
Deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad joins a succession of autocratic Arab leaders ousted from power since the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. His peers in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen were variously toppled, imprisoned, killed or exiled as he clung to power.
Assad fled Syria early Sunday and has since sought refuge in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin granted him asylum, adding the longtime despot to the list of dictators who have found sanctuary around the world, including in the United States.
For some, life in exile was luxurious, as Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos discovered when he was overthrown in 1986 and ended up living out his final years in a private mansion near Honolulu. For others, however, their ousters portend more modest economic circumstances and criminal charges – as international prosecutors pursue them wherever they are.
Here’s how some of the world’s dictators spent their days in exile.
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Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, former president of Tunisia
Ben Ali, Tunisia’s former strongman president, fled to Saudi Arabia with his family in January 2011, a month after the Arab Spring protests began. Their exit was hurried – and seemingly unplanned; family members crammed suitcases and handbags with U.S. dollars and gold bars and fled to France, Italy and the Persian Gulf in private jets and yachts.
Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison for economic crimes. In a 2016 statement, he admitted that his regime had committed “errors, abuses and violations.” Tunisia sold his villa and hundreds of other properties, businesses, cars, motorcycles and a yacht. But that didn’t fully account for the billions believed to have been siphoned into offshore bank accounts over decades. Ben Ali died in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in September 2019.
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Idi Amin, Uganda’s ‘President for Life’
Idi Amin, Uganda’s tyrannical president, also found sanctuary in the Middle East after he was overthrown in 1979. He fled first to Libya (with his four wives, several of his 30 mistresses and about 20 of his children), where he was welcomed by Moammar Gaddafi, whose own brutal and unpredictable rule continued until he was killed amid the turmoil of the Arab Spring in 2011.
Amin later resided in Saudi Arabia, where he lived an unremarkable, middle-class life until he died in 2003, apparently still bitter about his country’s rejection and without remorse for the more than 200,000 Ugandans tortured to death or executed during his reign of terror.
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Hissène Habré of Chad
Former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré enjoyed a life of splendor for decades in Senegal. He married a second wife and kept two villas for his two families. He watched “Seinfeld.” He developed a taste for thieboudienne, the national dish of fish and rice, the Associated Press reported. And he made friends in exile – some of whom told the AP the man they knew was hard to square with the brutal dictator they had heard about. There were moments his aggressive side came through, though, such as when Habré got into a bitter feud with a neighbor over the use of his garbage can.
After coming to power in a 1982 coup, Habré led an administration that carried out torture and political killings. His regime operated a network of prisons where 40,000 people died. Deposed in 1990, Habré, sometimes called “Africa’s Pinochet,” is said to have left Chad with $11 million, but his opulent exile was no saving grace. Convicted of crimes against humanity in 2016 after a landmark trial, he was sentenced to life in prison and died after contracting covid-19 in 2021.
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Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti
When Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier fled in 1986 – after 15 years in power marked by plunder, torture and widespread killing – he flew to France with truckloads of Louis Vuitton luggage and millions of dollars in Swiss banks, intending to only pass through. But after several countries said they wouldn’t accept him, he settled down in a chateau outside Paris and a villa on the French Riviera, where he was known to speed around in luxury cars. He and his family spent exorbitantly – including tens of thousands of dollars on Givenchy clothes, the Guardian reported in 2011.
After Duvalier and his wife divorced in the early ’90s, his exile took a turn. By 1994, the Associated Press reported that his “fast cars and a fast life have been replaced by a small sedan and seclusion.” He eventually wound up living in a two-bedroom apartment, funded by loyal supporters. Duvalier returned to Haiti in 2011, three years before his death, and was arrested on charges of embezzlement and other crimes but continued living in a high-end hotel in Port-au-Prince.
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Syngman Rhee of South Korea
South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, rose to power with the backing of the American government, but his administration was no shining example of democracy. As president from 1948 to 1960, Rhee purged the National Assembly of members who opposed him and oversaw bloody suppressions, including on Jeju Island, where more than 30,000 people are believed to have been killed during a years-long rebellion that began in April 1948.
When protests in 1960 brought about the end of his rule, Rhee took refuge in Hawaii. He lived in a tiny cottage overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Oahu, hosted by a fellow Korean who owned a landscaping business, according to the New York Times. With no income, he and his wife had a difficult time, a former director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency told Korean media while recounting a visit with Rhee. Rhee yearned to return to Korea – he even once injured himself trying to get out of bed and demanding to go to Seoul – but he died in exile in 1965.
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Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines
Fleeing dictators typically avoid democratic states, analysts say. But there have been exceptions when autocrats fled into the arms of a major-power ally or former colonizer. Ferdinand Marcos was persuaded by the United States to leave the Philippines and avoid a brutal crackdown on demonstrators protesting a rigged election in 1986, allowing for a peaceful transition to democratic rule.
His reward was a lavish life in Hawaii, where his wife Imelda’s opulent parties dazzled locals. Marcos owned an armored Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL limousine, according to court documents relating to his estate. Washington had indulged Marcos for years to protect its military base in the Philippines – despite allegations of human rights abuses and corruption. Imelda Marcos’s expansive wardrobe alone – left behind as they fled – included thousands of pairs of shoes, dresses, handbags and furs. Marcos suffered from ill health and died in exile in 1989. His son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was elected president of the Philippines in 2022.
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Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after violent anti-government protests this summer that left hundreds dead. The protests began with students pushing back against a quota system for government jobs but boiled over into a broad rejection of Hasina’s autocratic regime.
Hasina was expected to stay in India for a short time but has now been in the country for months. As of November, she was reported to be living in a high-security area in Delhi in a bungalow that acts as a safe house, according to India Today. Hasina’s arrangements have proved so diplomatically awkward for India, which fears losing regional influence to China, that French paper Le Monde called her “India’s cumbersome guest.”
(c) Washington Post