “peacetime”).
If the lower estimate of 40 million is the true number, that still translates into 3,660 deaths every single day.
Thus, Stalin’s regime represented a machinery of killing that history – excluding, perhaps, China under Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Zedong) -- has never witnessed.
Stalin’s extremely brutal 30-year rule as absolute ruler of the Soviet Union featured so many atrocities, including purges, expulsions, forced displacements, imprisonment in labor camps, manufactured famines, torture and good old-fashioned acts of mass murder and massacres (not to mention World War II) that the complete toll of bloodshed will likely never be known.
An amoral psychopath and paranoid with a gangster’s mentality, Stalin eliminated anyone and everyone who was a threat to his power – including (and especially) former allies. He had absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human life.
But how many people is he responsible for killing?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the literary giant who wrote harrowingly about the Soviet gulag system, claimed the true number of Stalin’s victims might have been as high as 60 million.
In his book, “Unnatural Deaths in the U.S.S.R.: 1928-1954,” I.G. Dyadkin estimated that the USSR suffered 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" during that period, with 34 to 49 million directly linked to Stalin.
In “Europe A History,” British historian Norman Davies counted 50 million killed between 1924-53, excluding wartime casualties.
In any case, if the figure of 60 million dead is accurate that would mean that an average of 2 million were killed during each year of Stalin’s horrific reign – or 40,000 every week (even during “peacetime”).
If the lower estimate of 40 million is the true number, that still translates into 3,660 deaths every single day.
Thus, Stalin’s regime represented a machinery of killing that history – excluding, perhaps, China under Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Zedong) -- has never witnessed.
3. Adolf Hitler (40 - 45 million)
 |
| (Adolf Hitler) |
- Germany: (1933-1945) (12)
- Regime: Nazi dictatorship
- Victims: 40 - 45 million
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer ("leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He was effectively dictator of Nazi Germany, and was at the centre of World War II in Europe and the Holocaust.
The horror of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship lies in the uniqueness of his most notorious crime, the Holocaust, which stands alone in the annals of inhuman cruelty. It was carried out under the cover of World War II, a conflict Hitler pursued with the goal of obtaining ‘Lebensraum’. The war ended up costing millions of lives, leaving Europe devastated and his Third Reich in ruins.
Directly responsible for the deaths of over 40 million Europeans (including 6 million Jews and 1.5 million Romanis) as a result of the Second World War.
1919 - He joins the German Workers' Party in September. A gifted and inspiring public speaker, he is soon placed in charge of the party's propaganda.
"The antisemitism of reason must lead to a struggle for the legal battle to abrogate laws giving (Jews) favoured positions, differentiating the Jew from other foreigners," he writes on 16 September.
"The final goal must be the uncompromising removal of Jews altogether. To accomplish these goals, only a government of national power is capable, and never a government of national weakness."
1920 - Under Hitler's direction, the party adopts the swastika as its emblem and changes its name to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Its platform calls for the removal of civil rights for Jews and for their expulsion from Germany.
In 1928 the Nazis hold 12 seats in the Reichstag (parliament). By 1932 they have 230 seats and are the largest party in the government. Joseph Goebbels begins to create the Führer myth around Hitler and to organise the ritualistic and highly choreographed party rallies that help convert the masses to Nazism and provide a platform for Hitler's accession to power in January 1933.
Meanwhile, Hitler meets Eva Braun during 1929. Braun becomes Hitler's love interest in 1931 after his previous love interest, Geli Raubal, who is also his niece, commits suicide.
1933 - The Nazis reach a position from which they can seize power on 30 January when Hitler is appointed chancellor. Following the Reichstag fire on 27 February basic civil rights are suspended and the Nazis are given the right to quash political opposition.
Germany's last election until after the Second World War is held on 5 March. Though the Nazis win only 44% of the vote Hitler persuades the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Law, allowing him to govern independently for four years. The Nazis now take full control of the state apparatus.
1934 - Hitler organises the 'Night of the Long Knives' massacre of rebellious leaders of the SA on the night of 30 June. In August he becomes president and chancellor, giving him supreme command of the German armed forces. Hitler is now the Führer, the dictator of the fascist Third Reich, an empire where the individual belongs to the state.
1939 - On 30 January Hitler declares in the Reichstag that a new world war will lead to the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". Initially the Nazis plan a mass deportation of Jews. Later that plan changes.
Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia in March. Slovakia is made a puppet state. In May, as Germany prepares for war, Hitler agrees to a formal military alliance with Italy, the 'Pact of Steel'.
On 22 August Hitler briefs his senior military commanders on his plans for the invasion of Poland.
According to one report of the meeting, Hitler says, "Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality.
"Genghis Khan has sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of states. As to what the weak Western European civilisation asserts about me, that is of no account.
"I have given the command and I shall shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent.
"And so for the present only in the East I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language.
"Only thus we can gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?"
The next day, 23 August, he signs a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, carving up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, with the Soviets claiming Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, part of the Balkans and half of Poland.
German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun.
"St Petersburg must disappear utterly from the Earth's surface. Moscow too. Then the Russians will retire into Siberia," Hitler declares.
"As for the ridiculous 100 million Slavs, we will mould the best of them to the shape that suits us, and we will isolate the rest of them in their own pig-styes; and anyone who talks about cherishing the local inhabitant and civilising him goes straight off into a concentration camp," he says.
1945 - By March, as the Western forces reach the Rhine River, Soviet armies have overrun most of Eastern Europe and are converging on Berlin, where Hitler waits in his underground bunker. The Soviets march under the slogan, "There will be no pity. They have sown the wind and now they are harvesting the whirlwind."
Few are spared. As the Soviets move through Germany they rape at least two million German women in an undisciplined advance that is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.
By 25 April the Soviet forces have encircled Berlin. The city now becomes the "Reichssheiterhaufen" - the "Reich's funeral pyre."
The three and a half million civilians that remain in the city are caught in crossfire. Nearly 110,000 German soldiers and civilians die during the battle. A further 134,000 are taken prisoner. About 130,000 women are raped.
On 28 April Hitler marries his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On the afternoon of 30 April the pair retire to Hitler's private chambers to consummate a death pact. Braun bites a cyanide capsule and dies instantly. Hitler bites into a cyanide capsule while simultaneously shooting himself in the head. In accordance with his instructions, Hitler's and Braun's bodies are taken to a garden above the bunker, doused with petrol and burnt.
"You must never allow my corpse to fall into the hands of the Russians," Hitler tells his valet prior to his suicide. "They would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body and put it in waxworks."
In his final will and testament, written just before his suicide, he calls on the German Government and people "to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry."
Berlin falls to the Soviet forces on 2 May. The assault on the city has cost the Red Army 78,291 killed and 274,184 wounded.
On 7 May Germany surrenders unconditionally. The Second World War officially ends on 2 September when Japan formally signs documents of unconditional surrender.
Hitler's charred body is discovered by the Soviet forces occupying Berlin shortly after the city falls. It is smuggled back to the Soviet Union, where its upper and lower jaws and a fragment of the skull are preserved in official archives. The rest of the body is hidden under a parade ground at Magdeburg, in what is to become Eastern Germany. In 1970 these remains are secretly dug up, cremated, ground into dust and thrown into a nearby river.
In 2009 the provenance of the skull fragment is throw into doubt when DNA analysis identifies it as female.
"The antisemitism of reason must lead to a struggle for the legal battle to abrogate laws giving (Jews) favoured positions, differentiating the Jew from other foreigners," he writes on 16 September.
"The final goal must be the uncompromising removal of Jews altogether. To accomplish these goals, only a government of national power is capable, and never a government of national weakness."
1920 - Under Hitler's direction, the party adopts the swastika as its emblem and changes its name to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Its platform calls for the removal of civil rights for Jews and for their expulsion from Germany.
In 1928 the Nazis hold 12 seats in the Reichstag (parliament). By 1932 they have 230 seats and are the largest party in the government. Joseph Goebbels begins to create the Führer myth around Hitler and to organise the ritualistic and highly choreographed party rallies that help convert the masses to Nazism and provide a platform for Hitler's accession to power in January 1933.
Meanwhile, Hitler meets Eva Braun during 1929. Braun becomes Hitler's love interest in 1931 after his previous love interest, Geli Raubal, who is also his niece, commits suicide.
1933 - The Nazis reach a position from which they can seize power on 30 January when Hitler is appointed chancellor. Following the Reichstag fire on 27 February basic civil rights are suspended and the Nazis are given the right to quash political opposition.
Germany's last election until after the Second World War is held on 5 March. Though the Nazis win only 44% of the vote Hitler persuades the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Law, allowing him to govern independently for four years. The Nazis now take full control of the state apparatus.
1934 - Hitler organises the 'Night of the Long Knives' massacre of rebellious leaders of the SA on the night of 30 June. In August he becomes president and chancellor, giving him supreme command of the German armed forces. Hitler is now the Führer, the dictator of the fascist Third Reich, an empire where the individual belongs to the state.
1939 - On 30 January Hitler declares in the Reichstag that a new world war will lead to the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". Initially the Nazis plan a mass deportation of Jews. Later that plan changes.
Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia in March. Slovakia is made a puppet state. In May, as Germany prepares for war, Hitler agrees to a formal military alliance with Italy, the 'Pact of Steel'.
On 22 August Hitler briefs his senior military commanders on his plans for the invasion of Poland.
According to one report of the meeting, Hitler says, "Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality.
"Genghis Khan has sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of states. As to what the weak Western European civilisation asserts about me, that is of no account.
"I have given the command and I shall shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent.
"And so for the present only in the East I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language.
"Only thus we can gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?"
The next day, 23 August, he signs a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, carving up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, with the Soviets claiming Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, part of the Balkans and half of Poland.
German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun.
"St Petersburg must disappear utterly from the Earth's surface. Moscow too. Then the Russians will retire into Siberia," Hitler declares.
"As for the ridiculous 100 million Slavs, we will mould the best of them to the shape that suits us, and we will isolate the rest of them in their own pig-styes; and anyone who talks about cherishing the local inhabitant and civilising him goes straight off into a concentration camp," he says.
1945 - By March, as the Western forces reach the Rhine River, Soviet armies have overrun most of Eastern Europe and are converging on Berlin, where Hitler waits in his underground bunker. The Soviets march under the slogan, "There will be no pity. They have sown the wind and now they are harvesting the whirlwind."
Few are spared. As the Soviets move through Germany they rape at least two million German women in an undisciplined advance that is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.
By 25 April the Soviet forces have encircled Berlin. The city now becomes the "Reichssheiterhaufen" - the "Reich's funeral pyre."
The three and a half million civilians that remain in the city are caught in crossfire. Nearly 110,000 German soldiers and civilians die during the battle. A further 134,000 are taken prisoner. About 130,000 women are raped.
On 28 April Hitler marries his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On the afternoon of 30 April the pair retire to Hitler's private chambers to consummate a death pact. Braun bites a cyanide capsule and dies instantly. Hitler bites into a cyanide capsule while simultaneously shooting himself in the head. In accordance with his instructions, Hitler's and Braun's bodies are taken to a garden above the bunker, doused with petrol and burnt.
"You must never allow my corpse to fall into the hands of the Russians," Hitler tells his valet prior to his suicide. "They would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body and put it in waxworks."
In his final will and testament, written just before his suicide, he calls on the German Government and people "to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry."
