Rulers, leaders who had to seek refuge abroad

MQM chief Altaf Hussain is among a handful of globally-recognised Pakistani and foreign politicians, who had to lead exiled lives in foreign countries.
MQM chief’s exiled life: He was granted political asylum in the United Kingdom in 1992, just a month after he was attacked in Karachi, now spans over 23 years, 2 months and 22 days or nearly 8,500 days.
Balochistan’s first Chief Minister Sardar Attaullah Mengal, who had been leading a nationalist and separatist movement in Pakistan, had to seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom after Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was deposed in General Ziaul Haq’s coup of 1977 and General Rahimuddin Khan was appointed Balochistan’s Governor and Martial Law Administrator. General Zia’s tenure was characterized by hostility towards the Baloch Sardars.
Interestingly, on June 8, 2000, as newspapers archives how say Altaf Hussain had met Sardar Attaullah Mengal at his residence in London. The meeting was also attended by late Dr Imran Farooq (Convener of MQM) Mohammad Anwar (Chief Organizer MQM, UK & Europe) and Tariq Meer (Joint Chief Organiser MQM, UK & Europe).
Late Nawab Akbar Bugti’s warring grandson Brahamdagh Bugti had reached Switzerland in late October 2010 and has been living there ever since on political asylum, courtesy the United Nations Human Rights Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
In an asylum application to the UNHCR, Brahamdagh Bugti had stated that he left Pakistan on March 17, 2005.
In March 2011, Pakistani Foreign Ministry had conveyed to the Swiss mission in Islamabad its reservations about the move by Nawabzada Brahamdagh Bugti, who also heads the Balochistan Republican Party, a splinter group of the Jamhoori Wattan Party.
Islamabad had also asked its ambassador to Berne to take up the issue with the Swiss authorities.
Famous Baloch nationalist, Prince Salman of Qalat, was also granted asylum in Britain.
And yet another separatist Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri was given asylum in the United Kingdom.
Similarly, globally-recognized Soviet politician and the founder of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), had to seek asylum in Turkey from 1929–1933, in France 1933–1935, in Norway 1935–1937 and in Mexico 1937–1940.
Tibet’s Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatsu (born 1935), had to seek asylum in India way back in 1959 during the Tibetan uprising to the sheer dismay of China. He had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and is also well known for his lifelong advocacy for Tibetans inside and outside Tibet.
Sudanese politician Aggrey Jaden Ladu was accused of refusing to lower the British flag and replacing it with the new Sudan independence flag. He had to move to Kenya out of fear for his safety.
Another veteran Sudanese politician Gordon Muortat Mayen had remained in exile in United Kingdom.
It is very interesting to note that in July 2012, daughter of a famous sheikh of Middle East was heard claiming political asylum in the UK over fears for her safety back home.
The July 7, 2012 edition of “The Guardian” had reported: the daughter of the famous sheikh is claiming political asylum in the UK over fears for her safety back home.
She accuses senior officials of plotting to kidnap her and smuggle her back having subjected her to a “well orchestrated and malicious campaign of persecution.” She currently occupies a suite and several rooms in a five-star London hotel with her four children and two dogs, guarded by a private security team.
She was quoted as saying by the paper: “I’ve been physically abused. I’ve been mentally abused. My assets have been frozen. They’ve accused me of being in opposition, they haven’t left anything. I’ve been crucified in every way.”
The newspaper maintained: “She has lived in the UK since 2007 after she fell out with her father.
According to the July 8, 2012, edition of “Daily Mail, “She had also experienced an inheritance dispute with her brother over their late mother’s £325 million fortune.
Research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” shows that annals of history are particularly littered with innumerable accounts of famous monarchs, elected rulers and military dictators in history, who had to seek refuge in foreign countries on their own accord or were forced to leave the country by their powerful political foes.
Apart from the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, sitting Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani Presidents General Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari, who had lived exiled lives in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and Europe. Other famous rulers (both Pakistani and international) who had to seek refuge in foreign countries include:
The first Pakistani President Iskander Mirza (exiled to London), Napoleon Bonaparte of France (exiled to Italian Island of Elba and Saint Helena), King Bahadur Shah Zafar (exiled to Burma), Nicholas II of Russia (sent to Siberia), King Farouk of Egypt (led an exiled life in Italy and Monaco), Shah of Iran (Egypt, Morocco, The Bahamas, Mexico, The United States, Panama and Egypt again), King Zog of Albania (to Britain), Jean Claude Duvalier of Haiti (sent to France), Idi Amin of Uganda (exiled to Saudi Arabia), Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines (sent to Guam and Hawaii), Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay (transported to Brazil), Alan Garcia of Peru (sent to France), Alberto Fujimori of Peru (sent to Japan), Erich Honecker of East Germany (sent to USSR and Chile), Haile Mariam of Ethiopia (exiled to Zimbabwe), President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Fasio (he had fled to Ivory Coast), Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo (exiled to Togo and Morocco), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia (exiled to Saudi Arabia), Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan (sent to Belarus), Francois Bozize of Central African Republic (sent to Cameroon), Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (sought refuge in Holland), Hissene Habre of Chad (exiled to Senegal), Sudan’s former President Gaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiry (exiled to Egypt), Charles Taylor of Liberia (exiled to Nigeria), former Venezuelan interim President Pedro Carmona (sought refuge in Colombia), King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan (lived in exile in Italy) and Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz (went into exile in Paris) etc.
An April 14, 2011, report of the BBC News had shed a lot of light on the lives of deposed leaders like Ivory Coast’s former President Laurent Gbagbo and Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.
Exile can be voluntary or involuntary and could even be within the same country as in the case of Pol Pot of Cambodia, who was sent on an internal exile within the country but had died in the jungle in 1998 as his adversaries were preparing to hand him over to an international court.
Myanmar’s leading lady politician Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s assassinated independence hero General Aung San, was placed under house arrest for almost 15 of the 21 years from July 1989 until her most recent release in November 2010, becoming one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners.
A few lucky leaders like Sierra Leone’s Valentine Strasser are also there. After being ousted in 1996, he had showed up as a law student in the University of Warwick in England!
Leaders who had failed to seek exiles or could not flee after being deposed include Panama’s Manuel Noriega (sentenced in Paris for money laundering), Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic (died in prison in The Hague in 2006 while facing war crime charges), Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, Liberia’s Samuel Doe (tortured and killed in civil war before he could escape) and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein (executed in 2006 after a trial brought by interim government) etc.