How to Be a Dictator

An Irreverent Guide

Mikal Hem

• Publisher: Arcade
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781628726619
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Radicalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A Tongue-in-Cheek Guide to Becoming a Dictator, Based on the Outrageous, Scandalous, and Excessive Behavior of Dictators Past and Present Who hasn't dreamed of one day ruling your own country? Along with great power comes unlimited influence, control, admiration, and often wealth. How to Be a Dictator will teach you the tricks of the trade—how to rise to the top and stay in power, and how to enjoy the fruits of your excellence.Featuring examples from the most successful leaders and regimes in the business, including Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolae Ceausescu, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and many others, this handy guide offers ten easy lessons on becoming and acting like a dictator from how to rig an election and create your own personality cult to the dos and don'ts of dictator fashion. Other topics include: how to become wealthy and spend your fortune, sleeping around, expressing your literary genius, and how to avoid being toppled, exiled, and or meeting any other dismal end. Combining black humor with political insights, How to Be a Dictator is peppered with horrifying and hilarious stories from some of the most eccentric modern world leaders.

1

HOW TO BECOME A DICTATOR

ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL 12, 1980, Richard William Tolbert, Jr. was fast asleep in his home in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. At that time, Liberia was considered a stable corner of a continent fraught with unrest, civil war, and coups. Tolbert had served as Liberia’s president since 1971, when he took over from his predecessor, William Tubman. Tubman had governed the West African country for twenty-seven years before that. Tolbert had no reason to believe that his presidential term would end any time soon.

Liberia was a one-party state, and had been since the country’s founding by freed American slaves, the first of whom arrived in 1820. In 1847, the African American settlers declared Liberia an independent country. Since then, an elite group consisting of the freed slaves’ descendants had governed Liberia, while the country’s native inhabitants had been marginalized. Together with Ethiopia, Liberia is the only African country that has never been a colony.

Early that April morning, Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe snuck into Tolbert’s house with a handful of officers and soldiers, all members of Liberia’s native population. Witnesses have testified that Doe cut out Tolbert’s entrails while he slept, and twenty-six of Tolbert’s supporters were killed in battle. The erstwhile president’s corpse was thrown into a mass grave along with other victims of the coup. On April 22, following brief trials, thirteen ministers were publicly executed. A number of the previous regime’s supporters were also arrested.

The coup set in motion a series of events that cast Liberia into twenty-five years of chaos, leading to two civil wars and numerous colorful heads of state.

In order to become a dictator, you obviously must achieve one thing: power. Easier said than done. There are a limited number of countries on Earth and an abundance of people who crave power and political influence. When you consider the way power has changed hands throughout history, the road to the top can be surprisingly simple. An aspiring dictator has several possibilities. Some receive help from foreign actors, while others are democratically elected. Still others achieve power by chance—by having the right parents or simply being in the right place at the right time—while some are pawns in a game without realizing it.

For most dictator hopefuls, seizing control of a country requires hard work and careful planning. Luckily, there are various paths to dictatorship that fit different countries and situations. If you harbor an inner dictator, you should give diligent thought to how you will achieve your dream. History is full of botched attempts, and a botched attempt can quickly send you into exile or, if you’re less fortunate, into the grave. Luckily, a number of methods have been tried and tested with time, and a handful have a relatively good success rate.

Once you’ve set your sights on dictatorship, it becomes a question of where you should proceed. The most natural choice may be your homeland, but the conditions there might not always be favorable. It is significantly more difficult to become dictator of a country deeply rooted in democracy than of those that already host authoritarian regimes. Dictators generally take over from previous dictators, and one despot typically gives way to a new one. Of course, that rule isn’t set in stone. Take Latin America, where a number of former dictatorships, such as Argentina and Chile, are now well-established democracies. When it comes to Western Europe, Portugal and Spain were dictatorships not too long ago. The Eastern European dictatorships fell even more recently.

