1992 - Political Events

Political Events

Egypt's deputy prime minister for foreign affairs Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 69, takes office January 1 as secretary general of the United Nations, participates January 31 in the first Security Council Summit, and is invited to analyze the UN's capacity for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and peacekeeping, and to recommend ways to strengthen that capacity in Africa, Asia, Central America, and Europe. Within 2 years the number of peacekeepers will have grown from 11,500 to 72,000, straining the UN's financial resources.

Macedonia declares her independence from Yugoslavia in January and requests recognition from the European Union; Greece blocks the country with its population of some 2 million from entering the United Nations, claiming exclusive rights to the name Macedonia (part of Greek territory is so named), Macedonia will finally join the UN in 1993 under the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but Greece will impose an economic blockade until the Macedonians cut a 16-pointed star in their national flag down to eight points.

Voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina opt for independence from Yugoslavia February 29, provoking fresh hostilities in the Balkans as Europe tries to deal with the end of the cold-war bipolarity on which political relationships have been based for nearly 50 years (see 1991). Serbia and Montenegro form a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia April 17. Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina gain UN membership May 22; Washington that day revokes landing rights for Yugoslav national airline planes and orders expulsion of Yugoslav military attachés to punish Serbia's president Slobodan Milosevic, who has sent troops into Bosnia. The troops besiege Sarajevo for most of the year as both sides commit atrocities while other European countries dither about how to end the fighting. President Bush warns Milosevic that violence against Kosovo's Albanian population may provoke military intervention; Milosevic wins reelection December 21 despite widespread condemnation in the West (see 1993; Kosovo, 1998).

Moldova's president Mircea Snegur authorizes military action against Trans-Denstran rebels, who gain support from contingents of Russian cossacks and the Russian 14th Army to consolidate their control over disputed areas (see 1991). Snegur's attempts to obtain United Nations intervention fail, and he has to settle for a combined Russian-Dnestr-Moldovan peacekeeping force (see 1994).

Czechoslovakia's president Vaclav Havel resigns July 17 following June elections in which the voters have decided to end the 74-year federation and create two independent republics, a break to become official January 1, 1993. Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar will head the Slovak republic, Vaclav Klaus the Czech republic. Former Czech president Alexander Dubcek dies at Prague November 7 at age 70.

Former Polish prime minister Piotr Jaroszewicz, 82, and his journalist wife, Alicja Solska, are found shot to death at their Warsaw home September 2. Police say he was strangled to death after being tortured and his wife was shot with a hunting rifle.

Former East German spymaster Erich Mielke goes to prison after being convicted of having played a role in the killing of two Berlin policemen in August 1931 (see 1957). Now 84, the short but muscular Mielke escaped to Moscow after the killing; he will be held until 1995 at the old Moabit Prison.

Former West German chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Willy Brandt dies of intestinal cancer at his home in Unkel October 8 at age 78.

German Green Party leader Petra Kelly is found dead of a gunshot wound at age 44 October 19 in the apartment at Bonn that she has shared with Gert Bastian, 69, who has either murdered his partner and then killed himself or died with her in a mutual suicide pact (no note is found). A former major general who was forcibly retired from the German Army in 1980 for opposing any deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in West Germany, Bastian has joined Kelly in speaking out against the increasing incidence of anti-foreigner violence in Germany. Kelly served in the Bundestag until 1990, when the pragmatic western wing of the Green Party was ousted in the first election after the unification of Germany.

British voters reelect the Conservatives April 9 despite an economic recession that is worse than America's. A truck bomb explodes outside the 248-year-old Baltic Exchange April 10, killing three, injuring 91, and destroying the exchange's building. The House of Commons gets its first female speaker in April: Betty Boothroyd, 62, is a onetime dancer and a Labour member of Parliament since 1973; she has a record of support for women's rights, but only 60 of Parliament's 651 members are women.

Former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze returns from Moscow to his native Georgia in March (see 1989; Georgia, 1991), the leaders of the new republic's military council install him as chairman of the state council, Georgian and Russian diplomats sign an agreement in June establishing a peace-keeping force to maintain South Ossetia as a buffer zone, Georgians elect Shevardnadze president in October, but Muslims and others continue sporadic fighting against the new government at Tblisi, which tries to control a population of about 5 million in a country of some 26,900 square miles (69,700 square kilometers). The northern Abkhazia region declares independence from Georgia, Shevardnadze imposes martial law on all government ministers in December, and civil war will continue for more than a decade as Georgia's economy declines from prosperity to penury (see 1993).