Berlin falls to the Soviet forces on 2 May. The assault on the city has cost the Red Army 78,291 killed and 274,184 wounded.
On 7 May Germany surrenders unconditionally. The Second World War officially ends on 2 September when Japan formally signs documents of unconditional surrender.
Hitler's charred body is discovered by the Soviet forces occupying Berlin shortly after the city falls. It is smuggled back to the Soviet Union, where its upper and lower jaws and a fragment of the skull are preserved in official archives. The rest of the body is hidden under a parade ground at Magdeburg, in what is to become Eastern Germany. In 1970 these remains are secretly dug up, cremated, ground into dust and thrown into a nearby river.
In 2009 the provenance of the skull fragment is throw into doubt when DNA analysis identifies it as female.
4. Emperor Shōwa (17 - 27 million)
 |
| (Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito)) |
- Japan: (1926-1945) (19)
- Regime: Japanese imperialist policy
- Victims: 17 - 27 million
Emperor Shōwa (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death on January 7, 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan, he is now referred to primarily by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa. The word Shōwa is the name of the era that corresponded with the Emperor's reign, and was made the Emperor's own name upon his death. The name Hirohito means "abundant benevolence".
Somewhere between 17 million and 27 million people died in China from disease, famine, and combat during the conflict with Japan.
The
Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945) was a
military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the
Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945. It followed the First Sino-Japanese
War of 1894–95,
China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation until 1941), the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian casualties in the Pacific War, with anywhere between 17 and 27 million Chinese civilians dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes.
The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aimed at expanding its influence politically and militarily in order to secure access to raw material reserves and other economic resources in the area, particularly food and labour, and engage war with others in the policy context of aggressive modernized militarism in the Asia-Pacific, at the height of Imperial Rule Assistance Association's Hideki Tojo cabinet and with the order from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, so-called "incidents". In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which marked the beginning of total war between the two countries.
Initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. By 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with stretched lines of communications deep into the Chinese interior territories, the war had reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, which continued to perform sabotage operations against the Japanese using guerrilla warfare tactics. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day (December 8, 1941) the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road. In 1944 Japan launched a massive invasion and conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces. In 1945, Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo road linking India and China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan and Guangxi.
Despite continuing to occupy some of Chinese territory, Japan eventually surrendered on September 2, 1945 to Allied forces following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria. The remaining Japanese occupation troops in China (excluding Manchuria) formally surrendered on September 9, 1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29, 1946. At the outcome of the Cairo Conference of November 22–26, 1943, the Allies of World War II decided to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan by restoring all the territories that Japan annexed from China, including Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, to the Republic of China, and to expel Japan from the Korean Peninsula. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council at the end of the war.
China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation until 1941), the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian casualties in the Pacific War, with anywhere between 17 and 27 million Chinese civilians dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes.
The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aimed at expanding its influence politically and militarily in order to secure access to raw material reserves and other economic resources in the area, particularly food and labour, and engage war with others in the policy context of aggressive modernized militarism in the Asia-Pacific, at the height of Imperial Rule Assistance Association's Hideki Tojo cabinet and with the order from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, so-called "incidents". In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which marked the beginning of total war between the two countries.
Initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. By 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with stretched lines of communications deep into the Chinese interior territories, the war had reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, which continued to perform sabotage operations against the Japanese using guerrilla warfare tactics. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day (December 8, 1941) the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road. In 1944 Japan launched a massive invasion and conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces. In 1945, Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo road linking India and China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan and Guangxi.
Despite continuing to occupy some of Chinese territory, Japan eventually surrendered on September 2, 1945 to Allied forces following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria. The remaining Japanese occupation troops in China (excluding Manchuria) formally surrendered on September 9, 1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29, 1946. At the outcome of the Cairo Conference of November 22–26, 1943, the Allies of World War II decided to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan by restoring all the territories that Japan annexed from China, including Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, to the Republic of China, and to expel Japan from the Korean Peninsula. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council at the end of the war.
5. King Leopold II of Belgium (8 - 15 million)
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| (King Leopold II of Belgium) |
- Belgium: (1886-1908) (22)
- Regime: Colonial empire in Congo
- Victims: 8 - 15 million enslaved Congolese
Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians, chiefly remembered for the founding and exploitation of the Congo Free State as a private venture. Under his regime millions of the Congolese people died; modern estimates range from 2 to 15 million, with a consensus growing around 10 million.
Born in Brussels as the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865, reigning for 44 years until his death. This was the longest reign of any Belgian monarch.
Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. He used explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions. He ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and private construction projects in Belgium during this period. He donated the private buildings to the state before his death, to preserve them for Belgium.
Leopold extracted a fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the natives to harvest and process rubber. Under his regime millions of the Congolese people died; modern estimates range from 2 to 15 million, with a consensus growing around 10 million. Human rights abuses under his regime contributed significantly to these deaths. Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was ultimately forced by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration in 1908.
Missionary John Harris on returning from Congo said: “I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and utter abandon is positively indescribable.”
Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. He used explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions. He ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and private construction projects in Belgium during this period. He donated the private buildings to the state before his death, to preserve them for Belgium.
Leopold extracted a fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the natives to harvest and process rubber. Under his regime millions of the Congolese people died; modern estimates range from 2 to 15 million, with a consensus growing around 10 million. Human rights abuses under his regime contributed significantly to these deaths. Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was ultimately forced by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration in 1908.
Missionary John Harris on returning from Congo said: “I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and utter abandon is positively indescribable.”
6. Ismail Enver Pasha (2.5 - 4 million)
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| (Ismail Enver (or Anwar) Pasha) |
- Ottoman: Turkey (1915-1920) (5)
- Regime: Military dictatorship
- Victims: 2.5 - 4 million (Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians)
Ismail Enver Pasha or Ismail Anwar Pasha (22 November 1881 – 4 August 1922), commonly known as Enver Pasha, was an Ottoman military officer and a leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution.
He began his career as a Turkish military officer and leader in the Young Turk revolution. Eventually he rose to power and led the Ottoman Empire in both Balkan Wars and World War I. As a war minister Enver was not very useful, and was defeated over and over. His crushing loss at the Battle of Sarikamish needed a scapegoat, and that’s when he decided to blame Armenians for the failure. That is what began what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. The word “genocide” was coined to describe this event.
Breakdown: 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-1922) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-1920)
"Genocide." Coined in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, to describe what the Turkish government (ca 1915–18) perpetrated against the Armenian people, now called the Armenian Genocide. From the stem of Ancient Greek (génos), “race, kind” or Latin “tribe, clan” (-cide).
"Genocide." Coined in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, to describe what the Turkish government (ca 1915–18) perpetrated against the Armenian people, now called the Armenian Genocide. From the stem of Ancient Greek (génos), “race, kind” or Latin “tribe, clan” (-cide).
7. Pol Pot (1.7 - 3 million)
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| (Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar)) |
- Cambodia: (1975-1979) (4)
- Regime: Communist (Khmer Rouge)
- Victims: 1.7 - 3 million (political opponents)
Pol Pot (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998), born Saloth Sar, was a Cambodian revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. As such, he became the leader of Cambodia on 17 April 1975, when his forces captured Phnom Penh. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea.
He presided over a totalitarian dictatorship, in which his government made urban dwellers move to the countryside to work in collective farms and on forced labour projects. The combined effects of executions, strenuous working conditions, malnutrition and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population. In all, an estimated 1.7 to 3 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died due to the policies of his four-year premiership.
In 1979, after the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, Pol Pot relocated to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed. From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998, while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he committed suicide or was poisoned have persisted.
8. Kim Il-sung (1.6 million)
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| (Kim Il-sung (born Kim Sŏng-ju)) |
- North Korea: (1948-1994) (46)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: At least 1.6 million (political opponents/civilians through famine)
Kim Il-sung (born Kim Sŏng-ju; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea, for 46 years, from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Coming to power after the overthrow of Japanese rule in 1945, he authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering a defense of South Korea by the United Nations led by the United States. A cease-fire in the Korean War was signed on 27 July 1953.
He fought for a command economy that allowed the government to make all decisions for the country. For various reasons the people never seemed to love the man, and so his hold on power was tenuous at best. Like most crazies he blamed somebody else, in this case the USA, and said they had spread disease throughout its population. He also pulled a Stalin, and had large-scale purges. His underlying reason was that it would scare people into believing he was telling the truth. Kim’s purge was a little different than Stalin’s though in that there were no trials. During his tenure prison camps sprung up all over the country to contain the ever growing masses of people against Kim Il Sung.
Kim was the son of parents who fled to Manchuria during his childhood to escape the Japanese rule of Korea. He attended elementary school in Manchuria and, while still a student, joined a communist youth organization. He was arrested and jailed for his activities with the group in 1929–30. After Kim’s release from prison, he joined the Korean guerrilla resistance against the Japanese occupation sometime during the 1930s and adopted the name of an earlier legendary Korean guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. Kim was noticed by the Soviet military authorities, who sent him to the Soviet Union for military and political training. There he joined the local Communist Party.
During World War II, Kim led a Korean contingent as a major in the Soviet army. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Korea was effectively divided between a Soviet-occupied northern half and a U.S.-supported southern half. At this time Kim returned with other Soviet-trained Koreans to establish a communist provisional government under Soviet auspices in what would become North Korea. He became the first premier of the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, and in 1949 he became chairman of the Korean Workers’ (communist) Party.
Hoping to reunify Korea by force, Kim launched an invasion of South Korea in 1950, thereby igniting the Korean War. His attempt to extend his rule there was repelled by U.S. troops and other UN forces, however, and it was only through massive Chinese support that he was able to repel a subsequent invasion of North Korea by UN forces. The Korean War ended in a stalemate in 1953.
As head of state, Kim crushed the remaining domestic opposition and eliminated his last rivals for power within the Korean Workers’ Party. He became his country’s absolute ruler and set about transforming North Korea into an austere, militaristic, and highly regimented society devoted to the twin goals of industrialization and the reunification of the Korean peninsula under North Korean rule. Kim introduced a philosophy of juche, or “self-reliance,” under which North Korea tried to develop its economy with little or no help from foreign countries. North Korea’s state-run economy grew rapidly in the 1950s and ’60s but eventually stagnated, with shortages of food occurring by the early ’90s. The omnipresent personality cult sponsored by Kim was part of a highly effective propaganda system that enabled him to rule unchallenged for 46 years over one of the world’s most isolated and repressive societies. In his foreign policy he cultivated close ties with both the Soviet Union and China and remained consistently hostile to South Korea and the United States. While retaining control of the Korean Workers’ Party, Kim relinquished the office of premier and was elected president of North Korea in December 1972. In 1980 he raised his eldest son, Kim Jong Il, to high posts in the party and the military, in effect designating the younger Kim as his heir.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s left China as North Korea’s sole major ally, and China cultivated more cordial relations with South Korea. Meanwhile, North Korean policy toward the South alternated between provocation and overtures of peace throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Relations improved somewhat with Seoul’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 1988, to which the North sent a team of athletes. In 1991 the two countries were simultaneously admitted to the United Nations, and a series of prime-ministerial talks produced two agreements between North and South Korea: one that pledged nonaggression, reconciliation, exchanges, and cooperation, and a joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The agreements went into effect in February 1992, although little of substance came of them, especially after the North became embroiled in controversy over its nuclear program and suspended all contacts with the South in early 1993.
