World's Most Brutal Dictator since Pol Pot?
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  World's Most Brutal Dictator since Pol Pot?
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Poll
Question: In terms of slaughtering thousands or more, who's the worst since Pot killed two million in Cambodia?
#1
Robert Mugabe
#2
Efrain Rios-Montt
#3
Mobutu Sese-Seko
#4
Kim Jong Il
#5
Saddam Hussein
#6
The Duvaliers of Haiti
#7
Idi Amin
#8
King Fahd & The House of Saud
#9
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi
#10
The Somozas of Nicaragua
#11
Fidel Castro
#12
Alfredo Stroessner
#13
Vinicio Cerezo
#14
Other?  Who?
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Author Topic: World's Most Brutal Dictator since Pol Pot?  (Read 5407 times)
JSojourner
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« on: January 12, 2007, 07:08:22 PM »

I am sure I left someone off.  Also, keep in mind I am talking about SINCE Pol Pot was deposed.  He was probably the worst since Stalin.

Have at it...
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2007, 09:09:11 PM »
« Edited: January 12, 2007, 09:11:18 PM by Gully Foyle »

Somoza was deposed the same year Pol Pot was, so was Idi Amin iirc. (Speaking of whom has any seen the recent film about him? I'm going to see it tomorrow.)

Otherwise it's a tough choice - Though most lead\have led the most economically insignificant countries in the planet, in terms of general influence of world affairs it has to be the Ayatollah. But as this is about the most brutal I'd go for Saddam Hussein, though it's somewhat hard to tell given our (lack of) knowledge about North Korea.
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Colin
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« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2007, 09:34:19 PM »

Probably either Amin or Saddam, I voted Amin only because the man was a cannabal who performed blood rituals on his victims but Saddam is nearly as bad.

(Speaking of whom has any seen the recent film about him? I'm going to see it tomorrow.)

I've heard that it was supposed to be very good and that Forrest Whittaker, I think that's his name, did an excellent job in portraying Amin.
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Colin
ColinW
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« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2007, 09:53:41 PM »

Let me go through these one by one since I want to:

Robert Mugabe: He always seemed to me to be another African tinpot dictator nothing really special about him.

Efrain Rios-Montt: Bloody by Latin American standards but nothing compared to some of the worst on this list.

Mobutu Sese-Seko: A kleptomaniac who stole billions from his country but not incredibly bloody.

Kim Jong-Il: He is probably number three on this list. He has probably killed more people through famine than anything else. Insane, meglomaniacal, and a menace to the world.

Saddam Hussein: One of the worst. His chemical attacks on the Kurds and the vengence that he delivered against the Shi'ites in the South were ruthless. Definitely in the top 5 I would place him at number 2 or 3 myself.

Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier: Another pair of tinpot dictators. There use of psychological warfare through voodoo and the spiritualism of the Haitian people was a quite ingenious method for control and they had one of the worst reigns of terror in the Americas.

Idi Amin: An absolutely horrible dictator. A ruthless half-wit from everything that I've read about him who's reign of terror included killing anyone he considered "intellectual". As I said before he was also said to perform blood rituals on the dead and feast on the human flesh of his deceased enemies, which oddly he isn't alone in doing Jean-Baptiste Boukassa of the Central African Republic routinely feasted on human flesh and supposedly once served it to French Foreign Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

King Fahd and the House of Saud: Arabian absolute monarchs, theocrats, but not on the same level as the worst on this list.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi: His action are bad but are pretty much overshadowed by the terror that befell the country after his overthrow. Again, like the House of Saud, he was your standard Middle Eastern absolute monarch.

The Somozas of Nicaragua: Standard Latin American dictators, bad but not the most brutal.

Fidel Castro: Fidel has seemed to keep his brutality more quiet than other regimes, its there, but it seems like he just likes shipping his dissidents off to America more than anything else. Mostly standard imprisoning dissidents stuff from what I know.

Alfredo Stroessner: Another standard Latin American dictator.

Vinicio Cerezo: Same as above but bloody due to the Civil War.

The one I'm suprised isn't on here, and who would be in my top 5 most brutal, would be Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam Communist Leader of Ethiopia from 1973-1991. Not only did he basically start a scorched earth campaign against three different ethnic groups for rebelling against him he is also responsible for one of the worst famines in modern history, the Ethiopian Famine of 1984 which gave us that "We Are The World" song and "Do They Know It's Christmas" and Bob Geldof. His Red Terror, in which he basically told his supporters to go and kill anyone who they thought was against the "revolution" was probably one of the bloodiest mass political killings in Africa. Really a horrible and brutal dictator.
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BRTD
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« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2007, 10:00:39 PM »
« Edited: January 12, 2007, 10:06:11 PM by Senator BRTD »

I was about to say Yahya Khan until I realized he was pre-Pol Pot. But in terms of sheer numbers, he very well could be worse than Pol Pot.

I'll still vote for another write-in though: Omar al-Bashir.
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Hatman 🍁
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« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2007, 10:52:42 PM »

easily Kim Jong-il.
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Gabu
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« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2007, 11:20:52 PM »

GEROGE BUSH LOL!!!!!111

Seriously though, Kim Jong-Il.
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Bandit3 the Worker
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« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2007, 12:29:56 AM »


Yes, you did. You left off Bush.
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Everett
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« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2007, 03:33:25 AM »

Kim Jong-Il.