Afghan rebels surge into Kabul from April 23 to 25, the communist president Mohammad Najibullah takes refuge in a United Nations compound somewhere in the city, guerrilla groups and mutinous army units under the command of Ahmed Shah Massoud, 37, control most of Kabul by April 25, but disputes arise over how fundamentalist the new Muslim regime should be. Sporadic street fighting continues through April 30 as Massoud's forces battle those of fundamentalist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. More than 2 million Afghans have been killed fighting communist government forces from 1979 to 1989, 6 million (about one-third of the surviving population) have fled to Iran and Pakistan, and the new Taliban government begins to restore order, using repressive measures based on a strict Islamic interpretation of the Shariah to end the chaos (see 1996).

Cambodian statesman Prince Norodom Sihanouk heads a Supreme National Council under terms of a UN agreement signed at Paris calling for the Council to hold power until free elections can be held next year, but Sihanouk surprises the nation by siding with the Vietnamese-backed government against the Khmer Rouge as the UN deploys troops to keep order and clear away land mines.

Presidents Bush and Yeltsin agree June 16 to drastic cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals, scrapping key land-based missiles and reducing long-range warheads. They sign an arms-reduction accord at Washington June 17, and a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 2) announced at Geneva December 29 calls for mutual reductions of nuclear warheads (see 1993).

Algeria's president Chadli Benjedid resigns January 11 following Islamic fundamentalists' victory at the polls (see riots, 1988). Runoff elections are canceled January 12, former National Liberation Front dissident Mohammed Boudiaf, 73, returns from 27 years of exile and is sworn in as president January 16, a court dissolves the Islamic Salvation Front March 4, and President Boudiaf is assassinated at Annaba June 29, leaving the nation in turmoil (see 1995).

Israeli helicopter gunships fire on a motorcade in southern Lebanon February 16, killing 39-year-old Hisballah (Party of God) secretary-general Sheik Abbas al-Musawi along with his family and bodyguards (the Shiite organization has engaged in kidnapping and other terrorist activities against Westerners since the early 1980s); a car bomb explodes in front of the Israeli embassy at Buenos Aires March 17, killing 29 people and injuring another 220. A Lebanese Shiite group announces that an Argentine "martyr struggler" carried out the attack to avenge Musawi's slaying. Lebanon's 99-member parliament has held office since 1972, the country holds its first parliamentary elections since then to select a 125-member body in which Christians and Muslims will have equal representation, even though Christians account for only 30 percent of the population, but Christians fear a loss of economic domination and boycott the polls, charging that Syria is manipulating the elections. About 40,000 Syrian troops remain in the country under terms of an agreement made in May of last year; critics claim that the pact represents a de factor annexation of Lebanon by Syria. President Elias Hrawi names a billionaire Sunni Muslim businessman prime minister October 22: Rafik al-Hariri, 48, has made his fortune as a building contractor in Saudi Arabia and become a Saudi citizen, but he financed and organized the conference that ended Lebanon's civil war in 1989, and names a 30-minister cabinet that is evenly divided between Christian and Muslim. Hariri will serve until late in 1998, spending much of his own money to rebuild Beirut and educate thousands of Lebanese students at home and abroad.

Former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin dies of heart failure at Jerusalem March 9 at age 78; former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Philip C. Habib of a heart attack while vacationing at Puligny-Montrachet, France, May 25 at age 72. Israel's Labor Party defeats the Likud Party in elections June 23; President Bush has threatened to withhold $10 billion in loan guarantees if Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir did not freeze settlement building on the West Bank, this has contributed to Shamir's defeat, and Yitzhak Rabin becomes prime minister after campaigning on a willingness to exchange land for peace with Israel's Arab neighbors. PLO leader Yasir Arafat has lost his Soviet patron, and his rich Gulf State patrons have cut off funding since his support of Saddam Hussein in last year's Gulf War. Official Mideast peace negotiations falter in December as Israel deports 415 Palestinians following the murder of an Israeli policeman by militants, bringing condemnation from the United Nations; Lebanon refuses to accept the deportees; Middle East history professor Yair Hirschfeld breaks Israeli law by meeting in a London hotel with a Palestine Liberation Organization member (Ahmed Kriah, head of the PLO's economics department) (see 1993).

Washington bans Iraqi flights south of the 32nd parallel in August to protect Shiite Muslims from air attacks, Iraqi jets breach the no-flight zone December 27, and a U.S. F-16 shoots one down.

Thai troops fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in May, killing at least 52 people and perhaps as many as 200. More than 400 people disappear, and rumors abound that their bodies have been fed to crocodiles. A coalition led by pro-democracy forces wins election in September and installs a new government headed by Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, which works to suppress drug trafficking and child prostitution.

Philippine voters elect Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, 64, to succeed Corazon Aquino as president; he takes office June 30 in the first peaceful change of Filipino government since November 1965.

