Idi Amin rose to power from humble beginnings and won the affection of millions of Ugandans and struck fear in the hearts of his many opponents. ibid.
The man who was once a lowly footsoldier in the colonial army now controls the military … With his loyal army behind him he stages a coup. ibid.
The secret police make thousands of arrests … His torture chambers become legendary. ibid.
Amin orders the expulsion of Uganda’s entire Asian population, some 55,000 people. ibid.
Tanzanian forces enter the capital; Amin’s war has proved to be a fatal mistake. ibid.
Amin boards a military helicopter and flees the country. ibid.
The World Cups of 1970 and 1978 were both won by South American countries in the grip of right-wing military regimes. For the players, winning was all about the glory of the game. The governments had their own reasons for victory. Pele, Argentina & The Dictators, captions, History 2018
‘The [1970] guys were together for three months long.’ ibid.
‘Football was associated with the success of the regime.’ ibid.
In March 1976 a military junta led by General Jorge Raael Videla seized power from President Isabel Peron. In the following years up to 30,000 opponents of the regime disappeared. ibid.
London 1993 Western Eye Hospital, Paddington: ‘And we had a middle eastern doctor, I think it was Bashar … That is the enigma.’ A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad, BBC 2018
Many have wondered how this former eye doctor and his British-born wife ended up running a regime accused of war crimes. Of gassing their own people. The answers lie with their family, a dynasty that has ruled Syria for over 40 years. Understand their sage and you’ll understand why their country now lies in ruins. ibid.
‘She wanted to be the first lady of Syria. Power became very important.’ ibid.
‘There’s a Mafia-like character to the Assad family itself.’ ibid.
‘Bashar wanted to be loved by his people; he craved attention.’ ibid.
Bashar’s father, the man who started the dynasty: Hafez al-Assad … ‘This is a guy who lives in a world of conspiracy and paranoia.’ ibid.
In 1970 they masterminded a coup and threw the previous military leader in jail. And that is how the Assad family got control of Syria. ibid.
The next president will be Bashar’s elder brother, Bassel … ‘Bassel had been killed in a car accident.’ ibid. Bassel’s English teacher
Asma had been working as an investment banker for J P Morgan. She was then offered an MBA at Harvard … ‘It came at a time when I found the man I loved.’ ibid.
An election is held with only his [Bashar’s] name on the ballot. ibid.
Bashar and Asma are invited to London. ibid.
The reality of his government is just like their father’s. ibid.
He secretly releases Islamic fundamentalists from his prisons, arms them and sends them over the border to fight the Americans. ibid.
The Muslim fundamentalists that Bashar released will cross the border back into Syria and try to set up an Islamic state there. ibid.
Bashar al-Assad, a former eye doctor in West London, is now president of Syria. It’s a role he never expected. His older brother who had been groomed for the job had died in a car crash. A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad II
Controlling Lebanon was Bashar’s father’s legacy … He kept his troops there and slowly took a stranglehold over Lebanon’s politics and economy. He had to fight two wars against Israel to keep it. ibid.
It’s all gone wrong for Bashar. ibid.
More and more writers and political activists are sent to prison often without trial, many facing torture for criticising the regime. ibid.
Their government has been accused of killing political opponents and massacring prisoners. A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad III
‘Bashar al-Assad immediately began to feel a danger approaching him. But he did not admit this. On the contrary, he began to say, ‘Syria is not Tunisia.’’ ibid. Fiad Nassan Agha, former minister of culture
‘Putting down rebellion is a national, moral and religious duty.’ ibid. Bashar al-Assad
In June 2012 the United Nations declares that Syria is in a state of civil war. ibid.
In the early hours of March 2nd 1953 the most powerful man in the world lay dying alone. He had suffered a stroke at least twelve hours. His guards were worried but they did not dare go into his bedroom. How could a man worshipped by millions be left to lie helpless soaked in his own urine? Stalin had built an empire on a framework of terror justifying it in the name of a political faith, and through it he ruled his country, his government, his party and his family. Stalin: Inside the Terror, BBC 2003
In the Soviet Union his image was everywhere; he had become a living icon. The subject of a cult of personality. ibid.
The real man was a mass of contradictions. A dictator whose position was unassailable yet who was haunted by paranoia. Stalin used terror more effectively and scientifically than any other ruler. ibid.
Family photos show a warm gentle man surrounded by daughters, son, aunts, in-laws … Most of the people in these photos would be destroyed by him. ibid.
Stalin proved his usefulness to the Bolshevik cause by his diligent work as a bank robber and agitator. His reward was a post on the party’s central committee. ibid.
He loathed the intellectual arrogance of the silver-tongued Trotsky. ibid.
Stalin now had control of the party machinery; he would use it over the next six years to destroy Trotsky and all his other rivals. ibid.
Over 100,000 people in Leningrad alone would be imprisoned or shot. ibid.
‘The terror was organised deliberately from the centre ... It was done by quota, by numbers, and not even by name.’ ibid. Simon Sebag Montefiore
The circle of terror slowly closed in on everyone, tightening and tightening until it touched his own family. ibid.
Those he hadn’t killed were rotting in the camps. ibid.
The man he chose to deliver the final coup was the Georgian secret policeman who had been looking after his mother: Lavrentiy Beria. ibid.
Stalin decreed that the wives and families of prisoners should be treated as traitors. ibid.
He had won the war and conquered eastern Europe. ibid.
His family had started to disappear as early as 1938, but for them the terror never stopped. ibid.
The greatest form of dictatorship is a dictatorship where the people think they are free … Then there’s a farce called an election and the two parties change sides. David Icke, Oxford Union Debating Society 2008
Mexico is the perfect dictatorship. It’s a camouflaged dictatorship. But if you dig deed, it does have all elements of dictatorship … permanence. Not of a man but of a party. An undefeatable party that allows enough space for criticism, as long as it’s the useful kind that makes it look democratic. However, it suppresses all criticism that threatens its permanence. Mario Vagas Llosa, premio nobel de literatura
Francisco Franco, absolute ruler over Spain, was one of the most enigmatic dictators in European history. Even today the country still bears the scars of his reign. He seized power in a bloody civil war and ruled the country with an iron hand for forty years. A despot not even his trusted followers could really see through. The Truth About Franco: Spain’s Forgotten Dictator I: The Rise to Power, PBS 2019
His dominant wife – she would survive the despot. ibid.
A shy boy, Francisco was just an average pupil. ibid.
In Catalonia and the Basque country in particular calls for independence grew louder. ibid.
1932: The army launched an attempted coup but it failed. ibid.
‘He started making preparations for a future civil war.’ ibid. Paul Preston, historian and biographer
The rebels made Franco their generalissimo. ibid.
Throughout the country Franco’s nationalist rebels were openly supported by the old upper class. ibid.
The rebels destroyed everything in their path. ibid.