Divine Justice or Karma to World Malefactors - Denouement

The maxim 'History repeats itself." is a truism which people seem forgetting through centuries with disastrous consequences. The harsh Russian winter decimated Napoleon's army of half a million men, a formidable force then. leaving some ten thousand men straggling home. The same fate befell Hitler though with a great difference. While Napoleon left some remarkable deeds like the Napoleonic Code that overwhelmed whatever ill effects caused by his invasion, Hitler earned mostly contempt and condemnation on account of his immense crimes against humanity.

Idi Amin Dada, the Butcher of Uganda, could be possibly the most notorious of all Africa's post-independence dictators. The number of his victims, either killed, tortured or imprisoned reportedly could be estimated from 100,000 to half a million. After his ouster in 1979, he was forced to flee in exile.

In Asia, Pol Pot can be considered the Scourge of Humanity in post-World War II era.  As the leader of the brutal Khmer Rouge, he was responsible over the combined effects of forced labor, malnutrition, poor medical care and executions in Cambodia which reportedly resulted to the death of some 21 percent of its population or an estimate of 1.7 million to 2.5 million people. After the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge government was toppled and Pol Pot with his followers fled to the jungle where he reportedly died in 1998.

In the Philippines, Ferdinand E. Marcos, after winning his reelection bid in 1969, declared Martial Law in 1972 to perpetuate himself in power as he was constitutionally banned to run for another term in 1973. He imprisoned many of his political enemies and confiscated the properties of many prominent businessmen whom he perceived to be politically hostile to his regime. Of course, many of the properties were entrusted to some of his cronies and allies for safekeeping only. Although the United States propped up Marcos' dictatorship, the assassination of the returning Senator Ninoy Aquino, Jr. in 1983 by the military started the beginning of the end of the Marcos regime.  

Marcos called a snap election for the purpose of reaffirming the legitimacy of his government. When the February 1986 election results were manipulated to appear Marcos winning over the opposition candidate, Corazon C. Aquino, Ninoy's widow, the ensuing uproar culminated to the peaceful EDSA People Power Revolution. The US airlifted Marcos and his entourage to exile in Hawaii while Corazon C. Aquino was installed as the new President of the Republic of the Philippines. Thus, Marcos joined the infamous roster of world malefactors whose downfall could be attributed to the working of Divine Justice or the Law of Karma. Nevertheless, as recent events in the Middle East manifested, there is no shortage of would be malefactors in the international scene.