Chinese hard liner Li Xiannian dies at Beijing June 21 at age 82, having helped lead opposition to Deng Xiaoping's efforts at economic reform. Communist Party official Deng Ying-chao dies at Beijing July 11 at age 88; widow of the late Zhou Enlai and adoptive mother of Prime Minister Li Peng, she was a veteran of the Long March (as was Li Xiannian) and once dominated the party's women's program.

Japanese Liberal Democratic Party vice president Shin Kanemaru, 77, resigns August 28 after admitting that he accepted nearly $4 million in illegal donations from Sagawa Kyubin, a trucking company that sought exemptions from rules and approval of new routes, and distributed the money to lawmakers; Japan's most powerful politician, Kanemaru is convicted only of a misdemeanor and fined $1,700—less than the highest penalty for overnight parking in Tokyo. Accusations then surface that he employed gangsters to help install Noboru Takeshita as prime minister in 1987 (see 1993).

South Korean opposition leader Kim Young Sam wins election as president in December, defeating his rival Kim Dae-jung, who announces that he will retire from politics (see 1987; 1993).

Laotian president Kaysone Phomvihan relaxes some government controls and releases certain political prisoners, including some army officers from the pro-Western regime who have been held in detention camps since 1975; he schedules elections for the Supreme People's Assembly but dies at Vientiane November 21 at age 71.

Mali holds free elections in April and elects former teacher Alpha Oumar Konaré, 46, president (see 1991). His onetime student Gen. Amadou Toumani Touré (known universally as A.T.T.) steps down and devotes his efforts to fighting Guinea worm disease and mediating regional disputes.

Sierra Leone lapses into a civil war that will continue for more than 8 years (see commerce, 1972). A military coup d'détat April 29 brings down President Joseph Momoh, who is exiled to Guinea, rebel leader Foday Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front captures Kono district diamond fields and finances its activities with illegal diamond exports, Sankoh declares that the civilian government has mismanaged the affairs of the world's poorest country, his five-member junta establishes the National Provisional Ruling Council, and rebel guerrillas wreaking havoc in the tiny West African nation (see 1995).

Angola's Marxist president José Eduardo dos Santos retains office after UN-sponsored elections in September, but U.S.- and South African-sponsored UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi rejects the election results in October and resumes the civil war that has devasted the country since 1975.

Peru's president Alberto Fujimori suspends the nation's constitution April 5 and assumes dictatorial powers as he struggles to fight corruption and the Maoist Sendera Luminosa guerrillas. Washington suspends aid to Peru. Lima police capture Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán Reynoso September 12 but some of his cohorts remain at large and continue to disrupt the country.

A new Paraguayan constitution goes into effect June 20, replacing a 1967 constitution (see 1989). The new document states that the country is a representative and pluralistic democracy with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, its president is to be elected by a simple majority for a 5-year term, his reelection is specifically barred, and the executive or Congress may declare a state of exception only in the event of international armed conflict or internal unrest serious enough to jeopardize constitutional rule. The death penalty is abolished, and the constitution guarantees the rights of Indians, the right to strike, and basic civil liberties. President Rodríguez adopts certain democratic measures, legalizes all political parties (although his own Colorado Party remains dominant), repeals some repressive laws, frees the country's remaining political prisoners, ratifies the human rights treaties of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, and declares freedom of the press, but he does almost nothing in the way of land reform, and 78 percent of farm and ranch land remains in the hands of a few rich families and corporations, smuggling remains widespread, and the Rodríguez government continues to interfere with labor unions (see 1993).

Bahamas prime minister Lynden Pindling loses power August 19 after 25 years in office—the longest-serving democratically elected leader in the Western Hemisphere. Now 62, he has allegedly accepted millions of dollars from Colombian drug lords, the islands are in the midst of an economic recession with high unemployment, Pindling's Progressive Liberal Party has been upset in parliamentary elections, and he is succeeded by his protégé Hubert A. Ingraham, a 45-year-old lawyer whose center-right Free National Movement wins a landslide victory.

Brazil's Chamber of Deputies impeaches President Fernando Collor de Mello September 29 on charges of having accepted millions of dollars in illegal payments. Brazilian Press Association president Alexandre Barbosa Lima, now 95, has urged Collor's impeachment; relieved of his powers pending trial by the Senate, Collor resigns December 29 and his vice president Itamar Augusto Cautiero Franco, 62, takes over as recession and near-hyperinflation continue to wrack the country. The Movement to Restore Ethics to Politics founded by social activist Herbert José "Betinho" de Souza, 57, has helped to unseat the corrupt Collor de Mello. Driven into exile after the military coup of 1964, Souza returned under a general amnesty in 1979; a hemophiliac, he was infected with HIV through a transfusion of contaminated blood 6 years ago and has been working to raise consciousness about AIDS in Brazil, but his reputation will be tainted next year when it comes to light that his AIDS advocacy group accepted a $58,000 donation from racketeers.

