1984 - Political Events
Political Events
Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov dies of acute kidney failure at Moscow February 9 at age 69. He is succeeded after 15 months as general secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee by Politburo member Konstantin U. Chernenko, 72, who will rule for 13 months.
Beirut terrorist gunmen kill American University president Malcolm H. Kerr January 18 and vow to rid Lebanon of Westerners. U.S., French, and Italian peacekeeping forces leave Lebanon in the spring, but Syria refuses to withdraw her troops from the Bekaa Valley. Israeli forces occupy southern Lebanon.
Israeli parliamentary elections July 23 end with the Labor Alignment Party of Shimon Peres winning 44 seats in the Knesset. The Likud Party of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wins 41 seats. Since neither party has a 61-seat majority, the Knesset votes September 14 to have a coalition government in which Peres will serve as PM for 25 months followed by a 25-month term for Shamir.
Iran-Iraq hostilities spread to the Persian Gulf (see 1982). Iraq uses French Exocet air-to-surface missiles against tankers loading at Iran's Kargh Island, Iran strikes back at tankers loading oil from Saudi Arabia and smaller Arab oil states. Foreign military analysts estimate that more than 100,000 Iranians have been killed and 50,000 Iraqis. Teheran refuses to make peace unless Iraq withdraws to the prewar border, pays war damages, and punishes her leaders (see 1985).
Mozambique and South Africa end hostilities with the Accord of Nkomati, signed March 16. It is the first agreement between white South Africa and any black nation. Guinea's president Ahmed Sekou Toure dies during emergency heart surgery at Cleveland March 27 at age 62, having led his country to freedom and governed it for 26 years. Premier Louis Lansana Beavogui, 61, is named acting president.
Upper Volta becomes Burkina Faso ("land of upright men") August 3 as the African nation's military government moves to exorcise its colonial past. Army captain Thomas Sankara, 34, has led a successful revolution last year and as president has negotiated new cooperation agreements with France, but the French cut off nearly all aid when Sankara suggests that his underpaid people who sweep Paris streets represent a form of reciprocal aid (see 1987).
Former Egyptian president Muhammad Naguib dies at Cairo August 28 at age 83.
Mauritania's president Mohammed Khouna Ould Haldala is deposed December 12 after nearly 6½ years in power; army chief of staff Gen. Maouye Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, 41, seizes power in a bloodless coup d'état and will run the country through the end of the century, despite ethnic clashes and some violent protests occasioned by austerity measures such as a currency devaluation.
Brunei on the island of Borneo gains independence January 1 after nearly 96 years as a British protectorate (see oil, 1929). An Islamic sultanate is proclaimed, Sultan Sir Muda Hassanai Bolkiah Muizzaddin Waddaulah becomes prime minister along with other posts, he appoints members of his family to various official positions, and he proclaims the first National Day February 23 with a celebration in a newly-constructed $50 million stadium. Britain's Prince Charles attends the festivities, as do leaders of 70 countries; a crowd estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000 takes the National Day oath, 1,984 birds are released, Prince Charles remains through February 25 to visit the British Army Ghurka battalion, and Brunei joins the United Nations September 21, becoming the 159th member.
Sikh extremists occupy the Golden Temple at Amritsar; India's prime minister Indira Gandhi sends in troops June 5 to 6 and 600 to 1,200 are killed in a bloody takeover of the temple. Sikhs control the prosperous Punjab state and have pressed for independence, as have some other Indian states, and Mrs. Gandhi is determined to keep the nation united by whatever means. Now 66, she says October 30, "I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation." Two Sikh members of her personal guard assassinate her October 31 and some 1,000 people are killed in anti-Sikh riots. Gandhi is succeeded by her son Rajiv, 40, who has had little political experience but wins election as prime minister in his own right at year's end (see 1989).
South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung announces September 12 that he will return from the United States, where he has lived in exile since 1982 after serving 2½ years of a 20-year prison sentence for sedition (see 1980). Admitting that he may be imprisoned again, he dismisses suggestions that he may meet the same fate as Filipino opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino last year; "The Korean government will not be so stupid as to repeat that sort of thing," Kim says, and he vows to "participate in the people's struggle for the restoration of democracy and human rights" (see 1987).