South Korean Pres. Kim Young-Sam was scheduled to travel to P’yŏngyang in July 1994 for an unprecedented summit between the two Korean leaders, but Kim Il-Sung died before the meeting could take place. Kim Jong Il ascended to power after his father’s death, and, in the revised constitution that was promulgated in 1998, the office of president was written out and the elder Kim was written in as “eternal president of the republic.”
During World War II, Kim led a Korean contingent as a major in the Soviet army. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Korea was effectively divided between a Soviet-occupied northern half and a U.S.-supported southern half. At this time Kim returned with other Soviet-trained Koreans to establish a communist provisional government under Soviet auspices in what would become North Korea. He became the first premier of the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, and in 1949 he became chairman of the Korean Workers’ (communist) Party.
Hoping to reunify Korea by force, Kim launched an invasion of South Korea in 1950, thereby igniting the Korean War. His attempt to extend his rule there was repelled by U.S. troops and other UN forces, however, and it was only through massive Chinese support that he was able to repel a subsequent invasion of North Korea by UN forces. The Korean War ended in a stalemate in 1953.
As head of state, Kim crushed the remaining domestic opposition and eliminated his last rivals for power within the Korean Workers’ Party. He became his country’s absolute ruler and set about transforming North Korea into an austere, militaristic, and highly regimented society devoted to the twin goals of industrialization and the reunification of the Korean peninsula under North Korean rule. Kim introduced a philosophy of juche, or “self-reliance,” under which North Korea tried to develop its economy with little or no help from foreign countries. North Korea’s state-run economy grew rapidly in the 1950s and ’60s but eventually stagnated, with shortages of food occurring by the early ’90s. The omnipresent personality cult sponsored by Kim was part of a highly effective propaganda system that enabled him to rule unchallenged for 46 years over one of the world’s most isolated and repressive societies. In his foreign policy he cultivated close ties with both the Soviet Union and China and remained consistently hostile to South Korea and the United States. While retaining control of the Korean Workers’ Party, Kim relinquished the office of premier and was elected president of North Korea in December 1972. In 1980 he raised his eldest son, Kim Jong Il, to high posts in the party and the military, in effect designating the younger Kim as his heir.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s left China as North Korea’s sole major ally, and China cultivated more cordial relations with South Korea. Meanwhile, North Korean policy toward the South alternated between provocation and overtures of peace throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Relations improved somewhat with Seoul’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 1988, to which the North sent a team of athletes. In 1991 the two countries were simultaneously admitted to the United Nations, and a series of prime-ministerial talks produced two agreements between North and South Korea: one that pledged nonaggression, reconciliation, exchanges, and cooperation, and a joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The agreements went into effect in February 1992, although little of substance came of them, especially after the North became embroiled in controversy over its nuclear program and suspended all contacts with the South in early 1993.
South Korean Pres. Kim Young-Sam was scheduled to travel to P’yŏngyang in July 1994 for an unprecedented summit between the two Korean leaders, but Kim Il-Sung died before the meeting could take place. Kim Jong Il ascended to power after his father’s death, and, in the revised constitution that was promulgated in 1998, the office of president was written out and the elder Kim was written in as “eternal president of the republic.”
9. Mengistu Haile Mariam (1 - 2 million)
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| (Mengistu Haile Mariam) |
- Ethiopia: (1974-1978) (4)
- Regime: Communist military dictatorship
- Victims: 1 - 2 million (Eritreans/political opponents)
Mengistu Haile Mariam (born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian politician who was the most prominent officer of the Derg, the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991. Effectively a dictator, he oversaw the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977–1978, a campaign of repression against the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party and other anti-Derg factions.
Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 at the conclusion of the Ethiopian Civil War and remains there despite an Ethiopian court verdict finding him guilty in absentia of genocide. Estimates of the number of deaths for which he was responsible range from 1,000,000 to over 2,000,000.
In his introductory speech Mengitsu yelled, “Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!” Then he took three bottles filled with blood and threw them to the ground.
It was an auspicious beginning to say the least. Thousands were killed and found dead on the streets in the years that followed. Much of the murdering can be attributed to the friendly neighborhood watch there known as “Kebeles”. As if killing innocents wasn’t enough they would then charge the family a tax to return the dead body to them. The tax was aptly named “the wasted bullet”! Are you serious Mengitsu? However there was an even more gruesome fate of being left on the street where wild hyenas would fight over the dead. The campaign has been described as one of the worst mass murders ever in Africa. Mengitsu is even known to have garroted people to death.
It was an auspicious beginning to say the least. Thousands were killed and found dead on the streets in the years that followed. Much of the murdering can be attributed to the friendly neighborhood watch there known as “Kebeles”. As if killing innocents wasn’t enough they would then charge the family a tax to return the dead body to them. The tax was aptly named “the wasted bullet”! Are you serious Mengitsu? However there was an even more gruesome fate of being left on the street where wild hyenas would fight over the dead. The campaign has been described as one of the worst mass murders ever in Africa. Mengitsu is even known to have garroted people to death.
10. Yakubu Gowon (1.1 million)
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| (Yakubu "Jack" Dan-Yumma Gowon) |
- Nigeria: (1966-1970) (4)
- Regime: Military dictatorship
- Victims: 1.1 million (Biafrans starved and soldiers killed in civil war)
General Yakubu "Jack" Dan-Yumma Gowon (born 19 October 1934) was the head of state (Head of the Federal Military Government) of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975. He took power after one military coup d'état and was overthrown in another. During his rule, the Nigerian government successfully prevented Biafran secession during the 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War.
It starts as many sad stories do with precious beautiful oil. It had been found in the Niger delta where tensions were already high between the Eastern region (led by Ojukwu) and the rest of the country (governed by Yakubu). A dummy agreement was signed between them called the “Aburi Accord”, but it meant nothing to either leader. Yakubu started to put pressure on the region, and tested how much sway he had in the area versus Ojukwu. Well Ojukwu being no slouch declared secession from the rest of Nigeria and became the “Republic of Biafra”. This began a war that caused the deaths of 100,000 soldiers, and much worse, a blockade on the region which starved 1 million civilians.
Breakdown: 1 million civilians on the wrong side of a blockade caused by a war of secession in Nigeria and 100,000 soldiers who died in that war.
Breakdown: 1 million civilians on the wrong side of a blockade caused by a war of secession in Nigeria and 100,000 soldiers who died in that war.
11. Josip Broz Tito (1 - 1.1 million)
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| (Josip Broz Tito) |
- Yugoslavia: (1945-1980) (35)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: 1 - 1.1 million (political opponents)
Josip Broz Tito (born Josip Broz; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980.
His internal policies included the suppression of nationalist sentiment and the promotion of the "brotherhood and unity" of the six Yugoslav nations. After Tito's death in 1980, tensions between the Yugoslav republics emerged and in 1991 the country disintegrated and went into a series of wars and unrest that lasted the rest of the decade and continue to impact most of the former Yugoslav republics. He remains a very controversial figure in the Balkans.
- July 4, 1941 Tito called Yugoslavia for armed resistance against National Socialist Germany.
- 1941-1945 he was the Chief Commander (Marshall) of National Liberation Army in Yugoslavia.
- 1945-1953 he leaded communist Yugoslavia as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
- From 1948 followed his rift from Stalin's control (INFORMBIRO) and political neutrality.
- 1953-1980 he is the the lifelong President of Yugoslavia.
- From 1961 he is co-founder of Non-Aligned Movement, together with Egypt's leader G.A. Nasser, and India's leader J. Nehru
In entire Yugoslavia 1944-1980, he was responsible for massacring about 1.1 million victims (including 700,000 Croats, mostly civilians), and therefore he is the 11th one among the major mass-murderers in the known World history. In general, his role and effects in Balkans were very similar as these of J.V. Stallin in USSR and Russia. Therefore it was quite logical and expectable that after his death, Yugoslavia exploded in a very bloody regional war.
Josip Broz Tito made a lot of crimes: crimes of war and crimes against humanity such as mass murder, democide, genocide and ethnic cleansing. Indeed he destroyed economy of Yugoslavia: during the 1970s the economy began to weaken under the weight of foreign debt, high inflation, and inefficient industry. Also, he was under increasing pressure from nationalist forces within Yugoslavia, especially Croatian secessionists who threatened to break up the federation. Following their repression, Tito tightened control of intellectual life.
Accusations of culpability are related with crimes perpetrated during WW II and during repression by Broz Tito's communist Yugoslav Republic command among the public trials that took place in Slovenia between 1945 and 1950, the most important were the Nagode trial against democratic intellectuals and left liberal activists in 1946 and the titoist Dachau trials in 1947–1949, when 12 former inmates of Nazi concentration camps were accused of collaboration with the Nazis and were massacred. Mass graves are evidences of massacres; other crime was committed in Kočevski Rog butchery: accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing by historians. Accusations of culpability in the Bleiburg massacre, foibe slaterhouse, the repression of Croatia Catholic's Church, and the crackdown on the Croatian Spring or MASPOK. Accusation of Vojvodina massacre consists in retaliation against Germans and Hungarians citizen and supposed Chetnik Serbs but some historians consider these incidents also ethnic cleansing against Germans and Hungarians because during World War II, the German minority in occupied Yugoslavia enjoyed a status of superiority over the Yugoslav population. The AVNOJ Presidium issued a decree that ordered the government confiscation of all property of Nazi Germany and its citizens in Yugoslavia, persons of German nationality (regardless of citizenship), and collaborators. The decision acquired the force of law on February 6, 1945. Other accusation of crimes committed against children.
As soon as Tito came to power he moved into the royal palaces and villas and established a royal lifestyle for himself. Tito, even if communist, amassed or had built for himself a large collection of palaces, villas and lodges scattered throughout Yugoslavia. He had personal luxury yachts like the internationally famous "Galeb" The hunting parties were one of Tito's favorite pastimes, and often included his inner circle of party and government officials as well as foreign guests.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions between the Yugoslav republics emerged and in 1991 the country disintegrated and went into a series of wars and unrest that lasted the rest of the decade and continue to impact most of the former Yugoslav republics. He remains a very controversial figure in the Balkans.
- 1941-1945 he was the Chief Commander (Marshall) of National Liberation Army in Yugoslavia.
- 1945-1953 he leaded communist Yugoslavia as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
- From 1948 followed his rift from Stalin's control (INFORMBIRO) and political neutrality.
- 1953-1980 he is the the lifelong President of Yugoslavia.
- From 1961 he is co-founder of Non-Aligned Movement, together with Egypt's leader G.A. Nasser, and India's leader J. Nehru
In entire Yugoslavia 1944-1980, he was responsible for massacring about 1.1 million victims (including 700,000 Croats, mostly civilians), and therefore he is the 11th one among the major mass-murderers in the known World history. In general, his role and effects in Balkans were very similar as these of J.V. Stallin in USSR and Russia. Therefore it was quite logical and expectable that after his death, Yugoslavia exploded in a very bloody regional war.
Josip Broz Tito made a lot of crimes: crimes of war and crimes against humanity such as mass murder, democide, genocide and ethnic cleansing. Indeed he destroyed economy of Yugoslavia: during the 1970s the economy began to weaken under the weight of foreign debt, high inflation, and inefficient industry. Also, he was under increasing pressure from nationalist forces within Yugoslavia, especially Croatian secessionists who threatened to break up the federation. Following their repression, Tito tightened control of intellectual life.