Yet, democracy doesn’t always last forever. Vladimir Putin has pulled Russia further away from a well-functioning democracy than it was prior to his tenure. If he doesn’t yet warrant the title of absolute dictator, there is much to suggest that such a status is exactly what he has in mind. In recent years, democratically elected leaders in many Latin American countries have granted themselves broader powers and limited the freedom of the press. That doesn’t necessarily mean these leaders will become dictators––Latin America, after all, has a tradition of wavering between dictatorship and democracy––but they are certainly moving in the same direction taken by previous despots on a quest for absolute power.

Even in Western Europe, democracy cannot be considered secure and everlasting. Modern representative democracy is a relatively new invention, and it is difficult to know how robust it will prove over long periods. There are also instances where people actually surrender power through the democratic process. In 2003, an overwhelming majority of Lichtenstein’s population voted for a constitution giving the Sovereign Prince power to overrule democratic institutions. The Sovereign Prince can veto any law parliament suggests, and he can dissolve the government or boot the ministers. Although Belarus’s president, Aleksandr Lukasjenko, has been called Europe’s last dictator, Prince Hans-Adam II of Lichtenstein might not have far to go to double that number.

In sum, there is no reason to abandon your inner dictator. As we shall see, if your goal is to seize control of a country, there are a number of tried-and-true methods out there.

STAGE A COUP

Samuel Doe’s power grab in Liberia is a classic coup d’état, or simply coup. A coup implies a rapid seizure of power and is usually carried out by a small group within the existing power structure. Typically speaking, coup makers come from the military.

For the last century, coups have been the most common type of power grab. Many people associate the entire Latin American continent with frequent coups, not without reason. In the last one hundred years, there have been forty-five coups and attempted coups in Paraguay alone. Nonetheless, Paraguay appears the image of stability when compared to Bolivia, which has witnessed around two hundred coups since declaring independence in 1825. That is more than one coup per year! Africa has also been particularly susceptible to coups in the last fifty years. Between 1952 and 2000, eighty-five coups were carried out in thirty-three African countries. Forty-two of these coups occurred in West Africa, where Liberia is situated.

Coups are a popular form of power grab, but this method cannot be employed everywhere. Military historian Edward Luttwork observes that the following three factors must be in place to make a coup possible:

Economic Underdevelopment

Impoverished countries are significantly more coup-friendly than rich countries. Poverty is often associated with low public participation in governmental politics. The population is poorly educated, has a high level of illiteracy, and tends to live outside the cities. Power remains in the hands of a small, educated, and affluent elite. A coup in a country where power changes hands among members of the elite, therefore, will have little significance for the average farmer or industry worker. Having lacked all political influence under the previous government, these people will have little reason to oppose a regime change. In contrast, within countries where political influence is spread among a variety of people and institutions, and where more people have something to protect, coups are more difficult to carry out.

Political Independence

In order for a coup to be successful, your target country must be politically independent. After all, it is impossible to seize power if that power is located elsewhere. During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, for example, demonstrators seized control of all Hungarian power centers, including the army, the police, and the public broadcasting units. Unfortunately, the real power was not located in Hungry but rather in Moscow, 160 miles away. The Soviet Union had troops stationed in and around Hungary, beyond the control of the new Hungarian power players. In order for the Hungarian Revolution to have been successful, it needed to have been carried out in Moscow.

Unified Power

To enable a direct seizure of power, power itself must be collected into institutions capable of being centrally coordinated and controlled. If, on the other hand, power is divided among elements that only use the regime as a front, or if it is divided into regional entities that exist independent of some central authority, a coup will be made much more difficult. Early in United States history, when individual states had a significant amount of autonomy, it is questionable whether a coup staged in Washington, DC, would have been successful. In today’s Democratic Republic of Congo, the central authority is so weak that a coup staged in the capital, Kinshasa, would not necessarily give you control over other parts of the country. Somalia, for its part, lacks all central authority and is not, therefore, a regime that could fall victim to a coup attempt.

