Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, a former dictator of Haiti, is back in Haiti and back in the news. He has, well, run into some difficulties, including incarceration, and his difficulties bring up some interesting questions.
Some helpful background is provided by The National Post's Araminta Wordsworth, who discusses the lives of the ex-dictators of yesterday and today:
It used to be a familiar scenario. An aging dictator is ejected from his homeland by a coup. He flees to a foreign bolt hole where he lives in luxury on the proceeds of ill-gotten gains stolen in his years of power. Then, in the fullness of time, he dies in his bed.Think Idi Amin of Uganda and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, who became guests of Saudi Arabia and Morocco respectively. Or Ferdinand Marcos after departing the Philippines.
While it's certainly infuriating when someone who's destroyed many lives lives in luxury to the natural end of his own, this new trend might be bad news. Dictators are people, and people respond to incentives. It's a heck of a lot easier to convince a dictator to give up power if he or she will be trading it for life in a villa in the Alps, rather than a jail cell.
An example: Augusto Pinochet killed, imprisoned or exiled his political competition, for which he should have faced justice. However, if other dictators had been or were being prosecuted at that time - if he knew he'd face justice at home and abroad (thanks to the ICC and 'universal jurisdiction' laws in Spain and elsewhere) - Pinochet may not have exited as he did: gradually and peacefully stepping aside throughout the 1980s as Chile transitioned to democracy. In the same way, his own post-power tribulations might mean longer tenures and bloodier transitions for today's dictatorships. The just desire to see former dictators punished might have to be sacrificed for the benefit of those living under current ones.
I suppose it's true that if the choice is between exit-to-luxury and exit-to-prison, then removing the luxury exit does significantly reduce a dictator's incentive to leave power. As you anticipate, my sense of justice recoils at this. Perhaps to assuage my admittedly unpragmatic desire for righteous judgment without also condemning the dictator's subjects to more misery, we (whoever that is) could simply offer the dictator a different choice, and ask the bastard to decide between exit-to-prison and a laser-guided cruise missile.
ReplyDeleteThat was deeply unserious, yet regrettably satisfying. Like watching Bruce Willis in "Tears of the Sun."
More seriously: if the opportunity to retire to a villa serves as an incentive for dictators to leave power, it also motivates them to take power in the first place. While leaving that option open may indeed prevent further suffering in the short term, it might also cause further suffering down the road, when the next would-be bastard starts angling for his own Saudi Arabian penthouse.
I think you're completely right in your two main points: 1) that there are other options besides jail or comfy exhile, and 2) that impunity incentives work the other way too, and impunity for dictators could create more suffering.
ReplyDeleteMore so than motivating dictators "to take power in the first place" - as you put it - I think an understanding of impunity can motivate them to take actions they wouldn't while in power. Perhaps this is just splitting hairs. The example I have in mind is Fujimori. I don't think the pattern of impunity for former dictators incentivized (incented?) his taking power, but if may have contributed to his disregard for more law abiding ways of addressing the Shining Path and other terrorist groups. I was speaking with some Peruvians the other day, and I got the impressions that they were ambivalent about him. He restored security and set the stage for prosperity, but, well, he was lawless and cruel. Perhaps if he knew he'd get his comeupance, he'd have found a way to restore stability without stepping on human rights.