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International-UN-NGOs
World's Worst Dictators for 2004
2004-08-27
The Mirror. EFL. Hat tip: Damian Penny, Newfoundland's greatest son.

Here is a list of Jimmy Carter's favorite people the world's 10 worst living dictators as compiled by dictator-watcher David Wallechinsky in collaboration with Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders.

[1.] KIM JONG IL
Country: North Korea
Age: 63 In power: 10 yrs
Last year's rank: 1
THE only nation to earn the worst possible score for political rights and civil liberties for 31 straight years. An estimated 150,000 prisoners do forced labour. . . .

[2.] THAN SHWE
Country: Burma
Age: 71 In power: 13 yrs
Last year's rank: 5
GENERAL Than is sole leader of Burma's military dictatorship. . . .

[3.] HU JINTAO
Country: China
Age: 61 In power: 2 yrs
Last year's rank: Dishonourable mention
HU Jintao is Communist Party president and general secretary. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together - Amnesty International estimates 2,500 a year, others say 15,000. The party controls all media and uses 30,000 "internet security agents" to monitor online use.
Don't forget the forced abortions and infanticides to enforce the "one child" policy, or the suppression of organized religion and the Falun Gong.

[4.] ROBERT MUGABE
Country: Zimbabwe
Age: 80 In power: 24 yrs
Last year's rank: Dishonourable mention
Once the darling of the West,
. . . and still the darling of the Western Left . . .
Robert Mugabe has become increasingly dictatorial. His government has killed or tortured and displaced more than 70,000 people. The Supreme Court has carried out the dictator's strategy of silencing criticism and stamping on human rights, and has just blocked an official report on the massacre of 20,000 civilians.
And then there's the famine.

[5.] CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH
Country: Saudi Arabia
Age: 80 In power: 9 yrs
Last year's rank: 2
Abdullah has been acting leader since his half-brother, King Fahd, had a stroke in 1995. The country holds no elections whatsoever. Human Rights Watch has reported "slavery-like conditions" for the 8.8 million foreign workers in the Kingdom, and Saudi women are second-class citizens.

[6.] TEODORO OBIANG NGUEMA
Country: Equatorial Guinea
Age: 61 In power: 25 yrs
Last year's rank: 6
Although oil-rich, 60 per cent of the people in this tiny West African nation live on 60p a day. Obiang is believed to have a £500 million fortune and is in "permanent contact with the Almighty", according to state radio. He "can decide to kill without being called to account".
Of course, everyone on this list can decide to kill without being called to account.

[7.] OMAR AL-BASHIR
Country: Sudan
Age: 59 In power: 15 yrs
Last year's rank: Dishonourable mention
Al-Bashir seized power by military force. The country is in the grip of a 20-year civil war that has killed 2 million and made 4 million homeless. Al-Bashir's army routinely bombs civilians and tortures and massacres non-Muslims. He has also been accused of "engineering famine" in the regions that oppose him.

[8.] SAPARMURAT NIYAZOV
Country: Turkmenistan
Age: 64 In power: 14 yrs
Last year's rank: Dishonourable mention
All government workers must memorize passages of Niyazov's book to keep their jobs. He's banned beards, gold teeth and circuses, renamed months of the year after his mum and created a public holiday to celebrate melons.
So he's on the list for comic relief?
Last year he cracked down on religious and ethnic minorities.
Still think he's overrated as a tyrant.

[9.] FIDEL CASTRO
Country: Cuba
Age: 77 In power: 45 yrs
Last year's rank: 9
The world's longest-surviving dictator has in the last few years carried out the biggest round-up of non-violent dissidents in more than a decade. He arrested 75 human-rights activists, journalists and academics, sentencing them to 19 years' jail on average. In the last six months he put a blind lawyer and nine activists on trial. Cuba is a one-party state and Castro runs the courts.
Think he should be a few places higher on the list.

