Of all the world's refugees, they are the most despised. They are the deposed dictators, spun into exile by a turn of fortune's wheel.
One day they are surrounded by sycophants, bathed in luxury, able with a word to rally a crowd of ostensibly adoring citizens or condemn an annoying critic to death. The next day, they may be fleeing for their own lives, destined for a life of gloomy exile in which even stolen millions can run short.
Haiti's military rulers flew to exile in Panama early yesterday, not long after vowing that they would never leave their native land. Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras and Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby and their families took over an entire floor of a luxury hotel in Panama City.
They are expected to move soon to the lush tropical island of Contadora, a tourist resort that offered brief refuge to the Shah of Iran after his ouster in 1979. For them, the shah's case is a dispiriting precedent. Denied refuge by country after embarrassed country, he died of cancer in Egypt a year after the Islamic revolution unseated him.
These days, after several bad years for dictatorships around the globe, there is a shortage of countries that welcome tyrants on the run.
"There's a paradox," says Philippe Schmitter, a political scientist at Stanford University who specializes in Latin America. "Because of the wave of democratization, in recent years there have been fewer and fewer dictatorships to flee to."
For decades, Dr. Schmitter says, "there was, I won't say a brotherhood, but a certain unspoken agreement among dictators that they would offer one another a haven in case of emergency. What's happened in Latin America and some other places is that there's no bolt-hole."
Not only the shrinking number of regimes headed by strongmen, but possibly the behavior of some dictators in exile may contribute to such reluctance to open the door.
A notorious case is that of Idi Amin, whose brutal rule in Uganda from 1971 to 1979 was blamed for the deaths of a half-million people. He fled to Libya as rebels and Tanzanian army forces advanced.
Amin, who once appeared on Ugandan television with an executed enemy's severed hand on a plate, was no sought-after guest. But his hostility to Israel and nominal Muslim faith had won him the support of some Islamic countries, Libya among them.
Then, after about two years, his bodyguards became involved in a shootout with Libyan forces, said Nelson Kasfir, a specialist on Uganda at Dartmouth College.
He found a new home in Saudi Arabia. In 1989, he slipped away in an ill-fated attempt to return to Uganda via Senegal, Nigeria and Zaire. "Someone spotted him. He's not hard to spot," Mr. Kasfir said of the obese former boxing champion.
Under pressure from other countries, which didn't want him making trouble in Africa, the Saudis took him back.
"There's a concept that everyone has to take one thug," said Shawn H. McCormick, an African studies expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Amin "lives high off the hog in a small palace set up by the Saudi royal family. There's a swimming pool, lots of attendants and security guards," Mr. McCormick said.
General Cedras can hardly be cheered by the example of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who ruled Haiti after the 1971 death of his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Like General Cedras, Jean-Claude Duvalier fled in 1986 on a U.S-supplied aircraft after weeks of unrest. He, too, was not exactly courted; the president of Gabon reportedly rejected him, declaring, "Gabon is not a garbage can."
Mr. Duvalier ended up with his wife, Michele, and an ill-gotten fortune estimated at $120 million on the French Riviera. They settled in a hillside villa, picked up the tab for expensive parties and drove their BMW or Ferrari through the Alps or on Parisian shopping sprees.
But lately, after what must be some kind of world record for profligacy, Mr. Duvalier has fallen on hard times. His wife left him, taking their two children and a chunk of the remaining family fortune.
Kicked out of two villas for not paying the rent, Mr. Duvalier reportedly now does the gardening at the crumbling stone house near Cannes where he lives with his mother in lieu of paying rent. He has lost his phone service and is rumored to spend much of his time watching pornographic videos.
Still, even in his present diminished circumstances, Mr. Duvalier's fate is far from the worst to befall dictators on the way down. Some get summary execution; the firing squad that cut down Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, on Christmas Day 1989 was immediately televised to prove to the nation that he was dead.
Others avoid execution but not indignity. Erich Honecker, who ruled East Germany for 18 years, was charged in 1990 in connection with the killing of people fleeing over the Berlin Wall. He hid out in a Soviet military hospital until being spirited to Moscow by old Communist allies.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced Mr. Honecker and his wife to flee again -- this time to the Chilean Embassy. He TTC avoided imprisonment in Germany and died of cancer in exile last spring in Chile.
After the death of Ferdinand E. Marcos in Hawaii in 1989, Philippine authorities refused to allow the return of his body for burial. His remains were admitted only last year -- just before his widow, Imelda Marcos, was convicted of corruption.
Some ousted dictators retreat not to exile but into religion. In South Korea, when former ruler Chun Doo Hwan faced fierce popular anger and possible prosecution, he headed to a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of central South Korea for a year.
"He's not the type of guy you'd expect to find in your neighborhood monastery," says Nathaniel B. Thayer, professor of Asian studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "It was a kind of atonement."
Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who was charged with cannibalism, among other crimes, fled the Central African Republic for a French chateau in 1983. He returned home in 1986, where his death sentence was commuted to life in solitary confinement. Freed after six years, he embraced Christianity and declared himself the 13th Apostle of Christ.
The difficulty of finding an appropriate home for a dictator who has worn out his welcome at home has led some political scientists to propose in jest that some South Pacific island be set aside, like Napoleon's Elba, for discarded tyrants, said Dr. Schmitter, the Stanford specialist in Latin America.
The United Nations could put up the money to keep the former dictators in reasonable style, he said.
"When you think about it," Dr. Schmitter said, "you start to think that maybe it's not such a bad idea. You've got to give them an attractive way out."
Where did they go?
Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier
Ruled Haiti 1971-1986.
Lives in exile on French Rivieria, having squandered much of his $120 million fortune.
Idi Amin
Blamed for deaths of 500,000 Ugandans during 1971-1979. Lives in luxury in Saudi Arabia.
Manuel Noreiga
Ruled Panama during 1981-1989.
Now in U.S. prison for drug trafficking.
Pol Pot
Brutal Cambodian reign during 1975-79 cost 2 million lives. Now hiding with his army along Thai border.
Augusto Pinochet
Chilean leader during 1973-1989, ceded power but remains army chief of staff.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa
Emperor of Central African Republic during 1966-1979. Returned from exile in France to serve prison term. Now lives alone in his nation's capital.
Ferdinand Marcos
Philippine leader during 1965-1986, died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.
Erich Honecker
East German ruler during 1973-89, died in Chile, May 1994.
Nicolae Ceausescu
Romania's Communist dictator during 1979-1988. Executed after uprising.
Chun Doo-hwan
South Korean leader of 1979-1988. Retreated to Buddhis monastery to repent for 1980 massacre. now lives in Seoul South Korea