It follows that the perfect candidate for a coup is an impoverished country where power is located in the hands of a small elite that is largely independent of outside influence. When you have found yourself the perfect country, it is high time to begin planning the event itself. You must be clear on who is loyal enough to be involved, who in the existing power structure will support you, and who is not likely to abandon the existing leader. You also have to plan how you’ll handle any resistance and how to break the news to the populace. In addition, you must be prepared for other countries’ reactions.

Nonetheless, the most important rule of thumb is to have the military on your side. Without military support, a coup is practically impossible.

MUSTER FOREIGN SUPPORT

Mustering foreign support used to be simple. Once upon a time, if you wanted the help of the United States, all you had to do was claim you were trying to prevent the communists from coming to power. Similarly, if you wanted to secure Soviet Union support, you could claim you were fighting the good fight against capitalism. Of course, foreign support can always backfire. When Patrice Lumumba, the first elected prime minster of the newly independent country of Congo, found himself on good footing with the Russians, the Americans became concerned. Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in the Congo, has described how the CIA attempted to assassinate Lumumba via a poisoned tube of smuggled toothpaste, after which they would have installed their own preferred candidate, Mobutu Sese Seko. Luckily for the Americans, Belgian agents and Congolese dissidents beat them to it. On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was assassinated and dumped in an unmarked grave, allowing Mobutu to come to power after all.

Unfortunately, finding support for your coup is no longer as easy as it was during the Cold War. These days, if you want American help, you need to concoct a story about the targeted regime supporting terrorists. On the other hand, if foreign countries cannot help you, there are always mercenaries.

One of the most active mercenaries after World War II was Frenchman Bob Denard. In the course of his career, Denard fought in Congo, Angola, Yemen, Nigeria, and Iran, among other places, often on behalf of France. One of his favorite locations was the island country of Comoros, just off Africa’s east coast, where he participated in four coups. The Comoros is in general a coup-friendly place. Since the country’s independence in 1975, there have been more than twenty coups and coup attempts. Right after Comoros declared itself independent, Denard removed President Ahmed Abdallah and replaced him with France’s chosen man, Ali Soilih. In 1978, Denard was back in the country, this time with support from Rhodesia and South Africa, neither of whom appreciated the leftist direction Soilih’s politics had taken. Along with forty-three soldiers, Denard removed the president and reinstated Abdallah. Soilih was murdered a short time later, presumably by Abdallah’s supporters.

Denard then settled in the Comoros and used the country as a base for military operations on the African mainland. For the next decade, he served as chief of the president’s bodyguard and as Comoros’s de facto leader. However, by 1989, South Africa and France were no longer interested in supporting a mercenary regime. Abdallah was murdered and Denard, who was undoubtedly involved in the assassination, was forced to flee.

In 1995, he was back again. Together with thirty men using inflatable Zodiac boats, Denard entered the country on September 27 and removed President Said Mohamed Djohar. This time, though, France had no intention of letting him escape. On October 3, 1995, French soldiers deployed to the Comoros and arrested Denard. Although he was sentenced to five years in prison for “belonging to a gang who conspired to commit a crime,” he died in 2007 before he could atone.

KEY POWER PLAYERS: PATRIOTIC, DEMOCRATIC, AND HETEROSEXUAL

Now that you’ve secured military and perhaps foreign support, it is time to identify the key power players. Where is the real power located? Who should be arrested? Which components of the police and security forces ought to be neutralized first? It is imperative to achieve control as quickly as possible. The planning must also involve as few people as possible and remain as quiet as possible. If your target’s intelligence gets wind of your plans, it is a simple matter to neutralize your coup before it begins.