[10.] KING MSWATI III
Country: Swaziland
Age: 35 In power: 18 yrs
Last year's rank: Not listed
Educated in England, he has a reputation for lavish living with a fleet of BMWs, a host of palaces and a love of foreign trips, which contrasts with the plight of Swaziland's 300,000 drought-stricken farmers.
So, in other words, he's a Mugabe wannabe.

I don't have a lot of respect for the "human rights" NGO industry these days, but they actually seem to have gotten most of it right this time. You'd think Arafat and the Iranian Mullahs should be on the list somewhere, but other than that, it seems pretty much spot-on.

The Moonbat Left will no doubt complain that Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush should be on the list somewhere.
Posted by:Mike

#34  I was going to post a joke about Bush.
Instead, we had a joke posting about Bush.
Posted by: jackal   2004-08-27 10:12:54 PM  

#33  Eratosthenes didn't say AFLAC all the time..
Posted by: Frank G   2004-08-27 8:42:50 PM  

#32  AC : Just cause Eratosthenes was born in what is now Libya?


Eratosthenes



Qadaffy



They look alike to me!

Posted by: BigEd   2004-08-27 8:03:10 PM  

#31  Lefto-conformists still spout the "US supports all dictators just because they are anti-communist" meme, just as they believe that Augusto Pinochet still runs Chile.
Base ignorance is the stock in trade of lefty agitators.
On another message board, a group of British dhimmi-whores (no doubt bought with either venture capital or academic grants) are STILL trying to argue with me that the ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes was an Arab, apparently just because he was born in North fucking Africa, which is now "Arab" (2250 years later).
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-08-27 7:42:14 PM  

#30  Won't the guy in charge of Belarus be pretty teed off?
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-08-27 7:10:44 PM  

#29  Piss poor perforamnce .com.
I'm an artiste... watch this action.

Roses are Red,
Violents are Purple,
Sugar is Sweet,
And I hate the USA and all is stands for and I want a green card.


I call this Turko/Amerikano Free Formo.
Free Mumia, Huey, Cyrpus, Lunch!


Posted by: Shipman   2004-08-27 5:57:57 PM  

#28  Mother of all tyrants? You can't be serious. Oh, you're Murat, of course you are, my bad...

There are 3 stages in the Murat Warning System.

Sometimes Murat just wants to be noticed...


Other times he really believes he has the truth and must impart it to us...


And then, sometimes, well he's just being an ass cuz he can...
Posted by: .com   2004-08-27 5:34:31 PM  

#27  Could be time to call down the bedwettian,
Posted by: Shipman   2004-08-27 5:22:12 PM  

#26  Don't know how Anon5256 got in there-it's me.
Posted by: jules 187   2004-08-27 4:23:03 PM  

#25  Murat-If you can make this argument without dragging Iraq into it (which will just cause a traffic mess on Fred's website, and cause epithets to be thrown at you), how is Bush "that bad for the rest of the world"? Please give specifics.
Posted by: Anonymous5256   2004-08-27 4:21:41 PM  

#24  Murat, there is a difference between portrayal and reality.
Posted by: FWTB-DLTR   2004-08-27 3:52:33 PM  

#23  Steve, you are speaking on behalf of the Americans, to you he (Bush) might not be that bad, but for the rest of the world he is. At the moment the mother of all tyrants.
Posted by: Murat   2004-08-27 2:36:21 PM  

#22  Murat, are you speaking on behalf of the women of Afghanistan or the Kurds of Iraq or the Bush-puppet Sistanni?
Posted by: Tom   2004-08-27 2:25:37 PM  

#21  Saddam Hussein, retired 4/9/03.
Posted by: Mike   2004-08-27 1:11:42 PM  

#20  Gee, there seems to be someone missing from this top 10 this year. Who could that be?
Posted by: Dar   2004-08-27 1:08:13 PM  

#19  I am partial to the south west corner of the Black Sea.
Posted by: ed   2004-08-27 12:41:46 PM  

#18  Angie: Yeah, I'm funning. Though I think we ought to annex France, since they're obviously intent on giving it away.
Posted by: BH   2004-08-27 12:33:01 PM  

#17  No sense acting civilized if we aren't going to get credit for it.

