All of us have heard of the American Civil War and French Revolution and the Cold War and we’ve seen so much in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba but we may not know about most of the craziest history of Central Asian Countries. Here are 5 countries with their horrific insane histories that you may have never heard of.

Mali

Mali’s first post-independence leader, Modibo Keita, was a socialist who wanted to nationalize the country’s resources. His dreams were too good to be true. He was deposed and imprisoned in 1968 in a military coup. Keita’s replacement Moussa Traore was far worse than his predecessor. Mali became an authoritarian police state, and the sad combination of aid money led to the death of tens of thousands. He was overthrown by another coup and democracy somewhat restored.

The Central African Republic

After the country’s leader died in a suspicious plane crash, the country plunged into madness. In the new leader, Bokassa’s bizarre and violent reign gave rise to unemployment, criminalization, murder of hundreds of protesting school children, and cannibalism. All these things eventually lead the country into the civil war that broke in 2003.

Brunei

Brunei is known by some as the “Shelfare State” and with good reason. This small Asian nation has been bankrolled by the oil companies that operate within it. Bruneian citizens receive subsidies on everything but petrol to oil. The sultan spends millions of the public budget on his collection of luxury cars. Brunei has other problems, such as uncensored media in the country is non-existent, people are arrested and legislation is implemented with little regards.

Paraguay

The country has always been unstable. Throughout the half of the 20th century total, 32 leaders were wiped out. After winning against Bolivia, the country’s political instability ended and following the country’s civil war a leader, Stroessner emerged. His regime was one of the worst in South America for its human rights and liberties. Thousands died for opposing his regime and extrajudicial kidnapping became normal.

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was not always this crazy country. The last past 20 odd years under the Soviet rule it had become more eventful than ever. It eventually became an ex-Soviet state, it had seen corruption, nepotism, inefficient government, everything. The dictator Saparmurat Niyazov chose to become a Stalin-styled cult figure. After his death in 2006, a small spark of hope ignited but the new president turned out to be a furious and cruel dictator.