It won’t last forever

A handful of despots, such as North Korea’s Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il, succeeded in dying in office, with the next generation carrying on the dynasty. Kim Jong-un, who might yet trigger Armageddon, could also die in power, unless perhaps US President Donald Trump does something more drastic than calling him “short and fat.”

The majority of despots, however, were driven out of power, publicly lynched like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, or executed by the succeeding regime, such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Some, like the Khmer Rouge’s Pol Pot, either committed suicide or were poisoned.

Certain individuals in the Philippines who are currently behaving as if they are masters of the universe may want to keep this in mind. Power doesn’t last forever.

Thanks to our weak justice system, those who are abusing their authority may be able to get away with large-scale corruption. But mass execution is another story, and complaints could go all the way to the UN. The eager perpetrators will not always be protected by their powerful patrons.

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In the age of the United Nations, individuals and their key commanders who resort to mass murder as an instrument of national policy can be haled before an international court, convicted and sent to prison for life for crimes against humanity.

This was the case with the Bosnian Croats who were arrested and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats.

Former Croatian assistant defense minister Slobodan Praljak was one of six Bosnian Croat leaders who were sentenced by the court in May 2013 for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from 1992 to 1994.

Last week, after the tribunal affirmed the verdict as it wrapped up the war crimes case, Praljak drank poison in court and died soon after.

His death followed that of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who was arrested by Yugoslav authorities in April 2001 on charges of corruption, embezzlement and abuse of power. The Yugoslav court failed to convict Milosevic on these charges, but it handed him over to The Hague for the war crimes trial.

Milosevic died of a heart attack in his cell at the tribunal’s detention center in The Hague in the Netherlands in March 2006, before a verdict could be handed down in his case. A year later, he and several other Serbs were found guilty of failing to stop the genocide and to punish those responsible particularly military chief Ratko Mladic. Arrested in 2011 and subsequently tried by the tribunal, Mladic was convicted in November last year and faces life in prison.

Ironically, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, as de facto civilian leader of Myanmar, might yet face similar charges for failing to stop what is now being described as the ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas in her country. Like the victims in Bosnia, the Rohingyas are reportedly being subjected to execution, rape and sexual assault, destruction of property, imprisonment and deportation to Bangladesh.

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If that happens, Suu Kyi won’t be the first peace icon to be implicated in human rights violations. Zimbabwe’s strongman Robert Mugabe was a recipient of the U Thant Peace Award, after the third UN secretary-general. As yet another reminder that power doesn’t last forever, Mugabe’s 37-year-reign finally ended last month.

The power-hungry in the Philippines will probably think 37 years in power is good enough, especially if one is accorded a cushioned fall like Mugabe. But his fate remains uncertain, and those who suffered under his regime may want retribution.

Some years ago during one of my journalism fellowships in the United States, one the participants was a newspaper publisher-editor from Zimbabwe. Those were hard times in his country, with inflation running at 1,000 percent, thanks to unrest due to Mugabe’s excesses.

The publisher told us that the supermarket shelves in the capital Harare were empty. He could not print his newspaper because electricity was intermittent and there was no fuel for generators. People had money but there was nothing to buy, he sighed. During our month-long fellowship, I think he managed to work out the relocation of his family from Harare to the US.

Over the years, the situation improved slightly, but unrest persisted. Last month, the regime of one of the world’s most durable strongmen finally ended.

Mugabe was criticized for corruption and crushing dissent, but not for extrajudicial killings.

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In the Philippines, there’s talk at Camp Crame that certain cops are starting to document operations related to the drug war, just in case they become entangled in legal woes after the current administration is over.

The worry, according to some reports, is that the cops may not only face indictment in the Philippines but also be haled before a UN court.

Complaints are now being filed overseas in connection with the drug war. The UN-backed tribunal steps in only when the state is unwilling or unable to stop the killings. So far this doesn’t seem to be the case. And there has been a break in the killings after the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency was given the lead role in the war.

The law in fact allows police and other agents of the law to shoot to maim or kill in self-defense. And there are truly lawbreakers out there who open fire at police. People tired of criminality and the weakness of the justice system have been looking away since last year as police embarked on a brutal war directed mainly at drug personalities but also other criminals.

Such a war, however, is prone to gross abuses. Instead of trying to sweep this under the rug, law enforcement agencies must refine their methods and purge at least the most brazen abusers in their ranks.  

It looks like the killings will soon be back, sooner than later. When that happens, those tasked to carry out the war and are tempted to abuse their authority should remember that their patron will not be around to protect them forever.