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As the Bush Admin blows smoke up the ass of Americans about how we just took the moral high ground and saved the world from an evil man (and 90% of you to buy into it) lets not forgot about some of the SCUM that we have supported and actually brought into power over the years and who REMAIN in power...think about this as some of you proclaim how righteous this country is....just a sample..
30 MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI
Shah of Iran, King of Kings
1953 was a busy year for Allen Dulles. Even as he readied the CIA for a coup in Guatemala (see card 9), his agents were toppling the liberal left government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq and paving the way for the Shah of Iran. With Dulles' encouragement, the Shah made the Iranian people an offer they couldn't refuse - join his party or go to jail. Thousands who refused to yield were imprisoned or murdered. During regional elections in 1954, the Shah's agents raided a religious school and hurled hundreds of students to their deaths from the roof. His regime received 100% of the vote that year, in an election which registered more votes than there were voters.
The Shah's subsequent solidification of power led to an iron fisted rule enforced by fear and torture. His secret police agency, SAVAK, was created in 1957 and managed by the CIA at all levels of daily operation, including the choice and organization of personnel, selection and operation of equipment, and the running of agents. SAVAK's torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails.
Iran under the Shah became a devoted U.S. ally and a base for spy operations on the border of the Soviet Union. But eventually the Shah was overthrown in 1978 by an indigenous people's revolution that held sway until fundamentalist religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile and reasserted his power during the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis
13 GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET
President of Chile
On July 2, 1986, 18 year old Carmen Gloria Quintana was walking through a Santiago slum when she and photographer Rodrigo Rojas were confronted by government security forces. According to eyewitnesses, the two were set ablaze by soldiers and beaten while they burned. Their bodies were then wrapped in blankets and dumped in a ditch miles away. Witnesses who spoke out about what they saw were beaten and arrested. Such events are not unusual since "Captain General" Augusto Pinochet seized power from democratically elected President Salvador Allende in 1973, and buried Chile's 150 year old democracy. "Democracy is the breeding ground of communism," says Pinochet.
The bloody coup, in which Allende was assassinated, was carefully managed by the CIA and ITT, according to the Church Committee report. Tens of thousands of Chileans have been tortured, killed, and exiled since then, according to Amnesty Intemational. A U.S. congressional delegation was told by inmates at San Miguel Prison that they had been tortured by "the application of electric shock, simultaneous blows to the ears, cigarette burns, and simulated executions by firing squads." Despite Chile's bad human rights record, the U.S. government continued to support Pinochet with international loans. Even the state-sponsored car-bomb assassination of Chile's former Ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier, did not convince the U.S. to break with Pinochet. Chileans called for his removal in a 1988 election, but he clung to the presidency until 1990, and remains the commander of Chile's army.
8 GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA
President of Argentina
Soon after the coup that brought him to power in 1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla began Argentina's dirty war. All political and union activities were suspended, wages were reduced by 60%, and dissidents were tortured by Nazi and U.S. trained military and police. Survivors say the torture rooms contained swastikas and pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. One year after Videla's coup, Amnesty International estimated 15,000 people had disappeared and many were in secret detention camps, but although the U.S. press admitted human rights abuses occurred in Argentina, Videla was often described as a "moderate" who revitalized his nation's troubled economy. Videla had a good public relations firm in the U.S., Deaver and Hannalord, the same firm used by Ronad Reagan, Taiwan, and Guatemala. Not surprisingly, his Economics Minister, Jose Martinez do Hoz, spoke, at Deaver's request, on one of President Reagan's national broadcasts in order to upgrade Argentina's reputation.
Videla also received aid from WACL, the World Anti-Communist League (see card 17), through its affiliale, CAL (Confederation Anticomunista Latinoamericana). CAL sent millions of dollars to Argentina from sources such as the Italo-Argentine Masonic Lodge P-2, an outgrowth of old U.S. anti-communist alliances with the Italian drug malia. As part of its WACL affiliation, Argentina trained Nicaraguan contras for the U.S. Videla left office in 1981, and aftar the Falklands Crisis of 1982 he and his cohorts were tried for human rights abuses by the new government.
