1983 - Political Events
Political Events
The Soviet Union is "the focus of evil in the modern world," President Reagan tells an evangelical group at Orlando, Fla., March 8. Former Soviet president Nikolai Podgorny has died of cancer at Kiev January 11 at age 79. Reagan calls the USSR "an evil empire" and proposes a "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI) to protect America and her allies with a high-tech shield against nuclear missiles; his March 23 speech envisions flocks of satellites that will shoot down incoming missiles with lasers, and critics will charge that he borrowed the idea either from his role as Secret Service Agent Brass Bancroft in the 1940 film Murder in the Air, where he stopped enemy planes by paralyzing their electrical circuits, or from the 1966 film Torn Curtain, in which actor Paul Newman said, "We will produce a defensive weapon that will make all nuclear weapons obsolete, and thereby abolish the terror of nuclear warfare." Projected costs of what Sen. Kennedy calls a "Star Wars" program are staggering, and since it will have to be virtually 100 percent effective, few scientists believe it is feasible at any cost, but military contractors see the program as a potential bonanza and will make substantial campaign contributions to congressmen of both parties in their zeal to encourage spending on the effort. Some moderate members of Reagan's cabinet want to use SDI as a bargaining chip for Soviet strategic weapons, Moscow views SDI as a move to escalate the arms war into outer space. Hard-liners such as Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and his aide Richard Perle see SDI as a means to block the offensive arms reduction required under the 1972 ABM treaty; tensions over the phantom missile shield will continue for decades.
Europeans turn out by the thousands April 1 in a "Green" movement to protest the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons on the Continent. Green Party leader Petra Kelly, now 36, is among 17 Green members elected to the West German Bundestag (parliament).
Nicholas Meyer's film The Day After with Jason Robards Jr. airs on U.S. television November 20, giving 100 million Americans a chilling view of the fictional after-effects of a nuclear bombing of Kansas City. The United States proceeds in November nevertheless to deploy Pershing II intercontinental ballistic missiles in Britain and Europe pursuant to President Reagan's plan to outspend the Soviet Union on armaments as a way to force the Russians to realize that they lack the means to continue the arms race. Caspar Weinberger and Richard Perle have persuaded Reagan that last year's "walk in the woods" formula favored the Soviets, since slow-flying Tomahawk missiles would be no match for Moscow's speedy SS-20s. Soviet representatives walk out of intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) talks, leaving chief negotiator Paul H. Nitze without a negotiating partner; now 76, he will move to the State Department in the fall of next year and become special arms-control adviser to Secretary of State George P. Shultz (see 1986).
Italian Socialist Party leader Bettino Craxi forces an early election in February and becomes prime minister August 4 at age 49, having helped to bring down three governments (see 1976). He will preside over an economic boom and retain power until he resigns in March 1987 after the longest continuous period in office of any postwar Italian prime minister (see commerce, 1984).
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party wins a landslide victory at the polls June 9, assuring it of at least 5 more years in power. Labour leader Denis Healey, 65, says the election has "put the people at the mercy of the most reactionary, right-wing, extremist government in British history."
Former French Résistance leader Gen. Georges Bidault dies of a stroke at Cambo January 26 at age 83; former Italian king Umberto II of cancer at Geneva March 18 at age 78 (he ruled for just 26 days in 1946 and has lived since then in Portugal); former king of the Belgians Leopold III dies of a heart attack at Brussels September 25 at age 81.
Polish authorities formally lift martial law restrictions July 21 after 19 months, but many of the law's regulations have been written into the nation's legal code (see 1982). "Any attempts at anti-socialist activities will be muzzled no less decisively than before," says Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. Lech Walesa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December but is not permitted to leave the country (his wife, Danuta, travels to Oslo to accept it in his place).
Terrorists in Lebanon blow up the U.S. Embassy at Beirut April 18, killing 63 people (see 1982). Two U.S. marines are killed and 13 wounded August 29 when mortar shells and rockets land in an airport compound during clashes between Lebanese Army and Shiite Muslim and Druse rockets. Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon resigns but will remain a member of the cabinet until 1992; Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon's central mountains September 4 as rival Christian and Druse militia intensify their battles.