Guyana's voters return the People's Progressive Party (PPP) to power in October in an internationally supervised election, and former British Guiana prime minister Cheddi Jagan becomes president with U.S. support after years of misrule and corruption have brought one of the western hemisphere's poorest countries close to economic collapse (see 1985). Now 73, Jagan has a Marxist agenda that antagonized U.S. authorities for nearly 30 years, but he defeats People's National Congress leader Desmond Hoyte and will hold power until his death in 1997, introducing economic reforms to encourage foreign investment in sugar cultivation, bauxite mining, and other enterprises while curtailing direct government participation in the economy (see 1997).

Ruby Ridge, Idaho, makes headlines after a federal marshal shoots the pet Labrador retriever of local resident Samuel Weaver, 14, August 21. Young Weaver returns fire by most accounts and is shot dead. Kevin Harris, 25, a family friend, fires on the marshals by most accounts and kills William Degan, 42. Hundreds of federal agents surround the house and when white-separatist Randy Weaver, 44, goes out the next morning to inspect his son's body he is wounded by an FBI sharpshooter but gets back to his cabin with his friend Harris. The agent then kills Weaver's wife, Vicki, 43, who is holding their 10-month-old daughter, and wounds Harris. Weaver and Harris will be acquitted next year of murder charges; Weaver has refused to surrender to authorities and face charges of illegal gun sales; he will become a hero to conspiracy buffs and members of unregulated militia groups opposed to government of any kind (see 1995; Waco, 1993).

Former New Orleans district attorney and Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorist Jim Garrison dies of heart disease at his New Orleans home October 21 at age 70.

The Cuban Democracy Act signed by President Bush October 23 tightens the 30-year-old embargo against trade with the communist-controlled Caribbean nation. Congress has passed the law under pressure from Florida's politically powerful Cuban community. The UN General Assembly votes 59 to 3 November 23 to rebuke the United States, whose new law covers foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies (see 1994).

U.S. voters elect Arkansas governor William Jefferson (Blythe) "Bill" Clinton, 46, to the presidency, rejecting George Bush's reelection bid as economic recession shows few signs of abating. Bush wins 18 states with 168 electoral votes to Clinton's 370, while taking 38 million popular votes (37.4 percent) to Clinton's 44 million (43 percent). Dallas billionaire Ross Perot entered the race October 1 and gets 18.9 million votes. President-elect Clinton has been smeared during the primary campaign in New Hampshire with allegations by Little Rock cabaret singer Gennifer Flowers in a supermarket tabloid that he had a 12-year extra-marital affair with her beginning when she was a TV reporter. Clinton has denied the allegations while admitting to having had troubles in his marriage over the years. He has objected to being penalized for keeping his marriage together "in the way that divorced people once were for having had marriages that failed." His Chicago-born wife, Hillary (née Rodham), 45, has stood by him and faced down his attackers, campaigning with him and (after a gaffe in which she has seemed to disparage homemakers) helping to bring in women voters chilled by the Reagan-Bush stand on abortion rights (47 percent of women vote for Clinton, 41 percent of men).

California voters elect two women to the U.S. Senate; former San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein (née Goldman), 59, and congresswoman Barbara Boxer (née Levy), 52, are both Democrats. Washington State elects Democrat Patty Murray, 42, and Illinois elects Democrat Carol Braun (née Moseley), 45, who becomes the first black woman U.S. senator. All four candidates have benefited from contributions by Emily's List, whose membership has swelled to 24,000 by year's end—up from 3,500 in 1990 and from 12,000 in the spring—in large part because of outrage over the treatment of Anita Hill in last year's Senate confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas.

President-elect Clinton names more women to his cabinet than any previous president. Among them are Philadelphia-born economist Alice Rivlin (née Mitchell), 61, as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget; University of Wisconsin at Madison chancellor Donna E. Shalala, now 51, as secretary of Health and Human Services; and Connecticut corporate lawyer Zoë Baird, 40, as attorney general (see 1993).

Former Georgia governor Ellis G. Arnall dies of pneumonia at Atlanta December 13 at age 85.

President Bush grants pardons December 24 to former secretary of defense Caspar W. Weinberger, now 75, and five other Reagan administration officials who have been indicted (and in some cases convicted) of lying to Congress in connection with the Iran-Contra affair of the mid-1980s. Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, 80, condemns the pardons, which fuel doubts about Bush's own involvement in trading arms for hostages in the 1980s and using proceeds of the sales to arm Nicaragua's contras.