5 GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO
President of Brazil
In 1961, Time magazine called Brazil's domestic politics "confused" and said the country was "also adrift in foreign affairs". What Time seemed to mean was that Brazilian President Jaao Goulart's policies were unacceptable to the U.S. Goulart sought to trade with communist nations, supported the labor movement, and had limited the profits muftinationals could take out of the country. Although high ranking U.S. intelligence personnel such as Defense Attache (and later Deputy Director of the CIA) Vernon Walters, deny the U.S. took part in the 1964 overthrow of Goulart by General Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, there is evidence to the contrary. For example, right before the coup, U.S. officials cabled Washington a request for oil for Branco's soldiers in case Goulart's troops blew up the refineries.
Branco's regime was short but brutal. Labor unions were banned, criticism of the President became unlawful, and thousands of "suspected communists" (including children) were arrested and tortured. As in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia (see cards 12, 8, and 6), land was stolen from native Indians and their culture was destroyed. Drug dealers, many of them government officials, were given protection because they maintained "national security interests". Brazil formed ties with WACL (see card 17) and assisted General Videla in his takeover of Argentina (see card 8). When Branco stepped down in 1967, he left behind a constitution with greatly increased military and executve powers, crippling Brazil's efforts to restore democracy.
3 FULGENCIO BATISTA
President of Cuba
Cuban Army Sergeant Fulgencio Batiste, first seized power in a 1932 coup. He was FDR's handpicked dictator to counteract leftists who had overthrown strongman Gerardo Machado, "the Butcher". Batista ruled for several years, then left for Miami, returning in 1952 just in time for another coup, against elected president Carlos Prio Socorras. His new regime was recognized in a flash by President Eisenhower.
Under Batista, U.S. interests flourished and little was said about democracy. With the loyal support of Batista, Mafioso boss Meyer Lansky developed Havana into an international drug port. Cabinet offices were bought and sold and military officials made huge sums on smuggling and vice rackets. Havana became a fashionable hot spot where America's rich and famous clinked cocktails with mobsters.
As the gap between the rich and poor grew wider, the poor grew impatient. In 1953, Fidel Castro led an armed group of rebels in a failed uprising on the Moncada army barracks. Fidel temporarily fled the country and Batista struck back with a vengeance. Freedom of speech was curtailed and "subversive" teachers, lawyers and public officials were fired from their jobs. Death squads tortured and killed thousands of "communists." Batista was assisted in his crackdown by Lansky and other members of organized crime who believed Castro would jeopardize their gambling and drug trade. Despite this, Batista remained a friend to Eisenhower and the U.S. until he was finally overthrown by Castro in 1959.
11 FRANÇOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER
Presidents-for-Life of Haiti
In 1957 François "Papa Doc" Duvalier became Haiti's President-for-Life, establishing a strategic relationship with the U.S. that lasted into the 1970s, when he was succeeded by his son Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. During their 30 year rule, 60,000 Haitians were killed and countless more were tortured by the Duvaliers' Tonton Macoutes death squads, but in 1969, after 13 years of murderous rule by Papa Doc, U.S. Ambassador Clinton Knox shook hands with the dictator and called for increased aid to Haiti. PapaDoc made him an honorary Tonton Macoute. While Haiti became the poorest country in the Westem hemisphere, the Duvaliers enriched themselves by stealing foreign aid money. In 1980, for instance, the International Monetary Fund granted Haiti a $22 million budget supplement. Within weeks, $16 million was "unaccounted for," presumably in Baby Doc's bank account.
Papa Doc liked to compare himself to Christ and adapted the Lord's Prayer to read "Our Doc who art in the National Palace for life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations." Baby Doc, on the other hand, made Haiti into a trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine. He allegedly let his father-in-law use Haiti's national airline to ship drugs to the U.S., and his brother-in-law was convicted of cocaine trafficking by a Puerto Rican court. Nevertheless, as long as Papa and Baby Doc were anti-communists, they could do no wrong in the U.S. government's eyes. Their regime finally ended in 1986, when Baby Doc fled angry mobs of Haitians for the comfort of a Parisian villa, where he now resides.
14 GENERAL MANUEL NORIEGA
Chief of Defense Forces, Panama
The U.S. command post for covert Latin American operations is located in the Canal Zone where a series of figurehead presidents, some backed by General Manual Noriega, have involved Panama in U.S. intelligence operations. Noriega first met with then CIA Director George Bush in 1976 while Noriega was collecting $100 thousand a year as a CIA asset.Their friendly relationship persisted even after Noriegas' drug dealing was revealed by a 1975 DEA investigation. During the Reagan era, Noriega collaborated with Oliver North on covert actions against Nicaragua, training contras and providing a trans-shipment point for CIA supported operations that flew weapons to the contras and cocaine into the U.S.