Israel's ailing prime minister Menachem Begin resigns September 15 and is succeeded as leader of the Herut Party by Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 67, who, like Begin, was born in Poland and fought in the underground against Palestine's British authorities in the 1930s and '40s.
U.S. Marines in Lebanon come under increasing attack in September and October. A terrorist drives a truck packed with explosives into a building full of sleeping marines and sailors October 23 while another bomb-laden truck slams into a French paratroop barracks; the U.S. death toll is 241, the French toll 58. A suicide truck bomber blows up an Israeli military installation November 4, killing 60, including 28 Israelis.
Turkey's prime minister Turgut Ozal, 56, forms the Motherland Party, whose candidates win in the general elections; Ozal heads a new civilian government and will serve as president until his death in 1993.
Australia's Labor Party ousts Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's Liberal Party in the general election March 5, and a new government takes office headed by Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke, 53, who has been elected head of his party in February and will hold office until December 1991, overseeing the final constitutional separation of Australia from Britain. Former politician Francis M. Forde has died at Brisbane January 28 at age 92.
Former Thai prime minister Pridi Phanomyong dies at Paris May 2 at age 82, having lived abroad since late 1947.
Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka kill 13 soldiers at a northern city in July and Sinhalese mobs at Colombo wreak vengeance: they attack Tamils July 23, massacre at least 600, and destroy property in the worst outbreak of violence since the island became a republic in 1972. The incident triggers a civil war that will continue for years (see 1987).
Former Philippine senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr., 50, returns from exile August 21 and is shot dead upon his arrival at Manila by an unknown gunman who is himself immediately shot dead. The last national leader still held in detention in 1980, Aquino was permitted to leave the country that year for open-heart surgery in the United States. He formed an anti-Marcos coalition in January 1982 and worked from abroad to restore democracy to the Philippines. Despite warnings that ailing President Marcos, his wife, Imelda, or their political allies (or opponents) would kill him if he returned, Aquino had decided it was time to organize opposition to Marcos at home (see 1986).
A Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 carrying 269 passengers and crew bound from New York to Seoul violates Soviet air space near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific and is shot down at 3:30 in the morning of September 1 by an air-to-air missile fired from a Soviet fighter jet. All aboard are killed. Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson holds a news conference at his native Everett, Wash., deploring the incident but dies of a burst blood vessel there September 1 at age 71, having served in Congress nearly 43 years. Moscow makes no apology, insists the commercial jetliner was on a U.S. spy mission, and criticizes the United States for casting aspersions on the "peace-loving" Soviets. Washington reveals that a U.S. reconnaissance plane was in the vicinity earlier. U.S.-Japanese efforts to recover the 747's "black box" recording all its moves are unsuccessful. Arms-control talks resume at Geneva despite growing tensions between the world's two superpowers.
A Tokyo district court convicts former Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka October 12 of having accepted a $2.2 million bribe from Lockheed Corp. to use his influence to persuade All Nippon Airways to use Lockheed Tristar jets (see 1976). Fined the amount of the bribe and sentenced to 4 years in prison, Tanaka files an appeal; opposition parties threaten to boycott Diet proceedings unless he resigns his seat.
Beijing begins in October to purge China's Communist Party of left-wing extremists who remain from the Mao Zedong era. The move is an effort to ensure that party members adhere to the more pragmatic policies of Deng Xiaoping.
A time-bomb planted by North Korean terrorists explodes October 9 at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Rangoon, killing 19 and wounding 49. The dead include 16 South Koreans, among them four cabinet ministers and the ambassador to Burma. South Korea's president Chun Doo Hwan is en route to the mausoleum for a wreath-laying ceremony when the bomb goes off and is saved by a hitch in his schedule that has delayed him. The mausoleum commemorates the assassination July 19, 1947, of seven members of Burma's Executive Council, including its 33-year-old head U Aung San during the transition between internal autonomy and full Burmese independence from Britain. Burmese Brig. Gen. Tin Oo is sentenced to life imprisonment November 14, having been stripped of all official positions in May, charged with misuse of public funds and property, and convicted. Once considered a likely successor to former president Ne Win, he is a former head of the National Intelligence Bureau and is blamed by some for the security lapses that have permitted the October 9 explosion at Rangoon.
