1990 | Political Events
Political Events
Germany reunites and the USSR crumbles as Iraqi aggression threatens to ignite a Mideast conflagration.
Soviet leaders agree February 7 to surrender the Communist Party's 72-year monopoly on power (see 1989). The party's governing Central Committee ends a stormy 3-day meeting with a strong endorsement of President Gorbachev's proposal for political pluralism. Gorbachev critic Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Republic in May; he quits the party in July, followed by the mayors of Moscow and Leningrad. Gorbachev asks for special powers November 17 as the Soviet economy collapses, he is granted the powers despite fears of a new dictatorship, the liberal minister of the interior is succeeded by a KGB officer, and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze announces his resignation December 20, warning the Congress of the People's Deputies against "reactionaries." The Parliament shrugs off Shevardnadze's warning and votes December 25 to give Gorbachev almost dictatorial powers, including powers over the 15 republics.
Lithuania's Parliament votes March 11 to secede from the USSR (see 1989). President Gorbachev denounces the move, Soviet tanks move into Vilnius, Gorbachev says there will be no shooting, but his troops take over buildings and in April he cuts off oil and other supplies in an effort to force Lithuania to rescind her declaration of independence. President Bush comes under pressure for backing Gorbachev instead of Lithuania. Lithuanian youths resist conscription into the Soviet army, as do youths in Armenia, Georgia, and other rebellious Soviet republics (see 1991).
East Germans vote March 18 in the first free elections since 1932, approving a parliament that restores the borders of Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg, and Brandenburg, paving the way for reunification.
The Schengen Border Pact signed at the Luxembourg village of Schengen June 19 opens borders between France, West Germany, and the three Benelux countries as soon as Germany shall reunify.
Germany reunites October 3 after 43 years of separation (see 1989). A 3-day meeting at Ottawa has ended February 13 with an accord by Soviet, British, French, and U.S. foreign ministers on a framework for negotiating reunification. Eduard Shevardnadze meets with Texas-born Secretary of State James A. (Addison) Baker, 3rd, 59, and they agree to reduce Soviet and U.S. strength in Central Europe to 195,000 troops each, while permitting an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to be stationed in England, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. President Gorbachev has met with Chancellor Kohl in July and agreed to permit membership of a unified Germany in NATO.
Romanian voters elect Ion Iliescu president in June (see 1989); the government of former Communist Party members brings in armed miners to put down street demonstrations against the regime in Bucharest.
Moldova struggles to create herself as a new republic with communist Mircea Snegur, 50, as president, but separatists threaten to shatter the country's unity (see 1989). A Turkish-speaking minority establishes an autonomous Gagauz Soviet Socialist Republic in the southeast, and Slavs east of the Dneister River establish a Trans-Dnestr Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in September following a referendum (see 1991).
The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty signed by 22 world leaders at Paris November 19 ends the "era of confrontation and division" that has followed World War II. NATO and Warsaw Pact countries agree to reduce weapons (Moscow will scrap 19,000 tanks, NATO 2,000), no one country may have more than one-third the total number of arms in a single category. But Yugoslavia verges on civil war between her component states, and tensions persist elsewhere on the Continent (e.g., in Moldava, Romania, Hungary, Catalonia). President Slobodan Milosevic pushes through changes in the Serbian constitution to curtail the autonomy of Croatia, Slovenia, and Kosovo (see 1989). Despite growing sentiment in favor of multiparty elections and a looser confederation of the former Yugoslav countries, he resists political and economic reform. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) breaks into separate republican parties, multiparty elections bring noncommunist governments to power in Croatia and Slovenia, but Milosovic transforms the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS) into the Socialist Party of Serbia and wins reelection by a landslide in December (see 1991).
Poland holds her first free elections since before World War II. Voters give Solidarity leader Lech Walesa 40 percent of the presidential vote November 25 and repudiate Prime Minister Mazowiecki, who has eschewed demagogic promises, receives only 18.1 percent of the vote, and promptly resigns. Emigré entrepreneur Stanislaw Tyminski, 42, returned to Poland in September after 21 years in Canada and Peru; he wins 23.1 percent of the vote but loses to Walesa in a run-off December 9.
Bulgaria's prime minister Andrei Lukanov resigns November 29 after 9 months in office following 2 weeks of anticommunist demonstrations by striking workers to protest the nation's economic disarray.
Ireland elects leftist lawyer-parliamentarian Mary Robinson, 46, president November 9. The nation's first female president and the first chief executive since 1945 with no affiliation to the dominant Fianna Fail political grouping, Robinson has campaigned vigorously, accusing the "patriarchal, male-dominated presence of the Catholic Church" of holding back women's rights in Ireland (she is herself a Roman Catholic, married to a Protestant) and speaking out in favor of reforming laws that prohibit divorce, legalizing homosexuality, giving wide access to contraceptives, and ending the constitutional ban on abortion. Robinson is sworn in for a 7-year term December 3 but has limited power beyond calling for new elections after a government loses support.
Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher is forced out after 11½ years in office, the longest ministry of the century. She is succeeded November 27 by her chancellor of the exchequer and hand-picked successor John Major, 47-year-old son of a circus acrobat. The youngest prime minister thus far in this century, he will prove inadequate.