Accusations of culpability are related with crimes perpetrated during WW II and during repression by Broz Tito's communist Yugoslav Republic command among the public trials that took place in Slovenia between 1945 and 1950, the most important were the Nagode trial against democratic intellectuals and left liberal activists in 1946 and the titoist Dachau trials in 1947–1949, when 12 former inmates of Nazi concentration camps were accused of collaboration with the Nazis and were massacred. Mass graves are evidences of massacres; other crime was committed in Kočevski Rog butchery: accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing by historians. Accusations of culpability in the Bleiburg massacre, foibe slaterhouse, the repression of Croatia Catholic's Church, and the crackdown on the Croatian Spring or MASPOK. Accusation of Vojvodina massacre consists in retaliation against Germans and Hungarians citizen and supposed Chetnik Serbs but some historians consider these incidents also ethnic cleansing against Germans and Hungarians because during World War II, the German minority in occupied Yugoslavia enjoyed a status of superiority over the Yugoslav population. The AVNOJ Presidium issued a decree that ordered the government confiscation of all property of Nazi Germany and its citizens in Yugoslavia, persons of German nationality (regardless of citizenship), and collaborators. The decision acquired the force of law on February 6, 1945. Other accusation of crimes committed against children.
As soon as Tito came to power he moved into the royal palaces and villas and established a royal lifestyle for himself. Tito, even if communist, amassed or had built for himself a large collection of palaces, villas and lodges scattered throughout Yugoslavia. He had personal luxury yachts like the internationally famous "Galeb" The hunting parties were one of Tito's favorite pastimes, and often included his inner circle of party and government officials as well as foreign guests.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions between the Yugoslav republics emerged and in 1991 the country disintegrated and went into a series of wars and unrest that lasted the rest of the decade and continue to impact most of the former Yugoslav republics. He remains a very controversial figure in the Balkans.
12. Leonid Brezhnev (900,000)
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| (Leonid Brezhnev) |
- Afghanistan: (1979-1982) (3)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: 900,000 (Civilians (Afghan))
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 (O.S. 6 December) – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups ("the Mujahideen") who received aid from several Western countries and several Muslim countries, fought against the Soviet Army and allied Afghan forces. Between 900,000–1.5 million civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.
Prior
to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur Mohammad Taraki
government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated a series of radical
modernization reforms throughout the country. Vigorously suppressing any
opposition from among the traditional Muslim Afghans, the government
arrested thousands and executed as many of 27,000 political prisoners.
By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by
December the government had lost control of territory outside of the
cities. In response to Afghan government requests, the Soviet government
under leader Leonid Brezhnev first sent covert troops to advise and
support the Afghani government, but on December 24, 1979, began the
first deployment of the 40th Army. Arriving in the capital Kabul, they
staged a coup, killing the Afghan President, and installing a rival
Afghan socialist (Babrak Karmal).
In January 1980, foreign ministers from 34 nations of the Islamic Conference adopted a resolution demanding "the immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from Afghanistan, while the UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention by a vote of 104–18. Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of aid, military training in neighboring Pakistan and China, paid for primarily by the United States and Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf.
Soviet troops occupied the cities and main axis of communication, while the mujahideen waged guerrilla war in small groups operating in the almost 80 percent of the country that escaped government and Soviet control. Soviets used their air power to deal harshly with the Afghan rebels, leveling villages to deny safe haven to the enemy, destroying vital irrigation ditches, and laying millions of land mines.
By the mid-1980s the Soviet contingent was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout the country, but the military and diplomatic cost of the war to the USSR was high. By mid 1987 the Soviet Union, now under reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, announced it would start withdrawing its forces. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989.
The war was considered part of the Cold War. Due to its length it has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap" by the Western media, and thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.
In January 1980, foreign ministers from 34 nations of the Islamic Conference adopted a resolution demanding "the immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from Afghanistan, while the UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention by a vote of 104–18. Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of aid, military training in neighboring Pakistan and China, paid for primarily by the United States and Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf.
Soviet troops occupied the cities and main axis of communication, while the mujahideen waged guerrilla war in small groups operating in the almost 80 percent of the country that escaped government and Soviet control. Soviets used their air power to deal harshly with the Afghan rebels, leveling villages to deny safe haven to the enemy, destroying vital irrigation ditches, and laying millions of land mines.
By the mid-1980s the Soviet contingent was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout the country, but the military and diplomatic cost of the war to the USSR was high. By mid 1987 the Soviet Union, now under reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, announced it would start withdrawing its forces. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989.
The war was considered part of the Cold War. Due to its length it has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap" by the Western media, and thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.
13. Jean Kambanda (800,000)
 |
| (Jean Kambanda) |
- Rwanda: (1994)
- Regime: Tribal dictatorship (Hutu)
- Victims: 800,000 (Tutsis)
Jean Kambanda (born October 19, 1955) was the Prime Minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.
Kambanda holds a degree in commercial engineering and began his career as a low-level United Popular BPR banker, rising as a technocrat to become the chair of the bank. At the time of the April 1994 crisis he was vice president of the Butare section of the opposition Democratic Republican Movement (MDR).
He was sworn in as prime minister on April 9, 1994 after the President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and former Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were assassinated. The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice, Faustin Twagiramungu. He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994. After leaving office he fled the country.
Kambanda was arrested in Nairobi on July 18, 1997, after a seven-week multinational stakeout and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The court accused him of distributing small arms and ammunition in Butare and Gitarama with the knowledge that they would be used to massacre civilians. He was found guilty after pleading guilty, a plea he later rescinded, but which rescission the Court did not accept.
On September 4, 1998, the ICTR condemned Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment for:
- Genocide, and Agreement to commit genocide
- Public and direct incitation to commit genocide
- Aiding and abetting genocide
- Failing in his duty to prevent the genocide which occurred while he was prime minister
- Two counts of crimes against humanity
This verdict was upheld by the ICTR Appeal Chamber on October 19, 2000, and Kambanda is currently jailed in Mali.
He was sworn in as prime minister on April 9, 1994 after the President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and former Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were assassinated. The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice, Faustin Twagiramungu. He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994. After leaving office he fled the country.
Kambanda was arrested in Nairobi on July 18, 1997, after a seven-week multinational stakeout and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The court accused him of distributing small arms and ammunition in Butare and Gitarama with the knowledge that they would be used to massacre civilians. He was found guilty after pleading guilty, a plea he later rescinded, but which rescission the Court did not accept.
On September 4, 1998, the ICTR condemned Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment for:
- Genocide, and Agreement to commit genocide
- Public and direct incitation to commit genocide
- Aiding and abetting genocide
- Failing in his duty to prevent the genocide which occurred while he was prime minister
- Two counts of crimes against humanity
This verdict was upheld by the ICTR Appeal Chamber on October 19, 2000, and Kambanda is currently jailed in Mali.
14. Saddam Hussein (600,000 - 800,000)
 |
| (Saddam Hussein) |
- Iraq: (1979-2003) (24)
- Regime: Ba’ath Party dictatorship
- Victims: 600,000 - 800,000 (Shi’ites, Kurds, Kuwaitis, political opponents)
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.
Iraq's era under President Saddam Hussein was notorious for its severe violations of human rights. Secret police, torture, mass murder, rape, deportations, forced disappearances, assassinations, chemical warfare, and the destruction of southern Iraq's marshes were some of the methods the country's Ba'athist government used to maintain control.
Estimates of the number of deaths for which he was responsible range from 600,000 to over 800,000.
A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq.
Saddam formally rose to power in 1979, although he had been the de facto head of Iraq for several years prior. He suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements, seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, and maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Whereas some venerated Saddam for his opposition to Israel—which included the use of military force—he was widely condemned in the west for the brutality of his dictatorship.
In 2003, a coalition led by the U.S. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam, in which U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused him of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda. Saddam's Ba'ath party was disbanded and elections were held. Following his capture on 13 December 2003, the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi Interim Government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites and was sentenced to death by hanging. His execution was carried out on 30 December 2006.
According to The New York Times, "he [Saddam] murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule". Other estimates as to the number of Iraqis killed by Saddam's regime vary from roughly a quarter to half a million, including 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds and 25,000 to 280,000 killed during the repression of the 1991 rebellion. Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.
Saddam formally rose to power in 1979, although he had been the de facto head of Iraq for several years prior. He suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements, seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, and maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Whereas some venerated Saddam for his opposition to Israel—which included the use of military force—he was widely condemned in the west for the brutality of his dictatorship.
In 2003, a coalition led by the U.S. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam, in which U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused him of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda. Saddam's Ba'ath party was disbanded and elections were held. Following his capture on 13 December 2003, the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi Interim Government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites and was sentenced to death by hanging. His execution was carried out on 30 December 2006.
According to The New York Times, "he [Saddam] murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule". Other estimates as to the number of Iraqis killed by Saddam's regime vary from roughly a quarter to half a million, including 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds and 25,000 to 280,000 killed during the repression of the 1991 rebellion. Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.
15. Sukarno (500,000 - 1 million)
 |
| (Sukarno) |
- Indonesia: (1945-1966) (21)
- Regime: Nationalist dictatorship
- Victims: 500,000 - 1 million (Indonesian communists)
Sukarno, also spelled Soekarno (born Kusno Sosrodihardjo, June 6, 1901, Surabaja [now Surabaya], Java, Dutch East Indies—died June 21, 1970, Jakarta, Indonesia), leader of the Indonesian independence movement and Indonesia’s first president (1949–1966), who suppressed the country’s original parliamentary system in favour of an authoritarian “Guided Democracy” and who attempted to balance the Communists against the army leaders. He was deposed in 1966 by the army under Suharto.
The Indonesian killings of 1965–1966 were an anti-communist purge following a failed coup of the 30 September Movement in Indonesia. The most widely accepted estimates are that more than 500,000 people were killed. The purge was a pivotal event in the transition to the "New Order" and the elimination of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as a political force. The upheavals led to the downfall of President Sukarno and the commencement of Suharto's three-decade presidency.
Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for Independence from the Netherlands. He was a prominent leader of Indonesia's nationalist movement during the Dutch colonial period, and spent over a decade under Dutch detention until released by the invading Japanese forces. Sukarno and his fellow nationalists collaborated to garner support for the Japanese war effort from the population, in exchange for Japanese aid in spreading nationalist ideas. Upon Japanese surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945, and Sukarno was appointed as first president. He led Indonesians in resisting Dutch re-colonization efforts via diplomatic and military means until the Dutch acknowledgment of Indonesian independence in 1949.
After a chaotic period of parliamentary democracy, Sukarno established an autocratic system called "Guided Democracy" in 1957 that successfully ended the instability and rebellions which were threatening the survival of the diverse and fractious country. The early 1960s saw Sukarno veering Indonesia to the left by providing support and protection to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) at the expense of the military and Islamists. He also embarked on a series of aggressive foreign policies under the rubric of anti-imperialism, with aid from the Soviet Union and China.
