I was shocked to see a photograph in The Japan Times last month of former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka laying a wreath at the statue of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. They looked rather sheepish. They should, in fact, have looked ashamed of themselves. Kim was responsible for many thousands of deaths and untold misery while he was dictator of North Korea. Kim's list of crimes was not as long as that of some other dictators, but that was merely because the population of North Korea was relatively small compared with other countries ruled by communist or fascist dictators.

Probably the greatest monster of them all was China's Chairman Mao Zedong, who together with Soviet leader Josef Stalin and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler made the 20th century such a horrific period for mankind. There were also others in the century whose names should be remembered for their ruthlessness and cruelty to mankind, and there are also, unfortunately, still others who are still alive and who have so far escaped punishment for their crimes, such as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

In China, some of the horrific acts carried out during the so-called Cultural Revolution have been recognized, but the full monstrosity of Mao's regime has only been exposed abroad. In Russia, the truth about Stalin, KGB head Lavrenti Beria and his gang of evil criminals has been exposed, although there are always nationalists who are willing to praise the memories of dictators on the grounds that they made their country "great," whatever that means.