REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

THE SPIRIT OF DESPOTISM 163

Unjust deserts

The execution of Nicolae Ceausescu is a rare exception; few despots are
ever held accountable for their evil acts. The tragic paradox of history
is that those individuals who murder one person are more likely to be
brought to justice than those who plot the genocide of millions. Despots
who commit crimes against humanity far too often go into quiet retire-
ment rather than being brought to justice. A small sampling of the many
examples available:

• More than nine thousand people disappeared during the ‘ Dirty War ’
  (the state sponsored violence against trade unionists) in Argentina
  that started at the end of the 1970s, to end at the beginning of the
  1980s. Most of the perpetrators are living happily ever after.


• Syria ’ s late dictator, Hafez al - Assad, also had a happy ending to his
  life, although he ordered the death of at least ten thousand people
  in the city of Hama after an insurrection, and then bulldozed over
  the city.


• The late North Korean dictator, Kim Il - Sung, who kept a tight rein
  on his totalitarian state, advocated what he called a ‘ self - reliance
  policy ’ that caused the starvation of millions of his people. He also
  lived happily ever after, and died peacefully in his bed.


• Few people recall the holocaust infl icted by the Ottoman Empire
  on Armenians in 1915, although more than a million people died.
  Nobody was ever held accountable for this mass murder. In fact,
  the Turks never even acknowledged that it happened.

Judicial remedy

This pattern of denial is changing, however. Since the milestone Inter-
national Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, at which war crimes
and crimes against humanity were prosecuted, resulting in the execu-
tion of a number of former Nazi leaders, the world has been taking
increasing notice of despots. That tribunal, and the subsequent tribunal
in Tokyo (which reviewed war crimes committed by the command of
the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II), established a prec-
edent for holding the leaders of a country accountable for crimes com-
mitted by that country. Unfortunately, none of these trials led to the
immediate establishment of a permanent international court that would
be specially empowered to deal with crimes against humanity.