Sukarno’s personal and political excesses, as epitomized eventually by his neo-Marxist, crypto-communist ideology and his infamous cabinet of 100 corrupt and cynical ministers, induced a continuous state of national crisis. Sukarno narrowly escaped recurrent attempts at assassination, the first in 1957. Regional insurrections broke out in Sumatra and Sulawesi in 1958. Inflation escalated the cost-of-living index from 100 in 1958 to 18,000 in 1965 and on up wildly to 600,000 in 1967. In 1963, after shouting repeatedly “To hell with your aid” (1950–65 total: U.S. $1,000,000,000), Sukarno all but broke with the United States. After having exacted U.S. $1,000,000,000 in Soviet armaments and other items, he next affronted Moscow.
On January 20, 1965, Indonesia formally withdrew from the United Nations because the latter supported Malaysia, which Sukarno had vowed to “crush” as “an imperialist plot of encirclement.” Yet, until 1965, Sukarno was still able to stir the Indonesian masses to near-hysterical belligerency. Millions of Indonesians sang and shouted his slogans and acclaimed Sukarno as “Great Leader of the Revolution,” “Lifetime President” (his official title), and oracle and warrior of the Nefo—his acronym for the “New Emerging Forces”—in violent conflict with Nekolim—the neocolonialism, capitalism, and imperialism of the “doomed” Western powers.
The coup of 1965
The nation was shocked and shaken out of its trance by an abortive coup on September 30, 1965. A clique of military conspirators calling itself the September 30th Movement kidnapped and killed six top army generals, seized a few key urban points, and proclaimed a new revolutionary regime. General Suharto, the commander of the Jakarta garrison, swiftly reversed the coup.
Suharto and the military generally believed the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia; PKI)—which to some measure had been supported and protected by Sukarno—to be behind the attempted coup. The PKI, by contrast, understood the plot to be entirely a military matter. There ensued an oblique contest for power between Suharto and Sukarno, during which thousands of communists and alleged communists were slaughtered by the military; estimates of the number of people killed during the purge range from 500,000 to more than 1,000,000. As the country recoiled in horror, activist youths demanded the political demise of Sukarno, the Sukarnoists, and Sukarnoism and the total reform and reorganization of the state. On March 11, 1966, Sukarno was obliged to delegate wide powers to Suharto, who subsequently became acting president (March 1967) and then president (March 1968), as Sukarno sank into disgrace and dotage.
Sukarno died at the age of 69 of a chronic kidney ailment and numerous complications. Suharto decreed a quick and quiet funeral. Nevertheless, at least 500,000 persons, including virtually all of Jakarta’s important personages, turned out to pay their last ambivalent respects. The next day another 200,000 assembled in Blitar, near Surabaya, for the official service followed by burial in a simple grave alongside that of his mother. The cult and ideology of Sukarnoism were proscribed until the late 1970s, when the government undertook a rehabilitation of Sukarno’s name. His autobiography, Sukarno, was published in 1965.
Naming
Sukarno's full name at birth was Kusno Sosrodihardjo. When I was little, because often ailing, according to the Javanese custom; by his parents renamed to Sukarno. In later days when he became President of the Republic of Indonesia, Sukarno changed the spelling of the name of her own became Sukarno because he thought the spelling of the name used colonizers (Netherlands). He still uses the name of Sukarno in his signature because the signature is the signature contained in the text of the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence should not be changed. The term familiar to Ir. Sukarno was the Bung Karno.
Achmed Sukarno
In some Western countries, Sukarno name is sometimes written Achmed Sukarno. This occurs because when Sukarno first time visiting the United States, some reporters wondered, "What was the name of Sukarno small?" because they do not understand the habit of some people in Indonesia who only uses one name only, or do not have family names. Somehow, then add the name of a person in front of the name of Achmed Sukarno. This also happened in some existing, such as wikipedia Czech language, the language of Wales, Danish, German, and Spanish.
After a chaotic period of parliamentary democracy, Sukarno established an autocratic system called "Guided Democracy" in 1957 that successfully ended the instability and rebellions which were threatening the survival of the diverse and fractious country. The early 1960s saw Sukarno veering Indonesia to the left by providing support and protection to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) at the expense of the military and Islamists. He also embarked on a series of aggressive foreign policies under the rubric of anti-imperialism, with aid from the Soviet Union and China.
Sukarno’s personal and political excesses, as epitomized eventually by his neo-Marxist, crypto-communist ideology and his infamous cabinet of 100 corrupt and cynical ministers, induced a continuous state of national crisis. Sukarno narrowly escaped recurrent attempts at assassination, the first in 1957. Regional insurrections broke out in Sumatra and Sulawesi in 1958. Inflation escalated the cost-of-living index from 100 in 1958 to 18,000 in 1965 and on up wildly to 600,000 in 1967. In 1963, after shouting repeatedly “To hell with your aid” (1950–65 total: U.S. $1,000,000,000), Sukarno all but broke with the United States. After having exacted U.S. $1,000,000,000 in Soviet armaments and other items, he next affronted Moscow.
On January 20, 1965, Indonesia formally withdrew from the United Nations because the latter supported Malaysia, which Sukarno had vowed to “crush” as “an imperialist plot of encirclement.” Yet, until 1965, Sukarno was still able to stir the Indonesian masses to near-hysterical belligerency. Millions of Indonesians sang and shouted his slogans and acclaimed Sukarno as “Great Leader of the Revolution,” “Lifetime President” (his official title), and oracle and warrior of the Nefo—his acronym for the “New Emerging Forces”—in violent conflict with Nekolim—the neocolonialism, capitalism, and imperialism of the “doomed” Western powers.
The coup of 1965
The nation was shocked and shaken out of its trance by an abortive coup on September 30, 1965. A clique of military conspirators calling itself the September 30th Movement kidnapped and killed six top army generals, seized a few key urban points, and proclaimed a new revolutionary regime. General Suharto, the commander of the Jakarta garrison, swiftly reversed the coup.
Suharto and the military generally believed the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia; PKI)—which to some measure had been supported and protected by Sukarno—to be behind the attempted coup. The PKI, by contrast, understood the plot to be entirely a military matter. There ensued an oblique contest for power between Suharto and Sukarno, during which thousands of communists and alleged communists were slaughtered by the military; estimates of the number of people killed during the purge range from 500,000 to more than 1,000,000. As the country recoiled in horror, activist youths demanded the political demise of Sukarno, the Sukarnoists, and Sukarnoism and the total reform and reorganization of the state. On March 11, 1966, Sukarno was obliged to delegate wide powers to Suharto, who subsequently became acting president (March 1967) and then president (March 1968), as Sukarno sank into disgrace and dotage.
Sukarno died at the age of 69 of a chronic kidney ailment and numerous complications. Suharto decreed a quick and quiet funeral. Nevertheless, at least 500,000 persons, including virtually all of Jakarta’s important personages, turned out to pay their last ambivalent respects. The next day another 200,000 assembled in Blitar, near Surabaya, for the official service followed by burial in a simple grave alongside that of his mother. The cult and ideology of Sukarnoism were proscribed until the late 1970s, when the government undertook a rehabilitation of Sukarno’s name. His autobiography, Sukarno, was published in 1965.
Naming
Sukarno's full name at birth was Kusno Sosrodihardjo. When I was little, because often ailing, according to the Javanese custom; by his parents renamed to Sukarno. In later days when he became President of the Republic of Indonesia, Sukarno changed the spelling of the name of her own became Sukarno because he thought the spelling of the name used colonizers (Netherlands). He still uses the name of Sukarno in his signature because the signature is the signature contained in the text of the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence should not be changed. The term familiar to Ir. Sukarno was the Bung Karno.
Achmed Sukarno
In some Western countries, Sukarno name is sometimes written Achmed Sukarno. This occurs because when Sukarno first time visiting the United States, some reporters wondered, "What was the name of Sukarno small?" because they do not understand the habit of some people in Indonesia who only uses one name only, or do not have family names. Somehow, then add the name of a person in front of the name of Achmed Sukarno. This also happened in some existing, such as wikipedia Czech language, the language of Wales, Danish, German, and Spanish.
16. Ante Pavelić (400,000 - 1 million)
 |
| (Ante Pavelić) |
- Croatia: (1941-1945) (4)
- Regime: Nationalist dictatorship
- Victims: 400,000 - 1 million (Serbs, Jews, Gipsies)
Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian fascist dictator who led the Ustaše movement and Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a puppet state of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany that was established in parts of occupied Yugoslavia during World War II, pursuing genocidal policies against ethnic and racial minorities.
At
the start of his career, Pavelić was a lawyer and a politician of the
Croatian Party of Rights in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia known for his
nationalist beliefs and support for an independent Croatia. By the end
of the 1920s, his political activity became more radical as he called on
Croats to revolt against Yugoslavia, and schemed an Italian
protectorate of Croatia separate from Yugoslavia. After King Alexander I
declared his 6 January Dictatorship in 1929 and banned all political
parties, Pavelić went abroad and plotted with the Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) to undermine the Yugoslav state, which
prompted the Yugoslav authorities to try him in absentia and sentence
him to death. In the meantime, Pavelić had moved to fascist Italy where
he founded the Ustaše, a Croatian nationalist movement with the goal of
creating an independent Croatia by any means, including the use of
terror. Pavelić incorporated terrorist actions in the Ustaše program,
such as train bombings and assassinations, staged a small uprising in
Lika in 1932, culminating in the assassination of King Alexander in 1934
in conjunction with the IMRO. Pavelić was once again sentenced to death
after being tried in France in absentia and, under international
pressure, the Italians imprisoned him for 18 months, and largely
obstructed the Ustaše in the following period.
Soon after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Germans had the senior Ustaša in Yugoslavia, Slavko Kvaternik, declare the establishment of the NDH in the name of the Poglavnik, Pavelić, who then returned, took control of the puppet government and soon created a political system similar to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Under his leadership, the NDH constituted a Greater Croatia but was forced to make significant territorial concessions to Italy. The brutal regime he led was responsible for genocidal persecution of Serbs, Jews and Romani living in the NDH, including mass murdering several hundred thousand Serbs, and tens of thousands of Jews as well as Roma.
As early as July 10, 1941, Wehrmacht General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau reported the following to the German High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW):
“ Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation... I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustaše crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with the available forces, I could not ask for such action. Ad hoc intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the past. ”
A Gestapo report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, dated February 17, 1942, stated that:
“ Increased activity of the bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand.“
During World War II, various German military commanders gave different figures for the number of Serbs killed in NDH - They circulated figures of 400,000 Serbs (Alexander Lehr); 350,000 Serbs (Lothar Rendulic); between 300,000 (Edmund Glaise von Horstenau); more than "3/4 of a million Serbs" (Hermann Neubacher) in 1943; 600-700,000 until March 1944 (Ernst Fick); 700,000 (Massenbach).
These persecutions and killings have been described as the "single most disastrous episode in Yugoslav history". The racial policies of the NDH greatly contributed to their rapid loss of control over the occupied territory, as they fed the ranks of both the Chetniks and Partisans and caused even the German authorities to attempt to restrain Pavelić and his genocidal campaign.
At the end of the war in 1945, Pavelić ordered his troops to keep fighting even after the German surrender, but fled to Austria himself, escaping the Bleiburg repatriations. He eventually made his way to Argentina where he remained politically active. In 1957, he was wounded in an assassination attempt, after which he went to Spain where he died from his wounds in 1959.
