by Ray Black
Having failed in their initial attempt to locate and destroy Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian guerilla leader and the brains behind 9/11, the USA turned once more to Iraq. Waging war on Saddam would give them the ideal opportunity to flex a bit of military muscle on the world stage and end up with a high percentage of the valuable oil back in their control. All they had to do was find their excuse, and Saddam played right into their hands. They began by insinuating that there was a link between bin Laden and Saddam. They then suggested that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction. Naturally, Sadam saw it all as the political game that it was and played along, not least because it made him look good in the eyes of the Arab world.
Then, in March 2003, the game backfired on Saddam. The US army, supported by UN allies, entered Iraq intent on toppling Sadam from power. As it turned out, it only took three months because Saddam was only powerful within his own borders. The military might that the USA imagined Saddam had, turned out to be exactly that – imagined. His army was ill-equipped with outdated weapons and poorly trained. As for the weapons of mass destruction – not so much as a cardboard decoy was found. Still, the USA had got what they came for – the kudos of finishing their business with Sadam and the oil.
In the years to come, Saddam was tried and executed for atrocities against the Iraqi people. But the Iraqi people themselves were left in total disarray. The regime that served to quell factional problems in Iraq had been removed by Western nations who were naive enough to think that the population would thank them and play by their democratic rules. Instead, they ended up policing a civil war, having given Sunnis and Shi’ites free reign to begin slaughtering one another in the name of Allah. It turned out that Saddam’s way of governing Iraq was entirely necessary, as despotic as it was, simply because it was the lesser of two evils.
Although Saddam was hanged in 2006 the jury is still out, among historians that is, as to whether he was really such a force for bad. The atrocity for which he was executed was the massacre of thousands of innocent Kurdish civilians, so it is understandable that people would remember in such a negative way. However, the event was apparently part of the Iran-Iraq war, and Saddam saw this war as a way of saving Kuwait from the imminent threat of Iranian domination. But it is hard to ignore the horrific atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein especially when he ordered a retaliatory massacre in the Shi’ite village of Dujail following an attempt on his own life in 1982. Saddam viewed these atrocities as necessary gestures but regardless of anyone’s political views it is hard to forget how many innocent people have lost their lives as a result of his actions. His brutal approach to keeping law and order, often torturing confessions from victims and then murdering them for good measure, just confirms that his reign was most definitely one of pure evil. Saddam died a broken man with obvious signs of fear in his face, perhaps that was a fitting end for a someone who seemed to like to see pain on the faces of others.
Augusto Pinochet
It would be true to say that Augusto Pinochet is one of those figures who polarizes opinion, because the equation is so finely balanced. He took control of Chile by coup d’état, forcing a democratically elected president out of office and establishing a military regime. His motivation for doing so however, was that Chile was on the verge of becoming a communist state, for ousted President Salvador Allende was a hard-line socialist.
In 1973, when the uprising took place, communism had had its day on the world stage and people were beginning to realise that it doesn’t work in practice, even if it’s a nice idea in theory. So, to that extent Pinochet had saved the Chilean people from beguiling themselves into thinking that communism offered some kind of utopia for them. Nevertheless, Pinochet proved to be a tyrant, so life was certainly no better for many under his rule than it would have been otherwise.
Pinochet enjoyed a steady rise through the ranks of the Chilean army between 1933 and 1973. He was Army Commander and Chief when he removed Allende from office for violating the constitution. Allende committed suicide before troops entered his room, prompted by the fact that the coup was a violent one and so he probably expected execution. Following the coup a military junta was set up with power shared between the heads of the army, navy, air force and national police force.
Pinochet became president because the army was the oldest institution of the four. He looked something like a Mafioso, with slicked back hair, dark glasses and a low trimmed moustache. It reflected his mindset, for he quickly made it clear that he was the boss. Anyone who voiced their opposition to him was quickly removed from power or forced to retire. So, the junta soon evolved into a regime with Pinochet omnipotent.
One of Pinochet’s aims was to encourage ambitious thinking in the Chilean people. As opposed to the communist ideal of their being an empowered proletariat, he had a vision of the lower classes becoming proprietorial – owning their own homes and businesses. It wasn’t a bad thing, on the face of it, as it gave the opportunity of prosperity to individuals and the nation. But, it was all too much too quick. Pinochet used a group of US trained economists called the Chicago Boys to control his reform policies. By 1983, the country’s economy was in serious trouble. Over one-third of the population was unemployed and poverty had actually increased. Too few people had got rich and too many had lost out.
Underpinning Pinochet’s failings as a politician were his draconian ways of dealing with political adversaries. Like all incompetent leaders, he resorted to the annihilation of political opponents rather than see that they are a necessary part of society and a part that should be dealt with by diplomatic means, even if only to remain an honourable human being.
