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Robert Mugabe, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in Rhodesia, the southern African region now known as independent Zimbabwe. As a leader in Rhodesia's nationalist resistance movement of the 1970s, Mugabe mobilized his compatriots in their struggle for control of the white-ruled African nation, which had declared independence from Great Britain in 1965. The bloody civil war finally ended with Zimbabwe's independence in 1980....
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Pol Pot, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in the 1960s in the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia. In the mid-1900s, Cambodia had been chafing for centuries under Thai, Vietnamese, and French control. As leader of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's communist rebel movement, Pol Pot won control of Cambodia in 1975. He intended to establish a farming utopia. Declaring that society needed purification, he set out to extinguish capitalism,...
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Than Shwe was part of a military coup that took over Burma in the 1960s. The British had granted Burma independence in 1948, but the country, with its many ethnic groups, had trouble building a democratic government. Than Shwe rose through the military ranks, and after the army stepped in to quell demonstrations and riots that began on August 8, 1988, he emerged as head of the military council. He became one of the most secretive and repressive leaders...
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Muammar al-Qaddafi led a group of young army officers who overthrew the government of King Idris I in 1961. After the officers seized control, Qadaffi emerged as head of the ruling council. Although he doesn't hold any title in Libya, it is clear that he is the absolute ruler of the country. Qaddafi brought socialism to Libya by taking over and nationalizing all industries, including the profitable oil industry. He reorganized the government in a...
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Hafez al-Assad became president of Syria in 1971, following a long line of military leaders. At first, his goals included achieving pan-Arabism, more evenly distributing the nation's oil wealth, and extending the party's power by reaching into every aspect of Syrians' lives. However, through a series of poorly planned economic programs, censorship, and old-fashioned greed and corruption, Assad and his government brought intimidation and the loss of...
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Saddam Hussein, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power through Iraq's powerful Baath Party and became the nation's president in 1979. His goals included achieving pan-Arabism, more evenly distributing the nation's oil wealth, and extending the party's power by reaching into every aspect of Iraqis' lives. However, through his failed economic programs, greed, corruption, and the murder of thousands, Hussein and his government brought...
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In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power in China after a long and brutal civil war. He and his Chinese Communist Party immediately set out to transform their nation into a Communist state. They seized land from wealthy and middle-class farmers and distributed it to poor peasant farmers. The government also took over ownership of all industries. Citizens who resisted these changes were branded counterrevolutionaries," and thousands were imprisoned or executed....
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Kim Jong Il, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in the mid-1990s in the small East Asian country of North Korea. He succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, as that nation's leader. Kim Il Sung took power in North Korea-also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK-in 1948, and eventually established a state governed by his own version of Communism. Today Kim Jong Il continues his father's tactics of building a...
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In the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic served as president of Serbia (a republic of Yugoslavia) and then president of Yugoslavia itself. He ruled as a dictator, using his secret security forces to crush political dissent and imprison his enemies. He also censored the media, making sure his opponents remained silent. During that time, Yugoslavia was torn apart by civil wars and ethnic violence, and troops under Milosevic's command imprisoned, raped, and...
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Fidel Castro, one of the world's most controversial leaders, rose to power in Cuba, a large island nation only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. A brilliant and charismatic leader, Castro defied all odds when he led a successful effort to depose the corrupt Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late-1950s. Soon after, Castro began to reshape Cuba into a communist state while allying himself with the United States' Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union....
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Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of Chile's army, rose to power in 1973 when he participated in a military coup to overthrow the president, Salvador Allende. Allende was a Socialist, and the upper classes and the military feared that Socialism would lead to a takeover of the country by the Communist Soviet Union. On September 11 of that year, the military attacked the presidential palace, and Allende committed suicide. Pinochet took charge of...
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