Soon after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Germans had the senior Ustaša in Yugoslavia, Slavko Kvaternik, declare the establishment of the NDH in the name of the Poglavnik, Pavelić, who then returned, took control of the puppet government and soon created a political system similar to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Under his leadership, the NDH constituted a Greater Croatia but was forced to make significant territorial concessions to Italy. The brutal regime he led was responsible for genocidal persecution of Serbs, Jews and Romani living in the NDH, including mass murdering several hundred thousand Serbs, and tens of thousands of Jews as well as Roma.
As early as July 10, 1941, Wehrmacht General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau reported the following to the German High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW):
“ Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation... I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustaše crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with the available forces, I could not ask for such action. Ad hoc intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the past. ”
A Gestapo report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, dated February 17, 1942, stated that:
“ Increased activity of the bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand.“
During World War II, various German military commanders gave different figures for the number of Serbs killed in NDH - They circulated figures of 400,000 Serbs (Alexander Lehr); 350,000 Serbs (Lothar Rendulic); between 300,000 (Edmund Glaise von Horstenau); more than "3/4 of a million Serbs" (Hermann Neubacher) in 1943; 600-700,000 until March 1944 (Ernst Fick); 700,000 (Massenbach).
These persecutions and killings have been described as the "single most disastrous episode in Yugoslav history". The racial policies of the NDH greatly contributed to their rapid loss of control over the occupied territory, as they fed the ranks of both the Chetniks and Partisans and caused even the German authorities to attempt to restrain Pavelić and his genocidal campaign.
At the end of the war in 1945, Pavelić ordered his troops to keep fighting even after the German surrender, but fled to Austria himself, escaping the Bleiburg repatriations. He eventually made his way to Argentina where he remained politically active. In 1957, he was wounded in an assassination attempt, after which he went to Spain where he died from his wounds in 1959.
17. Bashar al-Assad (500,000)
 |
| (Bashar al-Assad) |
- Syria: (2000- ...) (17)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 500,000
Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد Baššār Ḥāfiẓ al-ʾAsad, born 11 September 1965) is the current President of Syria, holding the office since 17 July 2000. He is also commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party's branch in Syria. He is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
Born and raised in Damascus, Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the Syrian Army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital in London, specialising in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel died in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. On 10 July 2000, Assad was elected as President, succeeding his father, who died in office a month prior. In the 2000 and subsequent 2007 election, he received 99.7% and 97.6% support, respectively, in referendums on his leadership.
On 16 July 2014, Assad was sworn in for another seven-year term after taking 88.7% of votes in the first contested presidential election in Ba'athist Syria's history. The election was criticised by media outlets as "tightly controlled" and without independent election monitors, while an international delegation led by allies of Assad issued a statement asserting that the election was "free, fair and transparent". The Assad government describes itself as secular, while some experts claim that the government exploits sectarian tensions in the country and relies upon the Alawite minority to remain in power.
Once seen by the international community as a potential reformer, the United States, the European Union and the majority of the Arab League called for Assad's resignation from the presidency after he allegedly ordered crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters, which led to the Syrian Civil War. During the Syrian Civil War, an inquiry by the United Nations reported finding evidence which implicated Assad in war crimes and crimes against humanity. In June 2014, Assad was included in a list of 20 sample war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels handed to the International Criminal Court.
US legislators have passed a bill that would sanction the government of Syria and its supporters, including Russia and Iran, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, imposing new sanctions on Syria.
The legislators accused the Bashar al-Assad government of war crimes in a five-year conflict that has killed almost 500,000 people, led to Europe’s worst refugee crisis in modern times, and given room for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group to perpetrate its brand of global terrorism.
18. Mullah Omar (400,000)
 |
| (Mullah Mohammed Omar Mujahid (Mullah Omar)) |
- Afghanistan: (1996-2001) (5)
- Regime: Islamist dictatorship (Taliban)
- Victims: 400,000 (political/religious opponents)
Mullah Mohammed Omar Mujahid (Mullā Muḥammad ‘Umar Mujāhid; c. 1950–1962 – 23 April 2013), often simply called Mullah Omar, was the supreme commander and the spiritual leader of the Taliban. He was Afghanistan's 11th head of state from 1996 to late 2001, under the official title "Head of the Supreme Council". He died in 2013 of tuberculosis, although this was not confirmed until 2015.
About 400,000 Afghans perished in a civil war during the 1990s, and the Taliban movement eventually seized power.
Biographical details about Mullah Omar are sparse and conflicting. He was an ethnic Pashtun of the Ghilzay branch who, reportedly, was born near Kandahār, Afghanistan. He is believed to have been illiterate and—aside from his madrasah studies—to have had minimal schooling. He fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets during the Afghan War (1978–92), and during that time he suffered the loss of his right eye in an explosion.
After the Soviet withdrawal, Mullah Omar established and taught at a small village madrasah in the province of Kandahār. The end of the war did not bring calm, however, and political and ethnic violence escalated thereafter. Claiming to have had a vision instructing him to restore peace, Mullah Omar led a group of madrasah students in the takeover of cities throughout the mid-1990s, including Kandahār, Herāt, Kabul, and Mazār-e Sharīf. In 1996 a shūrā (council) recognized Mullah Omar as amīr al-muʾminīn (“commander of the faithful”), a deeply significant title in the Muslim world that had been in disuse since the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. That designation also made him emir of Afghanistan, which from October 1997 until the fall of the Taliban was known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar marked the occasion by removing what was held to be the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad from the mosque in Kandahār where it was housed and donning the relic, effectively symbolizing himself as Muhammad’s successor. The swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban under Mullah Omar is believed to have been funded at least in part by bin Laden, who had moved his base to Afghanistan after his expulsion from Sudan in the mid-1990s.
Under Mullah Omar’s leadership, Pashtun social codes were paramount, and strict Islamic principles were enforced. Education and employment for women all but ceased; capital punishment was enacted for transgressions such as adultery and conversion away from Islam; and music, television, and other forms of popular entertainment were prohibited. Among his most-infamous decisions was an order to demolish the colossal Buddha statues at Bamiyan, culturally significant relics of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic history. To the outspoken regret of the international community, they were destroyed in 2001.
In the wake of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite bin Laden prompted the United States to launch a series of military operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban government was overthrown, and Mullah Omar fled; his location was undetermined.
Mullah Omar was long notoriously reclusive. Meetings with non-Muslims or with Westerners were almost never granted, and it was unclear whether any of the photographs that purportedly depict him were authentic—circumstances that made the pursuit of him even more difficult. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was believed that Mullah Omar continued to direct Taliban operations from the sanctuary of Pakistan, although the Taliban denied that supposition.
On July 29, 2015, the Afghan government announced that its intelligence service had learned that Mullah Omar had died in April 2013 in Pakistan. The report of Mullah Omar’s death was confirmed by a Taliban representative the next day, and his deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was announced as his successor.
After the Soviet withdrawal, Mullah Omar established and taught at a small village madrasah in the province of Kandahār. The end of the war did not bring calm, however, and political and ethnic violence escalated thereafter. Claiming to have had a vision instructing him to restore peace, Mullah Omar led a group of madrasah students in the takeover of cities throughout the mid-1990s, including Kandahār, Herāt, Kabul, and Mazār-e Sharīf. In 1996 a shūrā (council) recognized Mullah Omar as amīr al-muʾminīn (“commander of the faithful”), a deeply significant title in the Muslim world that had been in disuse since the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. That designation also made him emir of Afghanistan, which from October 1997 until the fall of the Taliban was known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar marked the occasion by removing what was held to be the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad from the mosque in Kandahār where it was housed and donning the relic, effectively symbolizing himself as Muhammad’s successor. The swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban under Mullah Omar is believed to have been funded at least in part by bin Laden, who had moved his base to Afghanistan after his expulsion from Sudan in the mid-1990s.
Under Mullah Omar’s leadership, Pashtun social codes were paramount, and strict Islamic principles were enforced. Education and employment for women all but ceased; capital punishment was enacted for transgressions such as adultery and conversion away from Islam; and music, television, and other forms of popular entertainment were prohibited. Among his most-infamous decisions was an order to demolish the colossal Buddha statues at Bamiyan, culturally significant relics of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic history. To the outspoken regret of the international community, they were destroyed in 2001.
In the wake of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite bin Laden prompted the United States to launch a series of military operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban government was overthrown, and Mullah Omar fled; his location was undetermined.
Mullah Omar was long notoriously reclusive. Meetings with non-Muslims or with Westerners were almost never granted, and it was unclear whether any of the photographs that purportedly depict him were authentic—circumstances that made the pursuit of him even more difficult. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was believed that Mullah Omar continued to direct Taliban operations from the sanctuary of Pakistan, although the Taliban denied that supposition.
On July 29, 2015, the Afghan government announced that its intelligence service had learned that Mullah Omar had died in April 2013 in Pakistan. The report of Mullah Omar’s death was confirmed by a Taliban representative the next day, and his deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was announced as his successor.
19. Idi Amin (300,000 - 500,000)
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| (Idi Amin Dada) |
- Uganda: (1971-1979) (8)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 300,000 - 500,000 (political/personal opponents)
Idi Amin Dada (c. 1923-28 – 16 August 2003) was the third President of Uganda, ruling from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles, in 1946, serving in Kenya and Uganda. Eventually, Amin held the rank of major general in the post-colonial Ugandan Army, and became its commander before seizing power in the military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. He later promoted himself to field marshal while he was the head of state.
Amin's rule was characterized by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 300,000 to 500,000.
During his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. In 1975, Amin became the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), a Pan-Africanist group designed to promote solidarity of the African states. During the 1977–1979 period, Uganda was a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. In 1977, when Britain broke diplomatic relations with Uganda, Amin declared he had defeated the British and added "CBE", for "Conqueror of the British Empire", to his title. Radio Uganda then announced his entire title: "his Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE".
Dissent within Uganda and Amin's attempt to annex the Kagera province of Tanzania in 1978, led to the Uganda–Tanzania War and the demise of his eight-year regime, leading Amin to flee into exile to Libya and then Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death on 16 August 2003.
Dissent within Uganda and Amin's attempt to annex the Kagera province of Tanzania in 1978, led to the Uganda–Tanzania War and the demise of his eight-year regime, leading Amin to flee into exile to Libya and then Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death on 16 August 2003.
20. Yahya Khan (300,000)
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| (Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan) |
- Pakistan: (1970-1971) (1)
- Regime: Military dictatorship
- Victims: 300,000 (Bengalis in East Pakistan)
Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan (born Feb. 4, 1917, near Peshawar, India [now in Pakistan]—died Aug. 10, 1980, Rawalpindi, Pak.), was a Pakistani general who served as the 3rd President of Pakistan from 1969 until East Pakistan's secession to Bangladesh in 1971, and Pakistan's defeat in the Indo-Pakistani war of the same year.
The genocide in Bangladesh began on 26 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan began a military crackdown on the Eastern wing of the nation to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination. During the nine-month-long Bangladesh war for independence, members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias killed an estimated 300,000 people and raped between 200,000 to 400,000 Bangladeshi women in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape.
The war also witnessed ethnic violence between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking Biharis. There is an academic consensus that the events which took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War were a genocide.
