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Brutal Honesty (2005's Despot of the Year Awards)
The New Republic ^ | December 31, 2005 | T. A. Frank

Posted on 12/31/2005 1:59:26 PM PST by RWR8189

Since inaugurating the "Today in Despotism" series earlier this year, TNR Online has chronicled the activities of a number of strongmen. Some are old, some are young; some are religious, some are atheist; some are called "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"; others are called "Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, and Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea." But while countries around the world may have differences, the hopes and dreams of their despotic rulers are shared. It's why Libya celebrates the anniversary of a book by Muammar Qaddafi and North Korea celebrates the anniversary of a book by Kim Jong Il. And so TNR Online is issuing a Despot of the Year Award in an attempt to give a proper nod to outstanding despotic achievements. Ideally, this award would merely reflect the popular will of the rulers' subjects, but, as Donald Rumsfeld once pointed out in a moment of reflection, sometimes that's hard to figure out. "It's awfully hard to know," he said. "In fact, it's impossible to know unless one just speculates. I don't know how many people who live in an exceedingly repressive regime actually like it."

 Honorable Mentions

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe. For orchestrating his own reelection and for his program to forcibly relocate thousands of urban slum dwellers to camps in the barren countryside.

Than Shwe, Burma. For his campaign to guard against Burma's destruction through the united strength of the people.

Fidel Castro, Cuba. For nearly five decades of service.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran. For getting right down to business after his rigged election. Goodbye, Western music. Hello, nukes. And Holocaust--what Holocaust?

Finalists

Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus. Lukashenko, in power for only 11 years, runs one of the youngest despotic regimes in the trade and has built it almost entirely on his own. Drawing on sheer willpower and a dream of undoing any and all reforms that briefly threatened his nation in the early 1990s, Lukashenko has worked tirelessly to preserve, and even revive, Soviet traditions. This year has been an impressive one for the leader. As always, he has spoken out strongly in favor of grain: "There should be no desperation and pessimism. Only good mood. The country will have grain!" And the Olympics: "It is impossible to see what has become of our handball, basketball, volleyball. We can not even win a license to go to the Olympic Games. What kind of a country's handball tournament is it if there are only four teams?" But his achievements go beyond the rhetorical. When Belarusian protesters assembled in March in hopes of imitating Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Lukashenko responded generously with beatings. When the country's ethnic Poles complained of harassment, Lukashenko took pains to have the police storm the office of an ethnic Polish organization. When the regime began to face hints of internal dissent, Lukashenko seized the day and pushed through a parliamentary ban on criticism. (Organizing protests or speaking against the national interest now carries a three-year prison sentence.) He has also announced his intention to run for president again, and he feels the opposition has little to offer: "They are not ready to rule the country." Let them rule when they have 11 years of despotic experience.

Conclusion. If Lukashenko keeps up his current pace, he'll become a strong contender in future years. Still, additional crackdowns will be required to claim the top prize.

 

Muammar Qaddafi, Libya. Fidel Castro often draws admiration for the length of his reign, but Muammar Qaddafi seldom receives similar credit, even though he has ruled Libya for three and a half decades. Although 2005 hasn't been as eventful for Libya as other years, Qaddafi is an open-minded man, and no one ever knows quite what to expect from him next. This year, Qaddafi cut deals with oil companies, hosted an African Union summit, and gave an interview to Time magazine in which he reminded readers that "Libyans are in paradise." The colonel has remained steadfast in the case of five Bulgarian nurses who were arrested in 1999 and accused of working on behalf of the CIA and the Mossad to spread AIDS among Libyan children. Found guilty, the nurses (and a Palestinian physician) have been condemned to the firing squad. Although some have asserted that poor hygiene in Libyan hospitals was a more likely culprit, Qaddafi has stood by his convictions, asking, "How can we free the murderers of children?" Ever unpredictable, in January the colonel permitted a rock band called The Heavenly States to be the first American band to play in Libya since he took power. Well, sort of. When the band arrived, the scheduled shows didn't really materialize, but its members did get a chance to see Libya. (And they also ended up doing a basement show at the home of an employee of the British consulate.)

Conclusion. On the strength of sheer staying power, Qaddafi was a near miss for the top award; but he'll have plenty of chances in the future. As he said earlier this year: "Elections? What for? We have surpassed that stage you are presently in. All the people are in power now." Sounds pretty good to us.

 Winner

Kim Jong Il, North Korea. North Korea's leader takes top honors this year. It hardly seems fair since, with Kim in the running, no one else will ever have a chance. Nevertheless, despotism is despotism, and Kim has amassed a record that aspiring dictators can only envy. From nuclear proliferation to famine, Kim has dotted all of his "i"s and crossed all of his "t"s in the classics of tyranny. Kim oversaw nuclear weapons negotiations this year, agreeing to conditions under which he would begin to dismantle his weapons. A day later, North Korea announced that the deal was off unless the country could first have a light-water reactor. When summer rolled around, Kim sent millions of city dwellers into the countryside to transplant rice. And Kim also prepared to groom his own sons as successors. Meanwhile, his commitment to innovation in despotic rhetoric has not faltered--at least if the pronouncements of the North Korean news agency can be taken as evidence. A few highlights from the past year:

 

Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood. (June)

Japan is so mean, despicable and wicked that it is not the country which the DPRK can deal with anywhere. (July)

Japan's attempt to buy a responsible position at the UN is little short of a clumsy bid of an illiterate country peddler bereft of any reason and people's mindset. (October)

 

And the quote that put North Korea over the top, from this past June:

 

The chief executive of the United States was reported to have met daily Chosun Ilbo journalist Kang Chol-hwan, an alleged defector from the North, at the White House on 15 June and talked about "human rights situation" in the DPRK.