BH is funning here (er, I guess), but I wonder how long before many Americans feel this way for real. Or Westerners in general. Generally, NGO's and many on the Left treat minor lapses among the civilized as far worse than the business-as-usual horrors of the barbarians.

Dibs on Alberta!
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-08-27 12:10:50 PM  

#16  PC Police:
This is a racist list! Fidel is the only "White Guy" (don't you know that the PC police want us to have more white guys there?)

You forgot Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.
If we put him there the PC police would be less agitated.
Posted by: BigEd   2004-08-27 12:04:46 PM  

#15  SAPARMURAT NIYAZOV: The reincarnation of a combination of Moe Howard and Chico Marx.

"Wanna buy a duck?"
Posted by: BigEd   2004-08-27 12:00:34 PM  

#14  It seems to me if Bush were a tyrant he should probably be doing a little better than just a two point lead in the polls.

It also seems there wouldn't be a hundred million dollar industry that exists solely to accuse him of being a bad guy.

Maybe these point are too difficult to understand for some people.
Posted by: mhw   2004-08-27 11:33:34 AM  

#13  Nah, Bush can easily reach top 3, IMO WORLD TYRANT NO 1.

Jeebus, and I try to defend you, Murat. C'mon buddy, open your eyes and re-read that list. Carefully. Twice. And then ask yourself whether George Bush is even capable of 1% of the depravity and evil that these ten men have manifested.

Hint: he isn't.
Posted by: Steve White   2004-08-27 11:21:23 AM  

#12  that was uncivil of me, SW's correct. I apologize
Posted by: Frank G   2004-08-27 11:21:12 AM  

#11  Yeah, the Turkmenbashi made the list! Woohoo!

In all seriousness, though, Hu Jintao isn't a dictator at all. He's just in the #1 spot in a huge system. He definitely doesn't have unlimited power like the other fellows.
Posted by: gromky   2004-08-27 11:19:23 AM  

#10  Looks like Murat has money on Bush to win the election.

If they do add us to the list, I want to see some land or resources to show for it. Not just a contested invasion like Iraq, but a full-blown conquest and appropriation. No sense acting civilized if we aren't going to get credit for it.
Posted by: BH   2004-08-27 11:13:24 AM  

#9  Kill an Armenian or Kurd today, hassol?
Posted by: Frank G   2004-08-27 11:08:07 AM  

#8  I said: The Moonbat Left will no doubt complain that Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush should be on the list somewhere.

Murat said: Bush can easily reach top 3, IMO WORLD TYRANT NO 1.

Thanks for validating my predictive genius, Murat.
Posted by: Mike   2004-08-27 11:02:24 AM  

#7  Who were last year's 3,4,7,8, and 10?
Posted by: chthus   2004-08-27 10:57:40 AM  

#6  Murat, don't be a pig.
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-08-27 10:50:04 AM  

#5  Nah, Bush can easily reach top 3, IMO WORLD TYRANT NO 1.
Posted by: Murat   2004-08-27 10:36:40 AM  

#4  The list was probably not compiled using up-to-the-minute data. Look for Sudan to shoot up the charts next year.
Posted by: BH   2004-08-27 10:19:23 AM  

#3  Okay, Saudi Arabia's no picnic but the Sudan has rape gangs and genocide going on and they rate only 7th while Saudis get 5th? I think they should be reversed at the very least.
Posted by: RJ Schwarz   2004-08-27 9:10:39 AM  

#2  Kadaffy slipped a few notches when he gave up WMD. Baby Assad's a bush-league wannabee. I do agree that Iran should be in the top ten, though.
Posted by: Mike   2004-08-27 8:55:00 AM  

#1  Still think he’s overrated as a tyrant.

It sez "The world's worst," not the world's best. Where's Assad? Where's Khamenei? Kadaffy's not on the list?
Posted by: Fred   2004-08-27 8:45:33 AM  

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