Serving with distinction in World War II as a British Indian Army officer, Yahya opted for Pakistan in 1947 and became one of the earliest senior local officers in its army. After helping conduct Operation Grand Slam during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, Yahya was made the army's Commander-in-Chief in 1966. Appointed to succeed him by outgoing president Ayub Khan in 1969, Yahya dissolved the government and declared martial law for the second time in Pakistan's history. He held the country's first free and fair elections in 1970, which saw Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League party in East Pakistan win the majority vote. Pressured by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose party had won in West Pakistan but had far less votes, Yahya delayed handing over power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. As civil unrest erupted all over East Pakistan, Yahya initiated Operation Searchlight to quell the rebellion.
With reports of widespread atrocities by the Pakistan Army against Bengali civilians, and counter-killings of Biharis and suspected Pakistani sympathisers by the Mukti Bahini insurgency, the crisis grew deeper under Yahya. In December 1971, regional tensions escalated into the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, with neighbouring India intervening on the side of the Bengali fighters. Pakistan was defeated on 16 December 1971, with less than 45000 of its army officers and other ranks in Dacca turning prisoners of war, and East Pakistan seceding to become Bangladesh. Yahya handed over the presidency to Bhutto and stepped down as army chief in disgrace.
As the new president, Bhutto stripped Yahya of all previous military decorations and placed him under house arrest for most of the 1970s. When Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup in 1977, Yahya was released by provincial administrator General Fazle Haq. He died in 1980.
He is viewed largely negatively by Pakistani historians, and is considered among the least successful of the country's leaders.
The total number of people killed in East Pakistan is not known with any degree of accuracy. Bangladeshi authorities claim that 3 million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties. According to Sarmila Bose, between 50,000 and 100,000 combatants and civilians were killed by both sides during the war. A 2008 British Medical Journal study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou estimated that up to 269,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict; the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 from Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. According to Serajur Rahman, the official Bangladeshi estimate of "3 lahks" (300,000) was wrongly translated into English as 3 million.
With reports of widespread atrocities by the Pakistan Army against Bengali civilians, and counter-killings of Biharis and suspected Pakistani sympathisers by the Mukti Bahini insurgency, the crisis grew deeper under Yahya. In December 1971, regional tensions escalated into the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, with neighbouring India intervening on the side of the Bengali fighters. Pakistan was defeated on 16 December 1971, with less than 45000 of its army officers and other ranks in Dacca turning prisoners of war, and East Pakistan seceding to become Bangladesh. Yahya handed over the presidency to Bhutto and stepped down as army chief in disgrace.
As the new president, Bhutto stripped Yahya of all previous military decorations and placed him under house arrest for most of the 1970s. When Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup in 1977, Yahya was released by provincial administrator General Fazle Haq. He died in 1980.
He is viewed largely negatively by Pakistani historians, and is considered among the least successful of the country's leaders.
The total number of people killed in East Pakistan is not known with any degree of accuracy. Bangladeshi authorities claim that 3 million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties. According to Sarmila Bose, between 50,000 and 100,000 combatants and civilians were killed by both sides during the war. A 2008 British Medical Journal study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou estimated that up to 269,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict; the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 from Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. According to Serajur Rahman, the official Bangladeshi estimate of "3 lahks" (300,000) was wrongly translated into English as 3 million.
21. Benito Mussolini (300,000)
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| (Benito Mussolini) |
- Italy: (1922-1945) (23)
- Regime: Fascist dictatorship
- Victims: 300,000 (Ethiopians, Libyans, Jews, political opponents)
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. He ruled constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped all pretense of democracy and set up a legal dictatorship. Known as Il Duce ("the leader"), Mussolini was the founder of fascism.
Mussolini also provided Millitary support for Franco, during the Spanish Civil war, and act that sevearly damaged his reputation with Enland and France. When invading he had no quarms with kidnapping women and children and using them as hostages, as he did in Yugoslavia, along with other draconian measures such as summery exercutions and setting villiages alight. Around 300,000 were killed in wars while under his rule. (Breakdown: Ethiopia, 1936; Libya, 1934-45; Yugoslavia, WWII)
In 1912 Mussolini was the leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Prior to 1914 he was a keen supporter of the Socialist International, starting the series of meetings in Switzerland that organised the communist revolutions and insurrections that swept through Europe from 1917. Mussolini was expelled from the PSI due to his opposition to the party's stance on neutrality in World War I. Mussolini denounced the PSI, and later founded the fascist movement. Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After destroying all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his fascist followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. Mussolini remained in power until he was deposed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943. A few months later, he became the leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime in northern Italy; he held this post until his death in 1945.
Since 1939, Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini sided with Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity in 1940 to carry out a long war with France and the United Kingdom. Mussolini believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France and then he could concentrate his forces on a major offensive in Egypt, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces. However the UK refused to accept German proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Germany's victories in Eastern and Western Europe, plans for a German invasion of the UK did not proceed, and the war continued.
On 24 July 1943, soon after the start of the Allied invasion of Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism voted against him, and the King had him arrested the following day. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, only to be quickly captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.
Since 1939, Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini sided with Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity in 1940 to carry out a long war with France and the United Kingdom. Mussolini believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France and then he could concentrate his forces on a major offensive in Egypt, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces. However the UK refused to accept German proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Germany's victories in Eastern and Western Europe, plans for a German invasion of the UK did not proceed, and the war continued.
On 24 July 1943, soon after the start of the Allied invasion of Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism voted against him, and the King had him arrested the following day. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, only to be quickly captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.
22. Mobutu Sese Seko (230,000 (?))
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| (Mobutu Sese Seko) |
- Zaire/Congo: (1965-1997) (32)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 230,000 (?) (Tutsis, political opponents)
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga[a] (born Joseph-Desiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which Mobutu renamed Zaire in 1971) from 1965 to 1997. He also served as Chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967–1968.
Kabila has repeatedly denied reports that forces under his command killed Rwandan refugees in eastern Congo during the country's seven-month civil war. Up to 230,000 people are missing.
Once in power, Mobutu formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while enjoying considerable support from the United States due to his anti-communist stance.
During the Congo Crisis, Belgian forces aided Mobutu in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to take control of the government. Lumumba was the first leader in the country to be democratically elected, but he was subsequently deposed in a coup d’état organised by Colonel Mobutu and executed by a Katangese firing squad led by Julien Gat, a Belgian mercenary. Mobutu then assumed the role of army chief of staff, before taking power directly in a second coup in 1965. As part of his program of "national authenticity," Mobutu changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.
Mobutu established a single-party state in which all power was concentrated in his hands. He also became the object of a pervasive cult of personality. During his reign, Mobutu built a highly centralized state and amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule a "kleptocracy." The nation suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. By 1991, economic deterioration and unrest led him to agree to share power with opposition leaders, but he used the army to thwart change until May 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco.
Mobutu became notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of between US$4 billion and $15 billion during his reign, as well as extravagances such as Concorde-flown shopping trips to Paris. Mobutu presided over the country for over three decades, a period of widespread human rights violations. He has been described as the "archetypal African dictator."
During the Congo Crisis, Belgian forces aided Mobutu in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to take control of the government. Lumumba was the first leader in the country to be democratically elected, but he was subsequently deposed in a coup d’état organised by Colonel Mobutu and executed by a Katangese firing squad led by Julien Gat, a Belgian mercenary. Mobutu then assumed the role of army chief of staff, before taking power directly in a second coup in 1965. As part of his program of "national authenticity," Mobutu changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.
Mobutu established a single-party state in which all power was concentrated in his hands. He also became the object of a pervasive cult of personality. During his reign, Mobutu built a highly centralized state and amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule a "kleptocracy." The nation suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. By 1991, economic deterioration and unrest led him to agree to share power with opposition leaders, but he used the army to thwart change until May 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco.
Mobutu became notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of between US$4 billion and $15 billion during his reign, as well as extravagances such as Concorde-flown shopping trips to Paris. Mobutu presided over the country for over three decades, a period of widespread human rights violations. He has been described as the "archetypal African dictator."
23. Charles Taylor (220,000)
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| (Charles Taylor) |
- Liberia: (1989-1996) (7)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 220,000 (political/military opponents and civilians)
Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor (born 28 January 1948) is a Liberian politician who was the 22nd President of Liberia, serving from 2 August 1997 until his resignation on 11 August 2003.
The First Liberian Civil War was an internal conflict in Liberia from 1989 until 1997. The conflict killed over 200,000 people and eventually led to the involvement of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and of the United Nations. The peace did not last long, and in 1999 the Second Liberian Civil War broke out.
Born in Arthington, Montserrado County, Liberia, Taylor earned a degree at Bentley College in the United States before returning to Liberia to work in the government of Samuel Doe. After being removed for embezzlement, he eventually arrived in Libya, where he was trained as a guerilla fighter. He returned to Liberia in 1989 as the head of a Libyan-backed rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, to overthrow the Doe regime, initiating the First Liberian Civil War (1989–96). Following Doe's execution, Taylor gained control of a large portion of the country and became one of the most prominent warlords in Africa. Following a peace deal that ended the war, Taylor coerced the population into electing him president in the 1997 general election by threatening to resume the war otherwise.
During his term of office, Taylor was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). Domestically, opposition to his regime grew, culminating in the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003). By 2003, Taylor had lost control of much of the countryside and was formally indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
That year, he resigned, as a result of growing international pressure, and went into exile in Nigeria. In 2006, the newly elected President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, formally requested his extradition. He was detained by UN authorities in Sierra Leone and then at the Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden in The Hague, awaiting trial by the Special Court. He was found guilty in April 2012 of all eleven charges levied by the Special Court, including terror, murder and rape. In May 2012, Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Reading the sentencing statement, Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said: "The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history."
During his term of office, Taylor was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). Domestically, opposition to his regime grew, culminating in the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003). By 2003, Taylor had lost control of much of the countryside and was formally indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
That year, he resigned, as a result of growing international pressure, and went into exile in Nigeria. In 2006, the newly elected President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, formally requested his extradition. He was detained by UN authorities in Sierra Leone and then at the Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden in The Hague, awaiting trial by the Special Court. He was found guilty in April 2012 of all eleven charges levied by the Special Court, including terror, murder and rape. In May 2012, Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Reading the sentencing statement, Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said: "The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history."
24. Foday Sankoh (210,000)
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| (Foday Sankoh) |
- Sierra Leone: (1991-2000) (9)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 210,000 (political opponents)
Foday Saybana Sankoh (17 October 1937 – 29 July 2003) was the leader and founder of the Sierra Leone rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in the 11-year-long Sierra Leone Civil War, starting in 1991 and ending in 2002. An estimated 210,000 people were killed during the war, and over 500,000 people were displaced in neighbouring countries.
Early life and career
Foday Sankoh was born on 17 October 1937, in the remote village of Masang Mayoso, Tonkolili District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone to an ethnic Temne father and a Loko mother. Sankoh was the son of a farmer.
Sankoh attended primary and secondary school in Magburaka, Tonkolili District and took on a number of jobs in Magburaka before he joined the Sierra Leone army in 1956. He undertook training in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. In 1971, then a corporal in the Sierra Leone army, he was cashiered from the army's signal corps and imprisoned for seven years at the Pademba Road Prison in Freetown for taking part in a mutiny.
On his release he worked as an itinerant photographer in the south and east of Sierra Leone, eventually coming in contact with young radicals.
Sankoh and confederates Rashid Mansaray and Abu Kanu solicited support for an armed uprising to oust the APC government. They then traveled to Liberia, where they reportedly continued recruiting and served with Charles G. Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
Civil war
On 23 March 1991, the RUF, led by Foday Sankoh and backed by Charles Taylor, launched its first attack in villages in Kailahun District in the diamond-rich Eastern Province of Sierra Leone.