Iraqi forces invade Kuwait August 2 after Kuwait refuses demands by President Saddam Hussein that she pay compensation for allegedly drilling oil on Iraqi territory, cede disputed land, reduce oil output, and raise prices. Kuwait has rebuffed Iraqi demands that she forgive $15 billion in loans extended during the Iraq-Iran war. The Bush administration has told Saddam Hussein that it has no treaty obligation to defend Kuwait and would not take sides (Saddam has interpreted remarks by U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Gillespie that Washington would not oppose him), but Washington, Moscow, Tokyo, London, Teheran, and Beijing unite in denouncing his move and the United Nations Security Council votes 13 to 0 August 6 to impose economic sanctions (Yemen and Cuba abstain). Iraq masses troops on the border of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh agrees to receive U.S. ground and air forces. President Bush says Iraq's aggression "will not stand" and dispatches forces to Saudi Arabia August 7, risking his presidency. Iraq annexes Kuwait August 8 and proceeds to loot the country; Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and nine other Arab states vote August 10 to oppose Iraq with military force; Saddam Hussein calls for a "holy war" against Westerners and Zionists, gaining wide popular support among Arabs; he holds more than 10,000 foreigners hostage beginning August 18 but permits women and children to leave August 29 and releases all the others by early December as the standoff continues. Kuwait's billionaire emir Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, 64, has narrowly escaped capture and fled to Saudi Arabia; he addresses the United Nations General Assembly September 27, urging it to stand by the sanctions it has imposed. His relatives have acted swiftly to keep Kuwaiti funds abroad out of Saddam Hussein's hands. Bush ups the ante November 8 (2 days after the elections), committing far more U.S. forces to "Operation Desert Shield," but popular opposition grows to launching any offensive action (see 1991).
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Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, refused to withdraw, and brought the United Nations down on his head.
The United Nations Security Council votes November 29 to authorize members to use all necessary force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait if they remain there after January 15, the first such resolution since the Korean conflict in 1950. President Bush reverses his position November 30 and agrees to talks with Saddam Hussein and his foreign minister.
The Republic of Yemen created May 23 unites the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south with the Yemen Arab Republic in the north after more than 400 years of separation. The country has upwards of 1,400 tribes and clans, Eastern European states have bankrolled the communist south, the north has enjoyed freewheeling capitalism, but the past 20-plus years have seen endless assassinations, coups, and countercoups. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, 48, casts his lot with Iraq, denouncing Western sanctions and military threats, but then bars Iraqi ships from unloading at Aden.
Lebanon's 15-year-old civil war ends in the fall with the surrender of Christian forces led by Gen. Michel Aoun (see 1989); the allied embargo against Iraq has cut off his supply of arms and he is ousted from the presidential palace October 13. President Elias Hrawi orders the departure of sectarian militias October 25 after some weeks of murders to settle old scores, Hrawi is more sympathetic to Damascus, Syria begins to withdraw her militia, and Beirut's barricades come down (see 1992).
Israeli security forces open fire October 17 on a group of Palestinians throwing stones to protest calls by ultra-Orthodox Jews to raze two of Islam's holiest mosques at Jerusalem (see 1988). The Palestinians have attacked worshipers at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall on the Temple Mount close to the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques; 19 are shot dead, more than 140 wounded in the intifada's worst single incident of violence. Israel says the violence was inspired by Iraq's Saddam Hussein; the United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to support a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Israel's excessive use of force. The political assassination of Brooklyn-born Israeli extremist Meir (originally Martin David) Kahane, 58, by a gunman at a midtown Manhattan hotel November 5 exacerbates Israeli-Palestinian animosities. Rabbi Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, moved to Israel in 1971, and has stirred up anger against Arabs. A drive-by shooting on the West Bank November 6 kills a 65-year-old Palestinian man and a 61-year-old woman in an apparent act of retaliation.
Pakistan's president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismisses Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto August 6, dissolves the National Assembly, and declares a state of emergency, saying that the Bhutto government is corrupt and inefficient (see 1988; 1993).
Former U.S. secretary of labor, Supreme Court justice, and UN representative Arthur Goldberg is found dead of heart disease at his Washington, D.C., home January 19 at age 81; Lieut. Gen. James M. Gavin (ret.) dies of complications from Parkinson's disease at Baltimore February 23 at age 82; former CIA director Vice Admiral William F. Raborn Jr. (ret.) dies at McLean, Va., March 3 at age 84; Admiral Robert B. Carney (ret.) at Washington, D.C. June 25 at age 95; former U.S. Air Force chief of staff Gen. Curtis E. LeMay (ret.) of a heart attack at California's March Air Force Base October 1 at age 83; diplomat-historian Edwin O. Reischauer at La Jolla, Calif., September 1 at age 79.
Canada's Meech Lake Accord of 1987 expires June 23 as two provincial legislatures refuse to ratify it.
Nicaraguan voters defeat Sandanista leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra's bid for reelection February 25 and elect coalition leader Violetta Barrios de Chamorro, 60, to the presidency. Widow of La Prensa editor Antonio de Chamorro, who opposed the Samoza regime and was shot to death in 1978, the president-elect has no political experience and has gained election with U.S. help.