Eventually Noriega refused to participate in further anti-Sandinista actions. In 1987, a Miami grand jury indicted him for drug-tradicking and the CIA tried to destabilize his regime. Noriega wamed Bush that he had information which could change the course of the 1988 U.S. elections and the CIA backed off, but when Noriega "annulled" Panama's 1989 elections, citing CIA interference, Bush renewed attempts to unseat his one-time ally. Critics called Bush's failure to support an abortive 1989 coup "indecisive," but his response to that criticism, the December 1989 invasion of Panama, led to world condemnation. Noriega eventually surrendered to face U.S. drug charges, but under the guise of apprehending one drug dealer, the invasion led to over 1,000 Panamanian deaths and installed a regime with similar close links to drugs, plus a willingness to alter Panama Canal treaties to suit U.S. interests.
27 P. W. BOTHA
President of South Africa
P.W. Botha's first term as President was aptly called a "constitutional coup d'etat" by the South African press. The former Secretary of Defense altered the structure of government, giving the military and police unprecedented power. To justify this, he pointed to increasingly vocal discontent among South Africa's disenfranchised blacks, the large number of black states in Africa, and a so-called "growing Marxist" threat in the region. South Africa, he said, was engaged in a "total war" and must develop a "total strategy" to fight the battle.
South Africa's apartheid regime is quietly supported by the U.S. government, for, despite a U.N. boycott and Congressional efforts to reduce U.S. investment there, Ronald Reagan significantly increased military expenditures in the country. But few Americans realize that Botha's "total strategy" against blacks has turned his nation into a ruthless aggressor.
When Portugal withdrew from its colonies in Mozambique and Angola (see card no. 34), Botha, claiming he wanted to strengthen capitalism on the continent, financed the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR) against the country's popular government. The MNR, who receive direct training from South Africa, cut off the ears, noses, and limbs of civilians. After killing their parents and raping young women in front of 10 year old boys, they recruit these boys to fight. "Children do what we want them to do," they claim. "Adults defect."
In 1989, P.W. Botha suffered a stroke and later resigned. In early 1990 his successor, F.W. De Klerk, legalized political opposition parties and freed several important black political prisoners, while still upholding apartheid as the law of the land.
18 NGO DINH DIEM
President of South Viet Nam
Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh [the communist leader]." Yet Diem, who had once lived in the U.S., had connections in Washington who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP), a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three (whom one U.S. official called "three victims of blank wall irrationality") were notorious for their ineptitude and cruelty, and, according to Brigadier General Edward Lansdale, the CLP was not their idea; it "was originally promoted by the U.S. Stale Department" to rid the country of communists.
Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition to his regime. He alienated peasants by cancelling their age old local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire. which even U.S. officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to "concentration camps." Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because he promoted on the basis of loyalty - not merit. In an effort to keep Diem in power, the U.S. tried to persuade him to make political reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make "military reforms." But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the U.S., which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.
34 ANTONIO DE OLIVEIRA SALAZAR
Prime Minister of Portugal
Antonio de Oliveira Salazar must have been upset when the Allies won the WW II and he had to take the autographed picture of his hero, Benito Mussolini, off his desk. Salazar worshiped Hitler and Mussolini, but after they lost, he joined the Allies and became a card carrying member of NATO. However, he always kept a piece of fascism alive in Portugal. His secret police, the PIDE, were much like the Gestapo; concentration camps were set up for "enemies of the state"; news organizations were merely propaganda machines; and all schools had their lesson plans carefully monitored by Big Brother. Salazar also kept a little piece of the dark ages alive in Western Europe. In 1970, 30% of the population was illiterate, and the infant mortality rate was the second worst in Europe. The Portuguese economy stagnated. Most of the land was held by 5% of the population, the vast majority of Portuguese were working in agriculture, and all union activities were forbidden.
Portugal was the last stronghold of European colonialism. Salazar refused to give up colonies in East Timor, Portuguese Guiana, Mozambique, and Angola. He believed "the "white man" must bring higher civilization to the "black man". The U.S. openly backed Portugal's colonial claims due to the strategic importance of military bases such as the one in the Portuguese Azores.
