Rulers who suffered vagaries of exile

LAHORE: Deposed world rulers have settled down in many countries like Saudi Arabia, Europe and the United States.

Even three Pakistani and a Thai leader opted to stay in UAE. The three Pakistani leaders who stayed in Daubi during their exile period are Nawaz Sharif, late Benazir Bhutto and General (R) Pervez Musharraf. Thailand’s leader is former premier-cum-business tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, who had called shots between February 2001 and September 2006.

Exile, though quite painful in many ways for most ousted global rulers, is a centuries-old phenomenon and even the most formidable of humans—who once wore the crown—had to undergo the rigours of living away from home with or without their will.

However, whatever circumstances may have led these powerful rulers to quit the countries they had once ruled and no matter how lavish their exiled lives may have been, seeking refuge in foreign countries has always been extremely tough if one goes through the plight (expressed through poetry) of the last Moghul Emperor King Bahadur Shah Zafar, who was helplessly exiled to Burma by the British Raj in 1857.

Apart from King Bahadur Shah Zafar, the other exiled rulers include the likes of Mehmed VI of Turkey, Farouk I of Egypt, Umberto II of Italy, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, King Reza Shah Pehlavi of Iran, Jean Claude Duvalier of Haiti, first Pakistani President Iskander Mirza, Napoleon Bonaparte of France, Nicholas II of Russia, King Zog of Albania, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Manuel Noriega of Panama, Idi Amin of Uganda, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, Alan Garcia of Peru, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, Erich Honecker of East Germany, Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgystan, Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, Francois Bozize of Central African Republic, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Hissene Habre of Chad, Charles Taylor of Liberia and Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.

Interestingly, as history reveals, the governments of Charles de Gaulle of France and Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia were also formed in exile in countries like the Great Britain.