The exile factor: wives of deposed dictators

It's not exactly the kind of career you would see advertised at the local Job Centre. But in the world's all-too-numerous autocratic kleptocracies there are few positions more lucrative and gilded than becoming the wife of a dictator.

Successful applicants may have to spend their lives with some of the world's most unpleasant men, but in return, she can expect palaces, power and sumptuous living standards - even when things go wrong.

With careful risk management by a dictator (a private jet on permanent standby and a healthy stash of bullion in offshore bank accounts are recommended), the threat posed by revolution and overnight ousting can be mitigated to acceptable levels. But wannabe WODs - Wives of Dictators - should be aware that there is always a small chance of the starving masses bashing down the palace gates and demanding a piece of the national pie, and should also plan their metamorphosis into Wodds - Wives of Deposed Dictators.

The toppling last week of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's 24-year reign is a sharp reminder to the world's dictators that nothing lasts forever. It may also prompt their wives to make escape plans should the winds start blowing in the wrong direction.

Leila Trabelsi, Mr Ben Ali's second wife, was clearly well prepared. According to reports this week, the 53-year-old daughter of a fruit seller, who rose to become the country's most powerful woman, organised the removal of more than £37.5m worth of solid gold bars from Tunisia's Central Bank before she fled via Dubai to Saudi Arabia. Bank officials have denied the allegations, but the reports came as little surprise to ordinary Tunisians on the streets, who compared the Trabelsi and Ben Ali families to mafia-like organisations that squirrelled away vast amounts of the nation's wealth in preparation for a life of luxurious exile.

For while many ruthless strongmen - such as Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein - end up in court, the innocent wives of the world's despots do not need to worry about threat of prosecution. Ms Trabelsi's flight to well-funded exile is just one of a number of such journeys that have been made by partners of toppled dictators over the past five decades. The great political upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s led to scores of regime changes in Latin America, the Middle East and South-east Asia.

As largely pro-Western dictators were toppled by popular revolution, many chose to settle in Europe and the United States. The Shah of Iran's wife, Farah Pahlavi, still divides her time between Paris and Washington DC, while Imelda Marcos fled to Hawaii to plot her eventually successful return to Filipino politics.

More recently, Saudi Arabia has become something of a favoured destination for strongmen of the Muslim world. Mr Ben Ali is following in the footsteps of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in seeking sanctuary with the Al Saud dynasty.

Not all flights into exile go according to plan. Elena Ceausescu tried to flee alongside her husband Nicolae in a helicopter as their notoriously brutal regime crumbled against Romanian street protests. They got as far as the town of Targoviste before revolutionaries within the army forced them to land, subjected them to a swift show trial and executed them.

For those who escape such rough justice, a life of luxury is not always guaranteed. Sarah Kyolaba Amin, the Ugandan dictator's fifth wife, made ends meet post-divorce working as a lingerie model in Germany before moving to the UK, where a cafE she ran in London was closed for a while by health inspectors.

Mussolini's wife fared a little better. While Il Duce's mistress Claretta Petacci was executed by Italian partisans, Rachele Guidi Mussolini survived the war and spent the rest of her life running a little pasta restaurant in her home village of Predappio. Catering, it seems, is not a bad fallback.

But the real lesson is surely that, if you want to be a successful Wodd, keep a bag packed for a potentially sharp exit.

- INDEPENDENT