It is said that being a ruthless tyrant is the best guarantee of a peaceful old age. Maybe so, but not every dictator has had the opportunity to find out about it. Today we will tell you about those criminals who did not manage to escape from justice. And about the gruesome end that befell them.
The fate of tyrants such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini or even Nicolae Ceauşescu is well known. We will not write about them in our list. We will focus on more exotic characters. The list is (dubious) honored by the two presidents of Liberia who, in just a decade, moved to the other world under particularly bloody circumstances.
Food for vultures. The Death of William Tolbert
The first was William Tolbert, who ruled the country since 1971. It can be said that he inherited the office from his friend William Tubman. However, while Tubman was entertained by power, Toblert - as Ryszard Kapuściński wrote in "Ebony" - loved money above all else:
It was a walking corruption. He traded in everything - gold, cars, and in his spare time he sold passports. His example was followed by the entire elite, those descendants of black American slaves. Tolbert ordered to shoot people who went out into the street screaming for bread and water. His police killed hundreds of people .
Samuel Doe in this photo does not look like a criminal, but as it often happens, appearances are deceptive.
No wonder then that the oppressed people of the country quickly got fed up with his rule. The 28-year-old sergeant Samuel Doe decided to use this opportunity. Although he was semi-illiterate, he had great aspirations. He also wanted to be a dictator! To this end, he formed a conspiracy in the Liberian army and on April 12, 1980 he carried out a coup d'état.
Together with sixteen other soldiers, Doe stormed into the presidential palace under cover of night, where the surprised security was quickly dealt with. The attackers then dismembered the still alive Tolbert in bed. They took his insides out and threw them into the courtyard for the dogs and vultures to be eaten. It was a bad omen for those who hitherto ruled the country.
Devoured by the rebels. A pitiful end to Samuel Doe
Samuel Doe almost immediately showed what he could do. He first awarded himself the general rank and declared himself president. He then started political purges by publicly executing 13 ministers from the previous government.
Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Under Samuel Doe, the city, and the country as a whole, plunged into utter apathy.
In their place, he appointed his fellow tribesmen who, however, had no idea how to run the state. There was a total collapse. There was no light, shops closed, traffic stopped on a few roads .
In order to stay in power, the dictator used methods tested by his predecessor. The spiral of violence is in full swing. The victims have already gone in the thousands. Now Doe has become the hated tyrant, and Charles Taylor, a former friend of the president, has reached out for power. The revolt that broke out in December 1989 quickly spread across the country, but the insurgents themselves split. Another force emerged, with one Prince Johnson at the helm. Liberia has already been plundered by three factions.
The situation finally worried the leaders of other West African countries who decided to intervene. The contingent sent by Nigeria arrived at the port of Monrovia in the summer of 1990. On September 9, Samuel Doe decided that he must personally greet his saviors at the quay. It was a mistake, for which he paid for with death in terrible torment.
The dictator's Mercedes was ambushed by Johnson's men. All the guards died. Doe was injured in his legs several times, which effectively prevented him from escaping, but this was only the beginning of his suffering. The rebels subjected him to cruel torture to obtain his Swiss account number.
First, the perpetrators beat and kicked their victim for several dozen minutes. As a result, Doe's face swelled to such an extent that he could hardly see anything and he had great difficulty speaking. However, that wasn't enough to get him to reveal a secret worth millions.
In this situation Johnson - who calmly supervised everything - ordered the tortured man to have his ears cut off, which was also immediately done . It was to no avail, the overthrown dictator apparently intended to take his secret to the grave. As Ryszard Kapuściński noticed ”
Now Johnson doesn't really know what to do next. Have him cut off his nose? A hand? A leg? Apparently no idea. It's starting to bore him. - Get him out of here! - he orders the soldiers who will take him for further torture […]. Doe, tortured, lived a few more hours and died from the loss of blood.
The several-hour-long torture to which Samuel Doe was subjected was captured on film. In the photo, the mutilated dictator is being asked for his Swiss bank account number.
The corpse was then dismembered and partially eaten by Johnson's men . This was the pitiful end to a sergeant dreaming of being a dictator. It is worth adding that the whole bloody spectacle was recorded on videotape, which quickly became: the biggest attraction on the media market .
On the edge of the knife. Death of Ngo Dinh Diem
Now we will move to Asia for a moment, specifically to the Indochina Peninsula, where Ngo Dinh Diem became the president of South Vietnam in 1954.
He owed his position to Americans who appreciated his anti-communism. It was thanks to the support of the Yankees that the dictator could afford a hard-handed rule, marked by the fight against Viet Minh and the persecution of the Buddhist majority of citizens. He was faithfully assisted by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu in charge of the secret police - both were staunch Catholics.
