Photo: Wikimedia Commons
There are many ways to kill political enemies. If Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash, he is only the latest in a rather long line.
Published: 26/08/2023 15:32
Updated: 26/08/2023 16:20
Twisted scraps of metal lay scattered across the ground. Some of the parts were large enough to make out that they belonged to a plane that had crashed. Others were small enough for one to realize that the plane had hit the ground with tremendous force.
Among those who were probably killed: a military leader who until recently had been very close to the powerful leader in the capital. A man who ruled over so many soldiers that he was a power factor in himself. For a long time he had been a loyal supporter. But then it broke.
He tried to challenge the manager. When the mutiny failed, he did not have long to live. He was probably in the plane when it crashed. He was probably killed when the plane hit the ground.
The date was September 13, 1971. The military leader who was probably killed that day was named Lin Biao. A loyal number two in the Chinese Communist Party. He had long been tipped to take over from the aging dictator Mao Zedong. But then he probably fell out with the boss. Maybe he was trying to seize power. He is said to have tried to flee to the Soviet Union when his plane crashed in eastern Mongolia.
Enjoy the uncertainty
There are many parallels to what happened in Russia this week. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have been among those killed when a private plane crashed just outside Moscow on Wednesday afternoon. Two months earlier, he had tried to rebel against the Russian military leadership, making President Vladimir Putin look weakened.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was closely associated with Vladimir Putin for a long time. Here he shows the president around his factory, where he made school meals, among other things, in 2010. Photo: Alexei Druzhinin, AP/NTB
sea view
It is still not finally confirmed that Prigozhin was actually on the plane, or that he is actually dead. Why the plane crashed has also not been finally confirmed. Many see a connection between the uprising and the plane crash. Russian authorities, on the other hand, point the finger at Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejects this.
Putin benefits from the uncertainty. So was Mao in the time after Lin Biao died. Officially, the plane crashed in Mongolia because it ran out of fuel. But people have imaginations.
By casting doubt on what actually happened, a dictator can achieve two things: First, he avoids taking responsibility. Secondly, there are few signals that can be clearer than a plane in free fall before it crashes into the ground.
The UN chief among those killed
Politically convenient plane disasters are nothing new. Here are some examples – with the clear caveat that some of them may naturally be accidents and not politically motivated murders:
[1945:TheIndianliberationleaderSubhasChandraBoseisprobablyamongthosekilledafteraplanecrashinTaiwanBosehadmanyenemiesintheWestandinIndiabecausehecollaboratedwithJapanandNaziGermany1961:TheUNSecretary-GeneralSwedishDagHammarskjölddiesinaplanecrashinpresent-dayZambiaAUNreportconcludedin2017thattheplanewasprobablyshotdownHammarskjöldwasinAfricatotrytobrokerapeaceintheCongo
UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was among those who died after the plane crash in 1961. Photo: AP/NTB
Show more1986: Samora Machel, the man who founded modern Mozambique, dies after his plane crashes in South Africa. The investigation is quickly doused, and in Mozambique many still believe that the South African authorities caused the plane crash. 1988: Pakistan’s president, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, is among those killed after a plane crash in the Pakistani Punjab province. The then US ambassador to the country, Arnold Lewis Raphel, is also killed. The suspicions are directed in very different directions – from the Soviet Union to the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. 1994: Two presidents die in the same plane crash. Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira are heads of state in Rwanda and Burundi respectively when their plane is shot down in the Rwandan capital Kigali. Both belonged to the Hutu ethnic group. The episode triggers a genocide in Rwanda, where at least 500,000 people from the Tutsi population are killed within a few months.
Bullets, poison and high falls
If Prigozhin actually died in Wednesday’s plane crash, he is the last in a long line. If so, he is also far from the first Putin challenger to meet an unpleasant fate.
Patches with the text “propaganda kills” and “fight!” lies together with flowers and portraits of the regime critic Boris Nemtsov where he was killed in Moscow in March 2015. Photo: Ivan Sekretarev, AP/NTB
sea view
In the 23 years since Putin came to power, a number of rivals – real, perceived and potential – have been poisoned, shot or killed after falling from great heights. Some examples:
2003: The politician Sergey Yushenkov is shot and killed. Yushenkov claimed to be able to prove that the Russian authorities were behind the bombing of an apartment block in Moscow five years earlier.
2006: Journalists Anna Politkovskaya was known for his critical voice. She was found shot dead near her apartment in Moscow.
2006: The regime critic Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned with the heavy metal polonium and dies in a London hospital.
2015: Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov is shot four times in the back. He had accused Putin of corruption.
2022: Chairman of the board Ravil Maganov in the energy giant Lukoil dies after falling out of a window in a hospital in Moscow. He had been critical of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
2023-08-26 13:32:47
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