Salazar died in 1968, after 40 years in power. His regime fell in 1974, at which point Portugal left Angola, but the U.S. continued to back South African efforts there (see card 27).
30 MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI
Shah of Iran, King of Kings
1953 was a busy year for Allen Dulles. Even as he readied the CIA for a coup in Guatemala (see card 9), his agents were toppling the liberal left government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq and paving the way for the Shah of Iran. With Dulles' encouragement, the Shah made the Iranian people an offer they couldn't refuse - join his party or go to jail. Thousands who refused to yield were imprisoned or murdered. During regional elections in 1954, the Shah's agents raided a religious school and hurled hundreds of students to their deaths from the roof. His regime received 100% of the vote that year, in an election which registered more votes than there were voters.
The Shah's subsequent solidification of power led to an iron fisted rule enforced by fear and torture. His secret police agency, SAVAK, was created in 1957 and managed by the CIA at all levels of daily operation, including the choice and organization of personnel, selection and operation of equipment, and the running of agents. SAVAK's torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails.
Iran under the Shah became a devoted U.S. ally and a base for spy operations on the border of the Soviet Union. But eventually the Shah was overthrown in 1978 by an indigenous people's revolution that held sway until fundamentalist religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile and reasserted his power during the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis
13 GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET
President of Chile
On July 2, 1986, 18 year old Carmen Gloria Quintana was walking through a Santiago slum when she and photographer Rodrigo Rojas were confronted by government security forces. According to eyewitnesses, the two were set ablaze by soldiers and beaten while they burned. Their bodies were then wrapped in blankets and dumped in a ditch miles away. Witnesses who spoke out about what they saw were beaten and arrested. Such events are not unusual since "Captain General" Augusto Pinochet seized power from democratically elected President Salvador Allende in 1973, and buried Chile's 150 year old democracy. "Democracy is the breeding ground of communism," says Pinochet.
The bloody coup, in which Allende was assassinated, was carefully managed by the CIA and ITT, according to the Church Committee report. Tens of thousands of Chileans have been tortured, killed, and exiled since then, according to Amnesty Intemational. A U.S. congressional delegation was told by inmates at San Miguel Prison that they had been tortured by "the application of electric shock, simultaneous blows to the ears, cigarette burns, and simulated executions by firing squads." Despite Chile's bad human rights record, the U.S. government continued to support Pinochet with international loans. Even the state-sponsored car-bomb assassination of Chile's former Ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier, did not convince the U.S. to break with Pinochet. Chileans called for his removal in a 1988 election, but he clung to the presidency until 1990, and remains the commander of Chile's army.
8 GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA
President of Argentina
Soon after the coup that brought him to power in 1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla began Argentina's dirty war. All political and union activities were suspended, wages were reduced by 60%, and dissidents were tortured by Nazi and U.S. trained military and police. Survivors say the torture rooms contained swastikas and pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. One year after Videla's coup, Amnesty International estimated 15,000 people had disappeared and many were in secret detention camps, but although the U.S. press admitted human rights abuses occurred in Argentina, Videla was often described as a "moderate" who revitalized his nation's troubled economy. Videla had a good public relations firm in the U.S., Deaver and Hannalord, the same firm used by Ronad Reagan, Taiwan, and Guatemala. Not surprisingly, his Economics Minister, Jose Martinez do Hoz, spoke, at Deaver's request, on one of President Reagan's national broadcasts in order to upgrade Argentina's reputation.
Videla also received aid from WACL, the World Anti-Communist League (see card 17), through its affiliale, CAL (Confederation Anticomunista Latinoamericana). CAL sent millions of dollars to Argentina from sources such as the Italo-Argentine Masonic Lodge P-2, an outgrowth of old U.S. anti-communist alliances with the Italian drug malia. As part of its WACL affiliation, Argentina trained Nicaraguan contras for the U.S. Videla left office in 1981, and aftar the Falklands Crisis of 1982 he and his cohorts were tried for human rights abuses by the new government.
5 GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO
President of Brazil
In 1961, Time magazine called Brazil's domestic politics "confused" and said the country was "also adrift in foreign affairs". What Time seemed to mean was that Brazilian President Jaao Goulart's policies were unacceptable to the U.S. Goulart sought to trade with communist nations, supported the labor movement, and had limited the profits muftinationals could take out of the country. Although high ranking U.S. intelligence personnel such as Defense Attache (and later Deputy Director of the CIA) Vernon Walters, deny the U.S. took part in the 1964 overthrow of Goulart by General Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, there is evidence to the contrary. For example, right before the coup, U.S. officials cabled Washington a request for oil for Branco's soldiers in case Goulart's troops blew up the refineries.