Former El Salvador president José Napoleon Duarte dies of cancer at his native San Salvador February 23 at age 64; former Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo at Guatemala City October 6 at age 86.
The Surinamese military arrests rebel leader Ronny Brunswijk and 10 of his followers March 26 after a gunfight at Paramaribo (see 1989). Former army sergeant Brunswijk had come to the capital 3 days earlier to discuss ending his 3½-year-old insurgency, but Lt. Col. Desi Bouterse has opposed the civilian government's efforts to make peace and used his 7,000-man army to root out Brunswijk's 300-odd guerrillas. Brunswijk is released March 27, but when Bouterse stops at Amsterdam's Schipol international airport en route to Ghana in early December he is barred by Dutch authorities from giving press interviews. Surinam's civilian president Ransewak Shankar fails to protest, Bouterse resigns as commander of the armed forces December 22, he is replaced by Ivan Graanoogst, and the new commander asks the civilian government to resign in order to avoid bloodshed. The government falls in a bloodless coup December 24, and Graanoogst promises free elections within 100 days (see 1991).
Lima-born agricultural engineer Albert Fujimori, 51, wins Peru's presidency in a run-off election held June 10, having founded the Cambio 90 (Change in 1990) Party and gained working-class support to defeat novelist Maria Vargas Llosa, who beat him in the general election but now loses by a wide margin. Former president García's popularity rating has fallen to 9 percent, he has left the country in early June, and has received political asylum at Bogotá. Inflation has been running at a rate of about 8,000 percent, with an accumulated rate of about 2.5 million percent in the past 5 years; the country's gross national product has fallen below its levels in the mid-1960s, its foreign debt has risen to a crushing $20 billion, an attempt 3 years ago to nationalize the banks has exacerbated the situation, and most of the population has been forced into abject poverty or, at best, is working in the "informal sector" (see 1992).
Uruguay's president Sanguinetti is declared ineligible for reelection in November, having lost popularity among workers who walked off the job in an effort to gain back some of the real wages they lost under the old military regime (see human rights, 1989). The Blanco Party returns to power after 23 years November 26 as Sen. Luis Alberto Lacalle, 48, wins the presidency with a 38 percent plurality in a 12-man race, having called for increased privatization of state-owned industries.
Haiti holds her first free election since 1957 (see 1986). Voters go to the polls December 18 and choose as president radical priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, 37, who has denounced the country's military as brutal and corrupt (see 1991).
Nepal has bloody riots beginning early in the year as prodemocracy forces clash with soldiers and police (see 1972). King Birendra bir Bikram Shah Dev removes the ban on political activity April 8 and agrees November 9 to a new constitution that retains his position as chief of state but sanctions multiparty democracy, a separation of powers, and protection for human rights (see 2001).
Singapore's prime minister Lee Kuan Yew resigns November 26 after 31 years of strict rule that have seen the former colonial outpost transformed into a major metropolis (see 1965). His hand-picked successor Goh Chok Tong, 49, takes over but will continue to take orders from Lee, now 67.
Former Malaysian prime minister Tunku (Prince) Abdul Rahman Putra Alhaj dies at Kuala Lumpur December 6 at age 87.
South African resistance leader Nelson Mandela, now 71, gains release from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town February 11 with no preconditions after more than 27 years of incarceration on charges of high treason. President F. W. de Klerk asks Mandela to help negotiate a political settlement between whites and blacks. Mandela travels to Canada and the United States in June and addresses both the United Nations General Assembly and Congress. The African National Congress (ANC) agrees August 7 to stop infiltrating trained guerrillas and weapons into South Africa, which agrees to begin a phased release of political prisoners and grant amnesty to some 20,000 ANC exiles, paving the way for negotiating a new constitution based on sharing of power with blacks. But supporters of Zulu prince Mangosuthu Buthelesi attack ANC strongholds in murderous acts of Zulu versus Xhosa tribal violence that disrupt the country.
Namibia achieves independence March 21 after a period of German colonial rule followed by 74 years of South African rule. The new republic begins life as a democracy with onetime railway dining car steward and former South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) leader Sam Daniel Shafiishuna "Sam" Nujoma, 60, as president.
Liberia's president Samuel K. Doe is killed September 9 at age 40 (or 38 or 39) after 10 years of U.S.-subsidized misrule as rival invading forces battle for control. Prince Yealu Johnson declares himself head of state pending elections but is opposed by Charles Ghankay Taylor, 42, as a peacekeeping force sent into the country in August tries to restore order amidst tribal warfare. Doe's troops massacred some 200 civilians July 31 after they sought refuge in a Lutheran mission. Backed by Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, Taylor was a high-level official in Doe's administration who fled to the United States after being charged with embezzling up to $1 million in state funds. He escaped from a Massachusetts jail in 1985 while awaiting extradition and has gained popular support in 8 months since landing in northeastern Liberia with about 100 Libyan-trained troops. An estimated 400,000 Liberians have fled the country, whose civil war will have claimed 150,000 lives by 1993 (see 1997).