2006 not year of dictator
TIMES WIRESPublished December 31, 2006
Capped by the execution of Saddam Hussein, 2006 was a rough year for former dictators.
Hussein was the fifth former dictator to die this year, although the other four died of natural causes.
-Slobodan Milosevic, one-time president of the former Yugoslavia, died of a heart attack March 11 in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands, before a verdict in his war crimes trial.
-Augusto Pinochet, Chile's dictator from 1973 to 1990, died of heart failure Dec. 10. More than 300 human rights and embezzlement charges were pending against him at the time of his death.
-P.W. Botha, South Africa's president during the violent 1980s, died in his sleep Oct. 31. He was viewed as a dictator by the country's black majority, which suffered abuses under apartheid.
-Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay's dictator for 35 years, died of pneumonia in Brazil on Aug. 16. He fled Paraguay after being overthrown in 1989.