Explicitly speaking, we do not know such word as "defector".

If there be any, they are just a handful of hooligans and criminals who are not in a position to look up at the clear blue sky over the country with an easy mind for the crimes committed against it and its people.

It is hard to expect to hear anything from such human scum and we, therefore, do not care at all about whatever nonsense they talk.

Given the fact that the chief executive of the world's only "superpower" did sit face to face with such a human trash and conferred with him over "human rights performance" and other "serious matters", it is not hard to guess the political level and stature of the present US administration.

 

The prize is a free subscription to TNR Online. Kim or his representatives should kindly write to receive details: online@tnr.com, attn: human trash/human scum.

T. A. Frank writes regularly for TNR Online


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2005review; despot; dprk; kimjongil; koreandefectors; manoftheyear; newrepublic; northkorea; tnr

1 posted on 12/31/2005 1:59:27 PM PST by RWR8189
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To: RWR8189
"Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood"

Now was that written by the North Korean Press Agency or New Republic writer Jonathon Chait?

2 posted on 12/31/2005 2:07:19 PM PST by Numbers Guy
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To: RWR8189

I really think that the folks who actually make all those different versions of Chia-Pets should make a Kim Jong Il Chia-Pet. They'd sell big on FR for sure. The US Military PXs in Korea could keep 'em in stock.


3 posted on 12/31/2005 2:15:08 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: RWR8189

Sorry, I've gotta go with Lukashenko and the tyranny of handball. If he ever gets Jai-Alai, the world is in serious trouble.


4 posted on 12/31/2005 2:17:07 PM PST by fat city ("The nation that controls magnetism controls the world.")
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To: RWR8189

video

http://mfile.akamai.com/1689/wmv/bmguk.download.akamai.com/1689/Faithless1/faithless_wmv_high.asx


5 posted on 12/31/2005 2:21:52 PM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR) [there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business])
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To: Numbers Guy; RWR8189

<< "Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood"

Now was that written by the North Korean Press Agency or New Republic writer Jonathon Chait? >>

Believe it involved the cooperative efforts of the NKPA, JChait, Congresscreatures BWaters and CynMcKinney and Brooklyn Babs Boxer the US senate's senior seltzer slinger.


6 posted on 12/31/2005 3:03:04 PM PST by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: fat city
Hu Jin Tao 'President' of the People's Republic of (Communist)China.



Tibet wasn't enough. Now he's trying to get claws into Bhutan and Nepal.

I would normal say this monster does not like Buddhists, but he also has interests in Middle East, Central/South American and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This man is dangerous to the whole free world.

About despot: think of forced aborting, organ and tissue harvesting, murder of Christian and Catholic and Buddhist religious, slave labor camps, and more. When Hu running the Tibetan Autonomous Region, he proved that he is a hardliner-he oppressed Tibetan people very evilly and he responsible for much death and destruction of people, indigenous culture and environment of Tibet.

He destabilize regions all over world, India, African, Central and South American.

Attempted (before seizing highest power) to influence American vote (Gore receiving Chinese$-remember he got it in a Californian Buddhist Temple)

Not to say Kim is a good guy (he is a monster the world be better off without) , but he small frys next to Hu.

Friends are terrorists, Cuban, Syrian, Pakistani, NKorean.

There must be a special hell realm for people like Hu Jintao.


Buddha Bless the USA
7 posted on 12/31/2005 6:40:55 PM PST by Sangey (Buddha bless the USA)
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To: RWR8189
"Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood"

What is lil Kim's screen name at DU?

8 posted on 12/31/2005 7:05:14 PM PST by CzarNicky (The problem with bad ideas is that they seemed like good ideas at the time.)
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To: RWR8189

9 posted on 01/01/2006 1:12:13 AM PST by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: RWR8189

Don't forget, Mugabe also took his country from the food-exporting "breadbasket of Africa" to food-importing-debtor nation in 6 short years.

What a contendah!


10 posted on 01/01/2006 7:55:59 AM PST by CarolTX (Onward through the fog)
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To: Brian Allen; Numbers Guy; RWR8189
"Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood"

Now was that written by the North Korean Press Agency or New Republic writer Jonathon Chait?

Believe it involved the cooperative efforts of the NKPA, JChait, Congresscreatures BWaters and CynMcKinney and Brooklyn Babs Boxer the US senate's senior seltzer slinger.

I think you're both wrong. It looks like a New York Times quote, or possibly CNN.

11 posted on 01/01/2006 8:03:49 AM PST by gitmo (From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.)
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