Striking Surinamese bauxite workers black out Paramaribo January 10, sabotaging transformers relaying power from hydroelectric dams in a protest against military rule (see 1983); troops surround the U.S.-owned Suralco bauxite-processing plant at Paranam January 11 to prevent workers from destroying equipment, bank workers and bus drivers join the strike in mid-January, the workers vote to return to work late in the month, an interim government is sworn in February 3, but the new cabinet submits its resignations at year's end (see 1986).
Armed speedboats and a helicopter from a CIA mother ship mine Nicaraguan harbors at the start of the year in a move to block import of Cuban and Soviet arms allegedly destined for rebels in El Salvador. They damage a Soviet freighter and other foreign ships in a clear violation of the 1982 Boland Amendment, return a week later to mine an oil terminal, the World Court denounces the U.S. action, the White House denies World Court jurisdiction in the matter, the Senate votes 84 to 12 April 10 to cut off funds for any further mining of the harbors, a second Boland amendment takes effect October 3, but the speedboats return October 11 to attack oil facilities at Corinto.
Salvadoran junta leader José Napoleon Duarte wins election as president in May, defeating ultra-rightist candidate Roberto D'Aubuisson, who has been linked to death squads. Duarte succeeds Alvaro Alfredo Magana in the U.S.-backed election, visits Washington in July, and persuades Congress to provide increased economic and military aid.
Nicaragua has her first presidential election since 1974 November 4, 80 percent of the country's 1.55 million voters turn out (although voting is not compulsory), and FSLN junta coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra wins the presidency with 60 percent of the popular vote, having told the United Nations General Assembly that the United States was planning to invade his country (see 1979). Opposition leader Arturo (Jose) Cruz has boycotted the election, calling it "totally ridiculous and illegitimate," U.S. State Department officials call the election a sham, they point out that the FSLN used government facilities during the brief campaign, but while foreign observers, including more than 30 from the United States, note a shortage of opposition party poll watchers, they report no irregularities and some maintain that the balloting was fairer than the U.S.-backed election held 6 months earlier in El Salvador (see 1985).
Uruguayan voters elect moderate Julio Maria Sanguinetti, 49, to the presidency November 25 (see 1981). A member of the Colorado Party, he has promised to reestablish full democracy after 12 years of military rule and restore human and civil rights. He pardons leftist Tupamoro rebels immediately after his inauguration; popular sentiment favors criminal trials for the former military leaders, who have committed thousands of human-rights abuses during the dictatorship (but see human rights, 1986).
Belize holds her first national election December 14 (see 1981). George Price of the People's United Party has run for a seventh consecutive term as prime minister of what used to be British Honduras before he led it to independence, but he loses to the right-wing United Democratic Party candidate Manuel Esquivel, 44, who will remain in power until 1989. A fall in the world price of sugar has had a depressing effect on the country's economy, as has the loss of more than two-thirds of her trade with Mexico following that country's financial problems 2 years ago. It is Price's first electoral defeat in a 30-year career; now 65, he even loses his National Assembly seat to 25-year-old Derek Aikman (but see 1989).
Canada's Liberal prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announces his resignation February 29. He steps down June 30 after 16 years in office (interrupted for 9 months in 1979-80) and is succeeded by English-born lawyer-politician John Napier Turner, 55, but corporate lawyer Brian Mulroney, 45, leads the Progressive Conservatives in an election sweep September 4 as his party takes 211 of the 282 seats in the House of Commons.
Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher narrowly escapes injury October 12 when a bomb explodes at Brighton's Grand Hotel, where she and most of her cabinet have been attending a Conservative Party conference. Five people are killed and 32 injured, the Provisional Irish Republican Army claims responsibility, and a court at London's Bailey in June 1986 will convict Belfast terrorist Patrick J. Magee, now 33, of planting the timed explosive.
Sen. Frank F. Church (D. Idaho) dies of pancreatic cancer at Bethesda, Md., April 7 at age 59, having gained prominence for opposing the Vietnam War and reforming the CIA; Gen. Mark W. Clark (ret). dies of pancreatic cancer at Charleston, S.C., April 16 at age 87. Last of the top five U.S. World War II commanders, he served as president of the Citadel at Charleston from 1954 to 1966.
President Reagan wins reelection with 525 electoral votes to 13 for former vice president Walter Mondale, 56, who has run with Queens, N.Y., congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, 48, but carries only the District of Columbia and his home state of Minnesota. Now 73, Reagan wins 59 percent of the popular vote.
An agreement signed at Beijing December 19 by Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher and China's premier Zhao Ziyang provides for transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Hong Kong is to retain its capitalist way of life until 1997.
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