The RUF became notorious for brutal practices such as mass rapes and amputations during the civil war. Sankoh personally ordered many operations, including one called "Operation Pay Yourself" that encouraged troops to loot anything they could find. After complaining about such tactics, Kanu and Mansaray were summarily executed.
In March 1997, Sankoh fled to Nigeria, where he was put under house arrest and then imprisoned. From this time until Sankoh's release in 1999, Sam Bockarie performed the task of director of military operations of the RUF. During the ten-year war, Sankoh broke several promises to stop fighting, including the Abidjan Peace Accord and the Lomé Peace Accord signed in 1999. Eventually the United Kingdom and ECOMOG intervened with their own small, but professional, military forces, and the RUF was eventually crushed.
Arrest and charges
Sankoh was later arrested after his soldiers gunned down a number of protesters outside his Freetown home in 2000. His arrest led to massive celebrations throughout Sierra Leone.
Sankoh was handed to the British. Under the jurisdiction of a UN-backed court, he was indicted on 17 counts for various war crimes, including use of child soldiers and crimes against humanity, including extermination, enslavement, rape and sexual slavery.
Death
Sankoh died of complications arising from a stroke whilst awaiting trial. In a statement by the UN-backed war crimes court, chief prosecutor David Crane said that Sankoh's death granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".
Foday Sankoh was born on 17 October 1937, in the remote village of Masang Mayoso, Tonkolili District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone to an ethnic Temne father and a Loko mother. Sankoh was the son of a farmer.
Sankoh attended primary and secondary school in Magburaka, Tonkolili District and took on a number of jobs in Magburaka before he joined the Sierra Leone army in 1956. He undertook training in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. In 1971, then a corporal in the Sierra Leone army, he was cashiered from the army's signal corps and imprisoned for seven years at the Pademba Road Prison in Freetown for taking part in a mutiny.
On his release he worked as an itinerant photographer in the south and east of Sierra Leone, eventually coming in contact with young radicals.
Sankoh and confederates Rashid Mansaray and Abu Kanu solicited support for an armed uprising to oust the APC government. They then traveled to Liberia, where they reportedly continued recruiting and served with Charles G. Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
Civil war
On 23 March 1991, the RUF, led by Foday Sankoh and backed by Charles Taylor, launched its first attack in villages in Kailahun District in the diamond-rich Eastern Province of Sierra Leone.
The RUF became notorious for brutal practices such as mass rapes and amputations during the civil war. Sankoh personally ordered many operations, including one called "Operation Pay Yourself" that encouraged troops to loot anything they could find. After complaining about such tactics, Kanu and Mansaray were summarily executed.
In March 1997, Sankoh fled to Nigeria, where he was put under house arrest and then imprisoned. From this time until Sankoh's release in 1999, Sam Bockarie performed the task of director of military operations of the RUF. During the ten-year war, Sankoh broke several promises to stop fighting, including the Abidjan Peace Accord and the Lomé Peace Accord signed in 1999. Eventually the United Kingdom and ECOMOG intervened with their own small, but professional, military forces, and the RUF was eventually crushed.
Arrest and charges
Sankoh was later arrested after his soldiers gunned down a number of protesters outside his Freetown home in 2000. His arrest led to massive celebrations throughout Sierra Leone.
Sankoh was handed to the British. Under the jurisdiction of a UN-backed court, he was indicted on 17 counts for various war crimes, including use of child soldiers and crimes against humanity, including extermination, enslavement, rape and sexual slavery.
Death
Sankoh died of complications arising from a stroke whilst awaiting trial. In a statement by the UN-backed war crimes court, chief prosecutor David Crane said that Sankoh's death granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".
25. Ho Chi Minh (200,000)
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| (Ho Chi Minh) |
- North Vietnam: (1945-1969) (24)
- Regime: Communist
- Victims: 200,000 (political opponents, South Vietnamese)
Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, or Nguyễn Sinh Côn, also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–55) and president (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.
Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh massacred more than 200,000 of his Vietnamese countrymen.
Ho was born on May 19, 1890, in the village of Kimlien, Annam (central Vietnam), the son of an official who had resigned in protest against French domination of his country. Ho attended school in Hue and then briefly taught at a private school in Phan Thiet. In 1911 he was employed as a cook on a French steamship liner and thereafter worked in London and Paris. After World War I, using the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), Ho engaged in radical activities and was in the founding group of the French Communist party.
He was summoned to Moscow for training and, in late 1924, he was sent to Canton, China, where he organized a revolutionary movement among Vietnamese exiles. He was forced to leave China when local authorities cracked down on Communist activities, but he returned in 1930 to found the Indochinese Communist party (ICP). He stayed in Hong Kong as representative of the Communist International. In June 1931 Ho was arrested there by British police and remained in prison until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he reportedly spent several years recovering from tuberculosis.
In 1938 he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces. When Japan occupied Vietnam in 1941, he resumed contact with ICP leaders and helped to found a new Communist-dominated independence movement, popularly known as the Vietminh, that fought the Japanese. In August 1945, when Japan surrendered, the Vietminh seized power and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi.
Ho Chi Minh, now known by his final and best-known pseudonym (which means the “Enlightener”), became president. The French were unwilling to grant independence to their colonial subjects, and in late 1946 war broke out. For eight years Vietminh guerrillas fought French troops in the mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam, finally defeating them in the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Ho, however, was deprived of his victory.
Subsequent negotiations at Geneva divided the country, with only the North assigned to the Vietminh. The DRV, with Ho still president, now devoted its efforts to constructing a Communist society in North Vietnam. In the early 1960s, however, conflict resumed in the South, where Communist-led guerrillas mounted an insurgency against the U.S.-supported regime in Saigon. Ho, now in poor health, was reduced to a largely ceremonial role, while policy was shaped by others. On September 3, 1969, he died in Hanoi of heart failure. In his honor, after the Communist conquest of the South in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
In South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Canh, a former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information and Amnesty (1969-70), sought an answer to this problem by interviewing returnees from Chieu Hoi programs and interrogating POWs, including communist cadres, soldiers, and officers from the North. These interviews and interrogations produced a great deal of valuable and reliable information. Ultimately Nguyen Van Canh was able to generate an estimate of 200,000 victims.
He was summoned to Moscow for training and, in late 1924, he was sent to Canton, China, where he organized a revolutionary movement among Vietnamese exiles. He was forced to leave China when local authorities cracked down on Communist activities, but he returned in 1930 to found the Indochinese Communist party (ICP). He stayed in Hong Kong as representative of the Communist International. In June 1931 Ho was arrested there by British police and remained in prison until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he reportedly spent several years recovering from tuberculosis.
In 1938 he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces. When Japan occupied Vietnam in 1941, he resumed contact with ICP leaders and helped to found a new Communist-dominated independence movement, popularly known as the Vietminh, that fought the Japanese. In August 1945, when Japan surrendered, the Vietminh seized power and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi.
Ho Chi Minh, now known by his final and best-known pseudonym (which means the “Enlightener”), became president. The French were unwilling to grant independence to their colonial subjects, and in late 1946 war broke out. For eight years Vietminh guerrillas fought French troops in the mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam, finally defeating them in the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Ho, however, was deprived of his victory.
Subsequent negotiations at Geneva divided the country, with only the North assigned to the Vietminh. The DRV, with Ho still president, now devoted its efforts to constructing a Communist society in North Vietnam. In the early 1960s, however, conflict resumed in the South, where Communist-led guerrillas mounted an insurgency against the U.S.-supported regime in Saigon. Ho, now in poor health, was reduced to a largely ceremonial role, while policy was shaped by others. On September 3, 1969, he died in Hanoi of heart failure. In his honor, after the Communist conquest of the South in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
In South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Canh, a former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information and Amnesty (1969-70), sought an answer to this problem by interviewing returnees from Chieu Hoi programs and interrogating POWs, including communist cadres, soldiers, and officers from the North. These interviews and interrogations produced a great deal of valuable and reliable information. Ultimately Nguyen Van Canh was able to generate an estimate of 200,000 victims.
26. Michel Micombero (150,000 - 200,000)
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| (Michel Micombero) |
- Burundi: (1966-1976) (10)
- Regime: Personal dictatorship
- Victims: 150,000 - 200,000 (Hutus)
Michel Micombero (1940 – 16 July 1983) was the first President of Burundi from November 28, 1966 to November 1, 1976. He was born in Rutovu, Bururi Province as a member of the Tutsi ethnicity.
In the years after independence, Burundi had seen a rapid descent into anarchy. The king Mwambutsa IV rapidly changed the Prime Minister as anti-Tutsi forces threatened to unleash the same violence as had hit Rwanda. On October 18, 1965, Hutu leader Gervais Nyangoma launched a coup, ousting the king. Soon afterward the largely Hutu police force, under the control of Antoine Serkwavu, began to massacre Tutsis in some parts of the country.
Michel Micombero was a young Tutsi army captain who had graduated from the Royal Military Academy of Belgium in 1962. In 1965, he had only recently become Minister of Defense. He rallied the army, and its largely Tutsi officers, against the coup and overthrew them. This was followed by numerous attacks on Hutus throughout the nation.
Micombero became Prime Minister on July 11, 1966 and was the real power in the nation technically ruled by King Ntare V, who deposed his father with the help of Micombero. On November 28, 1966, Micombero overthrew the monarchy and made himself president. He also promoted himself to lieutenant general.
As president, Micombero became an advocate of African socialism and received support from the People's Republic of China. He imposed a staunch regime of law and order, sharply repressing Hutu militarism.
In 1972, Hutu refugees from surrounding nations organized an uprising of Hutus in Burundi. This was repulsed and followed by organized ethnic violence that killed some 150,000 Hutus. Micombero unquestionably played a leading role in these massacres. Afterward, Micombero became increasingly corrupt, and also turned to heavy drinking. Some reports allege he became delusional. He was overthrown in 1976 in a coup by Deputy Chief of Staff Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, a distant relative of Micombero from the same clan and political faction.
Micombero went into exile in Somalia, where he died of a heart attack in 1983.
Michel Micombero was a young Tutsi army captain who had graduated from the Royal Military Academy of Belgium in 1962. In 1965, he had only recently become Minister of Defense. He rallied the army, and its largely Tutsi officers, against the coup and overthrew them. This was followed by numerous attacks on Hutus throughout the nation.
Micombero became Prime Minister on July 11, 1966 and was the real power in the nation technically ruled by King Ntare V, who deposed his father with the help of Micombero. On November 28, 1966, Micombero overthrew the monarchy and made himself president. He also promoted himself to lieutenant general.
As president, Micombero became an advocate of African socialism and received support from the People's Republic of China. He imposed a staunch regime of law and order, sharply repressing Hutu militarism.
In 1972, Hutu refugees from surrounding nations organized an uprising of Hutus in Burundi. This was repulsed and followed by organized ethnic violence that killed some 150,000 Hutus. Micombero unquestionably played a leading role in these massacres. Afterward, Micombero became increasingly corrupt, and also turned to heavy drinking. Some reports allege he became delusional. He was overthrown in 1976 in a coup by Deputy Chief of Staff Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, a distant relative of Micombero from the same clan and political faction.
Micombero went into exile in Somalia, where he died of a heart attack in 1983.