During the coup itself, you must quickly seize control of radio and television. Once you’ve come to power, it’s customary to give a speech broadcast on radio and television informing the populace of the power shift. One important note: never use the word “coup.” Instead, describe your power grab as a “revolution,” a fight for human rights, or the resolution of a constitutional crisis. You should also justify your seizure of power with one or more of the following reasons:

We were forced to do it in order to

1. Rid ourselves of corruption and nepotism

2. Protect the constitution

3. Remove a tyrant

4. Introduce democracy

On the morning of April 22, 1990, listeners of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria heard the following official announcement:

On behalf of the patriotic and well-meaning peoples of the Middle Belt and the southern parts of the country, I, Major Gideon Orkar, wish to happily inform you of the successful ousting of the dictatorial, corrupt, drug-baronish, evil man, deceitful, homosexually-centered, prodigalistic, unpatriotic administration of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.

What a shining summary! In this one paragraph, coup-maker Gideon Orkar succeeds in weaving together the charges of dictatorship, corruption, and drug-dealing (expressed through a fine neologism: “drug-baronish”), not to mention general evil. Even sexual orientation is covered. Unfortunately for Orkar, Igrahin Babangida’s regime struck back and crushed the coup. Orkar was duly executed.

Coups, as we see, have long-standing historical traditions. Done right, a coup is a quick and effective means to power. The downside is the price for failure—if your coup fails, most likely your fate will be a dark cell, a long sojourn in another country, or a prompt execution. A coup does not work under all circumstances. Fortunately, there are other ways to the top.

BEER AND SEVERED EARS

The life of the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor resembles a Hollywood action movie. Taylor was born on January 28, 1948, in Arthington, not far from Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. In 1972, he left for the United States to study economics. Once there, he became politically engaged, and during a 1979 state visit by then Liberian president William Tolbert, Taylor led a demonstration against Liberia’s United Nations delegation in New York. He was later arrested for threatening to take over the UN delegation by force. After that, Taylor traveled back to Liberia, where he supported Samuel Doe’s coup against President Tolbert in 1980. As a reward, Taylor was given an important position in Doe’s new regime. Taylor squeezed as much money as he could from the position and was fired in 1983 for embezzling almost a million dollars.

Taylor fled back to the United States but was arrested in Massachusetts on May 24, 1984, and sent to prison to await Liberian extradition. In spectacular Beagle Boys style, he and four other inmates succeeded in escaping from their high-security lockup. They sawed through an iron window bar in an unused laundry room, shimmied down a knotted sheet rope, and climbed a fence to freedom.

Although his four fellow prison breakers were subsequently captured, Taylor succeeded in flying the coop. He traveled to Libya, where he received military training from Muammar Gadhafi. After that, he headed to Liberia’s neighbor, the Ivory Coast, where he founded the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a guerrilla army. In December 1989, he returned to Liberia to remove Doe from office.

Unfortunately for Taylor, a defector from his own guerrilla army beat him to the punch. In September 1990, his former ally Prince Johnson captured the capital of Monrovia and jailed Doe, who, it turns out, was quite superstitious. Johnson’s soldiers removed a number of amulets from Doe, including one sequestered in his anus. A Palestinian journalist was allowed to be present in Johnson’s headquarters to film Doe’s interrogation. In the video, Doe can be seen sitting in his underwear surrounded by soldiers. Across from him sits an obviously drunk Johnson, sipping from a bottle of Budweiser, with a chain of hand grenades around his neck, while a woman fans him with a hand towel. At one point, Johnson strikes the table with his fist and orders a person to cut off Doe’s ear. Several soldiers hold the ex-president down while his ear is removed. In one version of the video, Johnson appears to eat parts of the severed ear. Doe was hauled away and killed, and Johnson declared himself President of Liberia. Afterward, Johnson proudly showed this brutal video to foreign journalists visiting his headquarters, and it was broadcast on television the world over.

Of course, Johnson’s presidential term did not last many days, and the Liberian civil war resumed. Even though Johnson himself was unsuccessful, his road to power was a time-honored path. Many of today’s sitting dictators started their careers with the weaponized opposition to a ruling regime, an occupying power, or a colonial state.

THE MAO METHOD

Coming to power via guerrilla warfare has its pros and cons. It requires patience—a liberation war, after all, can last decades. It is usually a violent method, with significant numbers of killed and wounded soldiers on both sides, not to mention civ...