Branco's regime was short but brutal. Labor unions were banned, criticism of the President became unlawful, and thousands of "suspected communists" (including children) were arrested and tortured. As in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia (see cards 12, 8, and 6), land was stolen from native Indians and their culture was destroyed. Drug dealers, many of them government officials, were given protection because they maintained "national security interests". Brazil formed ties with WACL (see card 17) and assisted General Videla in his takeover of Argentina (see card 8). When Branco stepped down in 1967, he left behind a constitution with greatly increased military and executve powers, crippling Brazil's efforts to restore democracy.
3 FULGENCIO BATISTA
President of Cuba
Cuban Army Sergeant Fulgencio Batiste, first seized power in a 1932 coup. He was FDR's handpicked dictator to counteract leftists who had overthrown strongman Gerardo Machado, "the Butcher". Batista ruled for several years, then left for Miami, returning in 1952 just in time for another coup, against elected president Carlos Prio Socorras. His new regime was recognized in a flash by President Eisenhower.
Under Batista, U.S. interests flourished and little was said about democracy. With the loyal support of Batista, Mafioso boss Meyer Lansky developed Havana into an international drug port. Cabinet offices were bought and sold and military officials made huge sums on smuggling and vice rackets. Havana became a fashionable hot spot where America's rich and famous clinked cocktails with mobsters.
As the gap between the rich and poor grew wider, the poor grew impatient. In 1953, Fidel Castro led an armed group of rebels in a failed uprising on the Moncada army barracks. Fidel temporarily fled the country and Batista struck back with a vengeance. Freedom of speech was curtailed and "subversive" teachers, lawyers and public officials were fired from their jobs. Death squads tortured and killed thousands of "communists." Batista was assisted in his crackdown by Lansky and other members of organized crime who believed Castro would jeopardize their gambling and drug trade. Despite this, Batista remained a friend to Eisenhower and the U.S. until he was finally overthrown by Castro in 1959.
11 FRANÇOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER
Presidents-for-Life of Haiti
In 1957 François "Papa Doc" Duvalier became Haiti's President-for-Life, establishing a strategic relationship with the U.S. that lasted into the 1970s, when he was succeeded by his son Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. During their 30 year rule, 60,000 Haitians were killed and countless more were tortured by the Duvaliers' Tonton Macoutes death squads, but in 1969, after 13 years of murderous rule by Papa Doc, U.S. Ambassador Clinton Knox shook hands with the dictator and called for increased aid to Haiti. PapaDoc made him an honorary Tonton Macoute. While Haiti became the poorest country in the Westem hemisphere, the Duvaliers enriched themselves by stealing foreign aid money. In 1980, for instance, the International Monetary Fund granted Haiti a $22 million budget supplement. Within weeks, $16 million was "unaccounted for," presumably in Baby Doc's bank account.
Papa Doc liked to compare himself to Christ and adapted the Lord's Prayer to read "Our Doc who art in the National Palace for life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations." Baby Doc, on the other hand, made Haiti into a trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine. He allegedly let his father-in-law use Haiti's national airline to ship drugs to the U.S., and his brother-in-law was convicted of cocaine trafficking by a Puerto Rican court. Nevertheless, as long as Papa and Baby Doc were anti-communists, they could do no wrong in the U.S. government's eyes. Their regime finally ended in 1986, when Baby Doc fled angry mobs of Haitians for the comfort of a Parisian villa, where he now resides.
14 GENERAL MANUEL NORIEGA
Chief of Defense Forces, Panama
The U.S. command post for covert Latin American operations is located in the Canal Zone where a series of figurehead presidents, some backed by General Manual Noriega, have involved Panama in U.S. intelligence operations. Noriega first met with then CIA Director George Bush in 1976 while Noriega was collecting $100 thousand a year as a CIA asset.Their friendly relationship persisted even after Noriegas' drug dealing was revealed by a 1975 DEA investigation. During the Reagan era, Noriega collaborated with Oliver North on covert actions against Nicaragua, training contras and providing a trans-shipment point for CIA supported operations that flew weapons to the contras and cocaine into the U.S.