However, everything has its limits. In 1963 the scoop changed, and a group of high-ranking officers — led by General Duong Van Minh — conspired against their leader. Importantly, they could count on the support of the United States, which had lost faith in its recent protégé. As Pierre Journoud writes in one of the chapters of the book "The Last Days of Dictators": the conspirators consulted astrologers who confirmed that on November 1, 1963, the stars would be in their favor. It will be a successful day.
St. Francis Xavier in Saigon. This is where the Ngo brothers sought refuge.
With such fortune-telling, the generals in charge of the action were sure of theirs. They called on Diem to resign from office and surrender with his brother without a fight. He didn't think to do it. He still counted on the help of Washington and the commanders of faithful military formations. He didn't know then that everyone had betrayed him.
A few hours later, the attack on the presidential palace began, which was only defended by:
three presidential guard battalions with one armored unit. According to witnesses' reports, an American officer is leading the storm:perhaps Lucien Conein, a particularly active CIA agent of French origin. The cornered Diem and Nhu do not wait for the first artillery strike. They run away from the president's headquarters through a secret tunnel (quoted "Last days of dictators").
They found refuge in the Chinese district of Saigon, where the head of the local religious community took care of them. Meanwhile, the situation was getting more and more hopeless by the hour. Finally, on the morning of November 2, the brothers asked for asylum at St. Francis Xavier.
Ngo Dinh Diem in the glory days. Pictured with US President Dwight Eisenhower.
It was there that the news reached them that the presidential palace had been captured by assassins. Ngo Dinh Diem finally realized it was over. Crushed, he called the rebels with an offer that he would put himself in their hands on one condition. They were to let him go abroad safely.
At first, it seemed as if he could actually save the skin. As Pierre Journoud, already quoted here, relates: immediately for him and his brother a convoy is sent to deliver them to the general staff. It is only during the journey that the situation escalates sharply.
In the car, an inn brawl broke out between Ngo Dinh Nhu and Major Nguyen Van Nhung - General Minh's adjutant. It quickly turned into a bloody mess. At one point, the officer pulled out a knife and, without thinking, delivered a series of quick blows to the former head of the secret police.
The bloody corpse of Ngo Dinh Diem, murdered by Major Nguyen Van Nhung.
Of course, Ngo Dinh Diem rushed to save his dying brother, which enraged the major even more. Despite previous promises, in a fit of frenzy, Nguyen murdered the newly deposed president .
His death foreshadowed a long series of bloody coups that finally led to American military intervention in the Indochina Peninsula.
Have mercy, my little boys. The last moments of the "old shag"
Finally, the story of the dictator's death, which we could watch almost live on TV. I am talking about Muammar Gaddafi and the events of October 20, 2011.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi ruled over Libya for almost 42 years. However, the time has come for him as well, and in August 2011 - after the defeat of the civil war - the dictator had to flee Tripoli. This is how the two-month wandering began, the last act of which took place in the suburbs of Sirte. It was from this city that the "old shaggy" - as his opponents called him - intended to make his way to Jafar in the west. He was never allowed to get there.
MQ-1 Predator. It was the rocket launched with it that marked the beginning of the definitive end of Muammar Gaddafi.
From the very beginning, everything was a harbinger of impending disaster . As Vincent Hugeux notes in The Last Days of the Dictators, time was running out and there was still no way to load ammunition, canisters or injured up to forty off-road vehicles. Worse, there was no good escape route for such a numerous cavalcade. In the end, it was decided on the most dangerous one because:
guards Sirta from the west [...] a brigade from Misrata, a martyred city eager to retaliate after being shelled for weeks by Chamis, the chief's youngest offspring, .
It had to end tragically. Especially since the escapees were quickly spotted by American drones. It was a rocket launched from an unmanned Predator that destroyed the head of the column. The works were completed by bombs dropped by the French Mirage fighter, which left behind only burning wrecks of pickups and scorched skeletons .
By some miracle, Gaddafi escaped this pogrom fairly well. Not for long. Slightly wounded and stunned, the dictator sought refuge in concrete culverts under the highway. The insurgents, however, immediately found his trail. The colonel was unceremoniously dragged from his hiding place and handed over to the feverish crowd:
Whoever lives takes out the cell and turns it. The time for feasting has come. […] A hail of blows falls on Gaddafi. Bloodied "old shag" […] He loses more strands of hair. Impatient hands yank handfuls away.
Muammar Gaddafi at the height of his power. Photo taken in February 2009 (source:public domain).
This is not the end. Someone is sticking a metal butt into his anus. A hail of blows pours down on the prisoner. The overthrown dictator gets on his knees. He vomits red streams of blood. At the same moment a gun appears against a swollen face, and then nothing, the next shot shows an already motionless body stretched out on the ground (quoted "Last days of dictators").
This is how the one who dealt with all opposition without any scruples ended his life. So think twice before making the decision to become a dictator. You may not wait for your dream, peaceful old age.