A world cursed by dictators

While the world grappled this year with what to do about North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, global warming, poverty and disease, it ignored the most pervasive threat to peace and security of all: dictators. One by one, during the year, a string of them died without having faced justice for their crimes - proof that international law, although much touted, is essentially toothless.

With the announcement of each death vanished the hopes for justice among those who had been tormented, tortured or had relatives and friends killed. For millions of people, reconciliation for the wrongs of the past is now impossible.

There were two exceptions: former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who will be executed within a month; and ex-Liberian leader Charles Taylor, who faces 650 charges before the Special Court for Sierra Leone related to that country's war.

In both cases, action came only after the leaders fell out of favour with the US - and they are rare exceptions rather than the rule.

The ex-president of the former Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, became the first absolute ruler to cheat justice this year. He died of a heart attack on March 11 in his prison cell in The Hague, before a verdict could be handed down in his war crimes trial.

Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay's dictator for 35 years, died of pneumonia in his adopted homeland of Brazil on August 16. He fled Paraguay after being overthrown in 1989. Between 400 and 3,000 political opponents are estimated to have been killed during his rule.