Eventually Noriega refused to participate in further anti-Sandinista actions. In 1987, a Miami grand jury indicted him for drug-tradicking and the CIA tried to destabilize his regime. Noriega wamed Bush that he had information which could change the course of the 1988 U.S. elections and the CIA backed off, but when Noriega "annulled" Panama's 1989 elections, citing CIA interference, Bush renewed attempts to unseat his one-time ally. Critics called Bush's failure to support an abortive 1989 coup "indecisive," but his response to that criticism, the December 1989 invasion of Panama, led to world condemnation. Noriega eventually surrendered to face U.S. drug charges, but under the guise of apprehending one drug dealer, the invasion led to over 1,000 Panamanian deaths and installed a regime with similar close links to drugs, plus a willingness to alter Panama Canal treaties to suit U.S. interests.
27 P. W. BOTHA
President of South Africa
P.W. Botha's first term as President was aptly called a "constitutional coup d'etat" by the South African press. The former Secretary of Defense altered the structure of government, giving the military and police unprecedented power. To justify this, he pointed to increasingly vocal discontent among South Africa's disenfranchised blacks, the large number of black states in Africa, and a so-called "growing Marxist" threat in the region. South Africa, he said, was engaged in a "total war" and must develop a "total strategy" to fight the battle.
South Africa's apartheid regime is quietly supported by the U.S. government, for, despite a U.N. boycott and Congressional efforts to reduce U.S. investment there, Ronald Reagan significantly increased military expenditures in the country. But few Americans realize that Botha's "total strategy" against blacks has turned his nation into a ruthless aggressor.
When Portugal withdrew from its colonies in Mozambique and Angola (see card no. 34), Botha, claiming he wanted to strengthen capitalism on the continent, financed the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR) against the country's popular government. The MNR, who receive direct training from South Africa, cut off the ears, noses, and limbs of civilians. After killing their parents and raping young women in front of 10 year old boys, they recruit these boys to fight. "Children do what we want them to do," they claim. "Adults defect."
In 1989, P.W. Botha suffered a stroke and later resigned. In early 1990 his successor, F.W. De Klerk, legalized political opposition parties and freed several important black political prisoners, while still upholding apartheid as the law of the land.
18 NGO DINH DIEM
President of South Viet Nam
Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh [the communist leader]." Yet Diem, who had once lived in the U.S., had connections in Washington who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP), a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three (whom one U.S. official called "three victims of blank wall irrationality") were notorious for their ineptitude and cruelty, and, according to Brigadier General Edward Lansdale, the CLP was not their idea; it "was originally promoted by the U.S. Stale Department" to rid the country of communists.
Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition to his regime. He alienated peasants by cancelling their age old local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire. which even U.S. officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to "concentration camps." Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because he promoted on the basis of loyalty - not merit. In an effort to keep Diem in power, the U.S. tried to persuade him to make political reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make "military reforms." But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the U.S., which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.
34 ANTONIO DE OLIVEIRA SALAZAR
Prime Minister of Portugal
Antonio de Oliveira Salazar must have been upset when the Allies won the WW II and he had to take the autographed picture of his hero, Benito Mussolini, off his desk. Salazar worshiped Hitler and Mussolini, but after they lost, he joined the Allies and became a card carrying member of NATO. However, he always kept a piece of fascism alive in Portugal. His secret police, the PIDE, were much like the Gestapo; concentration camps were set up for "enemies of the state"; news organizations were merely propaganda machines; and all schools had their lesson plans carefully monitored by Big Brother. Salazar also kept a little piece of the dark ages alive in Western Europe. In 1970, 30% of the population was illiterate, and the infant mortality rate was the second worst in Europe. The Portuguese economy stagnated. Most of the land was held by 5% of the population, the vast majority of Portuguese were working in agriculture, and all union activities were forbidden.
Portugal was the last stronghold of European colonialism. Salazar refused to give up colonies in East Timor, Portuguese Guiana, Mozambique, and Angola. He believed "the "white man" must bring higher civilization to the "black man". The U.S. openly backed Portugal's colonial claims due to the strategic importance of military bases such as the one in the Portuguese Azores.
Salazar died in 1968, after 40 years in power. His regime fell in 1974, at which point Portugal left Angola, but the U.S. continued to back South African efforts there (see card 27).
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