Surinam expels two U.S. diplomats January 3 for "destabilizing activities" and then recalls her ambassador to the Netherlands, asking him to form a new government (see 1982), but an Organization of American States (OAS) commission issues a report October 12 charging Surinam's miitary government with "serious violations of important human rights." The government announces November 29 that it has prevented another coup attempt and arrested 10 alleged conspirators for passing out leaflets, bauxite workers go on strike in December to protest military rule, and bauxite exports account for some 80 percent of Surinam's foreign-exchange earnings (see 1984).
Former Mexican president Miguel Alemán dies at Mexico City May 14 at age 80.
Chilean police shoot two people dead and arrest as many as 350 May 11, and the military helps them seize an estimated 1,000 May 14 as the country prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of President Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup. Violence erupts at Santiago and other major cities beginning September 8, crowds demand Pinochet's resignation and a return to civilian rule, but the army remains in its barracks, there is no curfew, and although close to a dozen people are killed and hundreds are wounded or arrested, the protest against Pinochet's repressive rule limits itself for the most part to passive resistance, with bonfires lit on street corners while residents bang pots and pans to indicate their dissatisfaction.
Grenada has a coup d'état October 12 as Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, a Marxist hardliner, overthrows Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, now 39. When his supporters engineer a prison break a week later, Bishop is assassinated along with most of his cabinet. Growing ties between the little Caribbean island (population: 110,000) and Havana have worried Washington, as has construction of a 10,000-foot runway that could be used as a way-station for shipping Soviet and Cuban arms to Central America. U.S. Marines and Army Rangers land on the island October 25 (2 days after the disaster to marines in Beirut) with 300 military personnel from Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent supporting the Americans, who soon number more than 3,000 and control the island. President Reagan justifies the action on grounds that political thugs had taken over Grenada, that U.S. medical students on the island were in danger, that Cuba was bent on making Grenada a new bastion for communism in the Caribbean and Central America (where the United States has been supporting anti-Sandanista forces in Nicaragua). Longtime U.S. friends condemn the action, suggesting that it was made to distract attention from the losses suffered in Lebanon.
Argentina returns to civilian rule in December after an 8-year military regime and disastrous war with Britain have plunged the nation into deep financial straits. Public pressure has forced the discredited military to hold free elections, and Raul (Ricardo) Alfonsín (Foulkes), 56, has won election to the presidency as the leader of the moderate Radical Party (Unión Civica Radical); he will serve until 1989, prosecuting members of the armed forces for human rights abuses (but pardoning most convicted officers after some armed revolts), negotiating loans from the International Monetary Fund, and trying to deal with the nation's high inflation, heavy national debt, and labor disputes.
Gen. Sir Alan G. Cunningham (ret.) dies at Royal Tunbridge Wells January 30 at age 95, having scored victories in World War II that enabled Ethiopia's late emperor Haile Selassie to regain power.
Ousted Zimbabwe leader Joshua Nkomo flees to Botswana and then to London, saying that troops sent by Robert Mugabe raided his home and killed his driver in an assassination attempt (see 1982).
Sudan's Islamic government at Khartoum imposes Islamic rule on the entire nation, including non-Muslim areas such as those in the south, where most people are either Christian or cling to traditional animist beliefs (see 1971). Rebellious Dinka and Nuer tribesmen in the south form the Sudanese Liberation Army and begin to carry AK-47s instead of the spears that they have used heretofore (see 1985).
Former Libyan king Idris I dies at Cairo May 25 at age 93; former South African president Balthazar J. Vorster at Cape Town September 10 at age 67.
Nigeria's 5-year-old democratic experiment ends December 31 in a military coup. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, 41, deposes President Alhaji Shehu Shagan, now 58, and says his armed forces have saved the nation from "total collapse."
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