His first shameful conduct came following the coup in 1973. Allende’s political party had been the PU (Popular Unity) and many dissident PU members were still at liberty. Pinochet offered them sanctuary in a number of military prisons, so many gave themselves up to avoid persecution while the country was in turmoil. Pinochet then ordered a group of army officers to visit the prisons by helicopter and execute the PU members. Some seventy-one people were summarily executed simply for having socialist leanings. The event became known as the Caravan of Death due to the methodical and whistle-stop nature of the execution tour.
Over the next seventeen years, Pinochet continued in a similar vein. Anyone who so much as voiced an opinion that countered the government was dealt with. Tens of thousands were taken in for questioning and imprisoned and tortured. Around 3,000 disappeared, never to be seen again. It eventually emerged that those who were deemed to pose a significant threat to Pinochet’s presidency were murdered in cold blood. It has been reported that they were dealt with in a particularly gruesome manner. They were flown out to sea and dumped into the ocean, having had their stomachs slashed open so that sharks would devour them alive.
Pinochet’s fall from power came in a surprisingly capitulatory way. In 1988, he lost a referendum that would have kept him president for another eight years. Then in 1990 an open candidate presidential election was held, so that his successor – Patricio Aylwin – was, like Allende, a democratically elected leader. Pinochet was careful to protect his back though by being sworn in as a senator-for-life, which meant that he was afforded considerable protection against indictment for his crimes.
In fact, Pinochet remained immune from prosecution until he travelled to the UK for medical treatment in 1998. He had been the only South American leader not to side with the Argentineans during the Falklands– Malvinas War in 1982, so Margaret Thatcher viewed him as a political ally and gave him an open invitation to come.
Five days into his visit he was issued with an arrest warrant from a Spanish court and charged with human rights abuses – the torture, murder, illegal detention and disappearance of Chilean citizens. He returned to his home country but, unfortunately for the prosecution and his victims, he was declared too unwell mentally to stand trial, so he was placed under house arrest, which did nothing to make him suffer for his wrongdoings as he was too senile to
leave the premises. In 2006, he finally issued a statement admitting full responsibility for his crimes. Evidently, his Catholic guilt had finally got the better of him. He died in December of that same year.
What is so heinous about Pinochet’s crimes is that people lost their liberty and their lives simply because they had different ideas about the best way to run a country. What’s more, had they been in power they wouldn’t have resorted to such underhand behaviour themselves. That is the whole point about modern democracy – it allows for the fact that people are different from one another but that they all have an equal voice. What is more, some of those who died might simply have been voicing socialist rhetoric merely to be seen to be anti-establishment, such as the young and impressionable are want to do.
The message should be clear; that regimes are outmoded and outdated in a modern world where civilisation demands freedom of speech. What makes humanity so special is the fact that all forms of society are works in progress, because they are all invented ways of living together in an increasingly populated world. So far, democracies have shown themselves to be the means by which most people are happy most of the time. Furthermore, anyone who has a grievance is free to let it be known, so that things remain in a constant state of flux and administration adjusts accordingly. For anyone to remove that possibility, be they communist, capitalist or extremist, it is always a cancer on the body of the human condition.
Hideki Tojo
When people think back to the Axis Powers or enemies of the Allied nations during World War II, they tend to think of the key nations involved and their leaders at the time. In Europe, Hitler was leader of the Germans and Austrians, while Mussolini was leader of the Italians, but who was leader of the Japanese in the Asian-Pacific part of the war? Well, in Japan it was more complicated, as they effectively had three leaders – Emperor Hirohito (Emperor Showa officially) and his prime ministers Fumimaro Konoe and Hideki Tojo.
As befitted the Japanese mindset of that era, the emperor was treated as something of a godlike figure, so he had the last word when it came to decisions over the war. It was an odd relationship though between emperor and government, because the emperor lived in a palatial world separated from his people, both physically and psychologically. This meant that he could make decisions without fully understanding the consequences of his actions. On the other hand, it meant that he could be manipulated into making decisions by being fed selected information. He was a puppet ruler and the politicians pulled the strings.
Central to the Japanese doctrine was a notion of racial superiority over their neighbours, which was something they had in common with the Nazis in Europe. In the case of the Japanese their target of hatred was the Chinese, whom they regarded as subhuman and so treated them with utter contempt. From 1937 to 1941 the Japanese had waged war on China under the premiership of Konoe, committing any number of atrocities in the name of their emperor, who had readily authorised the use of unethical means, such as chemical weapons, to exterminate the enemy.
By 1941 the Japanese were ready to join the world war, which had begun in 1939, seeing that the Nazis had weakened the position of Britain and the Netherlands with regard to their colonies in the Far East, which the Japanese fancied for themselves. By then the USA was in their sights, too, as the Japanese wanted control of the Pacific Ocean islands, so Japan declared war on the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands.
Japan went to war under the premiership of Hideki Tojo. He took office on October 18, 1941. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, took place on December 7. It marked the beginning of the Japanese offensive. Hideki had laid plans for attack as war minister in August of the same year. Initially, the emperor was reluctant to go along with his ambitions as he held the British Empire in high esteem, but he was swayed by the success of the Nazis in Europe.