If I wanted to be a complete hack, I would say BUSH LOLOLOL!111!1!eleven.
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bullmoose88
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« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2007, 03:40:36 AM »

Kim Jong-Il.

If I wanted to be a complete hack, I would say BUSH LOLOLOL!111!1!eleven.

Not surprisingly, Bandit beat you to it.
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Everett
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« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2007, 03:41:36 AM »

Kim Jong-Il.

If I wanted to be a complete hack, I would say BUSH LOLOLOL!111!1!eleven.

Not surprisingly, Bandit beat you to it.
Actually, Gabu beat both of us, whoremonger. >P
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bullmoose88
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« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2007, 03:44:12 AM »

Kim Jong-Il.

If I wanted to be a complete hack, I would say BUSH LOLOLOL!111!1!eleven.

Not surprisingly, Bandit beat you to it.
Actually, Gabu beat both of us, whoremonger. >P

But the both of you meant it in jest...Bandit on the other hand has to be assumed as serious.

Don't talk back to be wimp
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2007, 10:11:23 AM »

Saddam and Pahlevi would appear the most reasonable options here.
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JSojourner
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« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2007, 12:29:10 PM »

I voted for Rios-Montt, but I am biased.  I have a particular ax to grind with Christians here in America who supported, defended and excused people like Rios-Montt because of their professed Christian faith.

Others of this ilk are Sese-Seko, Haile Selaisse (sp?) and the Somozas. Pat Robertson was close friends with Sese-Seko.

The various South African tyrants to oversaw Apartheids should not have been left off the list, either.

But you folks are precisely right -- Saddam and Kim Jong Il are as bloody and brutal as they come.

Thanks, too, for the timeline correction on a couple of these.  And for the mention of some not listed.  That's the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

As for Bush, I consider some of his actions against Iraq murderous.  But not tyrannical.  He's probably the closest America has come to having a despotic ruler, but thanks be to God, we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights to protect us.
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kashifsakhan
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« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2007, 06:37:23 PM »

I went for others.

I saw Pinochet was the worst. He might not be the worst in terms of numbers but he was just as brutal. he deserves to be on that list.

But Saddam and Kim Jong Il are pretty bad as well.

Here's a list of people i looked up who deserved to be mentioned. this list contains some people who might have been in power before Pol Pot, but their reign lasted until after Pot was deposed

Radovan Karadzic (Serbian Bosnia: 1991-96)
Babrac Kemal (Afghanistan: 1979-87)
Le Duan (Vietnam: 1976-86)
Hadji Suharto (Indonesia: 1967-97)
Tito (Yugoslavia: 1945-80)
Kim Il Sung (North Korea: 1948-94)
Hirohito (Japan: 1926-89)
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opebo
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« Reply #15 on: January 17, 2007, 05:48:12 AM »

I really don't know, however I would like to say a few words in defense of the Kmer Rouge:

They did not hate the urban elite of Cambodia for no reason at all - this was a French-created and 'Frenchified' elite that had long lived parasitically upon the rural poors. 

Of course their methods were a bit over the top - but like all revolutionary movements (or even simple crime), they were created by those in power, in reaction to the use of power.   Which raises the question - why did the French and their post-'independence' stooges create such a strong reaction? 

Lastly, think about the source of the absurdly incomplete accepted explanation of the Kmer Rouge and communist movements generally - the capitalist elite (and their press). 
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #16 on: January 17, 2007, 08:06:35 AM »

They did not hate the urban elite of Cambodia for no reason at all - this was a French-created and 'Frenchified' elite that had long lived parasitically upon the rural poors. 
The Khmer Rouge leadership mostly hailed from the same class anyways. Of course, as in all these purges, the most dangerous thing to be in Democratic Kampuchea was to be a Khmer Rouge cader...

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Oh yes. Oooh Yes.
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No. That's not the way the Khmer Rouge got created.
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It wasn't just 'independence'. Sihanouk was pretty good at playing out his neighbors against each other and keeping his country out of the worst of the trouble for twenty years, until Nixon went for Cambodia's collective neck with a vengeance.
Of course, Sihanouk was also a brutal dictator...

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The same people who supported the Khmer Rouge during the 80s, ironically enough.
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Stranger in a strange land
strangeland
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« Reply #17 on: January 17, 2007, 07:48:37 PM »
« Edited: January 17, 2007, 10:34:14 PM by strangeland »

I'd have to go with Kim Jong-Il, but Saddam and Mengistu are close runners-up.

Pinochet was a despot and not a good guy, but he didn't come close to the true genocidal horrors of dictators like the Kims, Saddam, and Omar El-Bashir. i'd say he's a little worse than Fidel.

Pahlavi was bad also, but not nearly even as bad as dictators from the 2nd tier of genocidal monsters like Milosevic or the Assads. He wasn't even as bad as some of the nastier Latin American dictators. I'd say he was about as bad as Islam Karimov or the Turkmenbashi (Shaparmurat Niyazov).
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JSojourner
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« Reply #18 on: January 18, 2007, 12:03:04 AM »

I forgot one name for sure.  And I haven't the time or inclination to spell check it (I am sure I'll get it wrong).

But Nicolae Ceaucescu was post-Pol Pot and would definitely belong in our rogue's gallery.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2007, 10:24:03 AM »

It's between Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin. For sheer brutality, I pick Amin. Now, Kim is the worse of the lot, but maybe not the most brutal. I say even Saddam beats him.
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