The Japanese war plan was to take control of as many territorial possessions from the Western nations as possible. They included lands that belonged to France and Portugal, as well as the USA, Great Britain and the Netherlands. In addition, they planned to move in a north-westerly direction to take communist-held territories.
Like the Nazis in Europe, the Japanese initially did well with their invasions, but they too spread themselves too thinly, so that inevitably the scales tipped in the favour of the Allied Powers. The Japanese forces began to lose ground and were slowly but surely pushed back towards their place of origin. By early 1945 the USA had developed the atomic bomb and opted to use it to end the war. They reasoned that it would save hundreds of thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost in a continued military push to force the Japanese to capitulate.
In addition, the US knew, from intelligence reports, that Japan and Germany had been working on nuclear weapons, so they didn’t want to give the Japanese any more time, just in case they too managed to reach nuclear capability. In August 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit by nuclear explosions. They had such a devastating effect that Hideki and Hirohito had no choice but to give in to the demands of the Allies. The bombs fell on August 6 and 9, Japan surrendered within a week and the hostilities of World War II had been truncated by several months, if not years.
Following the war it quickly emerged that the Japanese had behaved atrociously towards their captives. Hundreds of thousands had died unnecessarily due to the most appalling treatment in prison camps, at construction sites and on forced marches. The Japanese had displayed a blatant disregard for peoples of all other nations, creeds and races. Many millions more civilians had been summarily executed on the Japanese trail of conquest as though it were too great an inconvenience to deal with them alive. In many ways they had been even worse than the Nazis, because their callousness was a cultural phenomenon that had infused the entire Japanese population due to centuries of isolation. Consequently they genuinely regarded themselves as a divine people, above all others. For example, at school they famously compared the Chinese with domestic swine.
In September 1945, the Allies began rounding up those military officers and politicians who had not already committed honourable suicide – hara-kiri or seppuku. On September 8 they caught up with Hideki Tojo, but he had managed to shoot himself in the chest only minutes beforehand. Hideki had missed his heart, however, and recovered from his injuries to stand trial for war crimes. In May 1946, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was convened. Hideki was one of twenty-eight defendants tried for a number of different crimes. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging in 1948. His execution was carried out in December of that year.
In many ways Hideki Tojo is seen as having taken the rap for Emperor Hirohito, who was granted immunity from prosecution. Before his hanging, he repented and admitted ultimate responsibility for all of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military during the war, because he insisted that the buck stopped with him. In so doing he saved the emperor from disgrace in the eyes of the Japanese people in their hour of need. In the postwar years they benefited from having their figurehead still in place – it gave them something to remain proud of to counter the humiliation of losing the war.
It is undoubtedly true that Hideki was a political aggressor, so it shouldn’t be thought that he lacked responsibility by any means, but in truth the buck stopped at the door of the emperor’s palace. Although he had little direct involvement with operations the emperor certainly had the power to control Hideki and other military and political leaders, but he seems to have not exercised that power. At best he neglected his humanitarian duty in this respect, at worst he went along with their views and even encouraged them to continue doing as they pleased. He had been conditioned to believe that he was divine after all.
Some historians refer to the Japanese war crimes as the Asian Holocaust to afford them the same level of abhorrence as the Nazi Holocaust in Europe. The Japanese were not so systematic in their actions because they were not actively trying to eradicate types of people. In that respect they didn’t practise genocide, as such,
but they certainly slaughtered a great many people as part of their process of warfare.
Perhaps the very worst Japanese atrocities on record are their acts of cannibalism. There are many accounts of prisoners being treated as livestock to be killed and eaten as a necessary way of coping with limited supplies. Much of the territory conquered by the Japanese was geographically fragmented so that supply routes were difficult to maintain. This led them to devour human flesh in a seemingly matter-of-fact way, and it only served to highlight their view of other peoples as being subhuman.
It doesn’t seem to have repulsed them in any way either, which says something about their cultural foundation. For one thing, the traditional and state religion of Japan at the time – Shinto – was and still is an animistic religion, so that the Japanese soldiers didn’t hold with any notion that humans have souls. In addition, Shinto has no doctrine or fixed ethical system so that there is no sense of behavioural rightness or wrongness to the Western way of thinking. Secondly, there was something of a tradition in culinary experimentation, as the Japanese historically had had to learn to be self-sufficient as an isolated island nation.
It has been argued that cannibalism gives the perpetrators a sense of empowerment over their enemies, because it provides a sense of having somehow absorbed their energy and so gained their strength. That may have been true of the Aztecs, for whom cannibalism was an intrinsic cultural component of their spirituality, but in the case of the Japanese it seems to have simply been a practical solution to remaining healthy and fighting fit, quite literally, in the theatre of battle. Their ethos seems to have been – Why waste perfectly good meat, when rations were getting a bit low and stale?
Since that time Shinto has been largely replaced by Christianity and Buddhism, although Japan has essentially become a secular state in the Western mould. Many of the Japanese military converted to Christianity after the war as it seemed to offer a way of assuaging their sense of guilt about certain events.