1997 - Political Events
Political Events
Chinese statesman Deng Xiaoping dies of advanced Parkinson's disease and lung disease at Beijing February 19 at age 92. President Jiang Zemin has held considerable power since 1989, but many doubt that he will inherit Deng's authority; now 75, he promises to continue Deng's economic policies and orders a simple funeral for the "paramount leader," who was the last major figure to have participated in the Long March of the 1930s yet led his country out of rigid economic controls into something much closer to a capitalist market economy and even permitted something like a grassroots democracy, however limited. Communist hard-liner Peng Zhen dies at Beijing April 26 at age 95, having helped to oust reform-minded party chief Hu Yaobang in 1987 and Hu's successor Zhao Ziyang 2 years later when Zhao refused to impose martial law to suppress pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square. President Jiang's Communist Party leadership selects a new Central Committee September 18, omitting Jiang Zemin's rival Qiao Shi.
Hong Kong reverts to China July 1 after 156 years of British rule. China's president Jiang Zemin promises that Hong Kong will be allowed to govern itself under the "one country, two systems" policy first enunciated by Deng Xiaoping in 1982, "with its previous socioeconomic system and way of life remaining unchanged and its laws remaining basically unchanged while the main part of the nation persists in the socialist system."
The House of Representatives votes 395 to 28 January 21 to reprimand Speaker Newt Gingrich and orders him to pay $300,000 as recompense for expenses (see commerce, 1996). Gingrich announces in April that former majority leader Bob Dole has agreed to lend him the money at 10 percent interest with nothing to be repaid for 8 years (see 1998).
Czech-born diplomat Madeleine Albright (née Marie Jana Korbel), 59, is sworn in as U.S. secretary of state January 23, becoming the first woman to hold that office. She soon learns that her parents were Jewish and that three of her grandparents died in German concentration camps.
The Project for the New American Century founded in the spring by "neo-conservatives" is a right-wing think tank whose stated goal is to promote U.S. global leadership. Headed by former Commentary magazine editor William Kristol, it rents space in the Washington, D.C., building occupied also by the 54-year-old American Enterprise Institute, whose stated mission is to support the "foundations of freedom—limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense" (see 1998).
Republicans on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees make a formal request March 13 that Attorney General Janet Reno begin action that could lead to the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate fund-raising in behalf of President Clinton's reelection bid last year. Controversy over the issue continues all year, Justice Department investigators question the president and vice president in separate interviews November 11, and Reno announces December 2 that she will not appoint an independent counsel since the actions of President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were, she says, outside the scope of federal election law.
Federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson rules at Washington, D.C., April 10 that the law enacted by Congress last year giving presidents the power to cancel individual appropriations and tax benefits by line-item veto is unconstitutional because it delegates authority that cannot be surrendered (see 1998).
A federal grand jury at Denver returns a guilty verdict June 2 against Timothy J. McVeigh, who has been charged with conspiracy and murder in connection with the 1995 Oklahoma City truck bomb explosion that destroyed the federal building, killed 168 people, and injured hundreds more.
Former U.S. ambassador to Denmark Eugenie M. Anderson dies at her Red Wing, Minn., home March 31 at age 87; Canadian statesman Gérard Pelletier at Montreal June 22 at age 78.
President Clinton appoints his Flushing, N.Y.-born confidant George J. (John) Tenet, 44, to succeed John Deutch as director of the CIA. An expert on national security and intelligence, Tenet is sworn in July 11 and will head the agency until 2004.
Serbia's president Slobodan Milosevic tells his parliament February 4 that he accepts the November 17 electoral victories of his opponents in Belgrade and 13 of the nation's other 18 major cities. His action comes after 77 days of daily street demonstrations that Milosevic's police and troops have balked at suppressing.
Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko issues an order March 6 banning slogans that "humiliate the authorities" and restricting the right to demonstrate (see 1994); his police enter the National Front's headquarters at Minsk 1 week later, they arrest its vice president Yuri Khodyko and at least 10,000 demonstrators march through central Minsk March 15, waving the outlawed independence flag (Lukashenko has replaced it with a Soviet-era flag) and shouting, "Down with Lukashenko!"
British elections May 1 end in a landslide victory for the "New" Labour Party after 18 years of Conservative Party rule, first by Margaret Thatcher, then by John Majors. The election campaign lasts an extraordinary 6 weeks and is marked by the nation's first television debate between the Tory and Labour Party candidates. Labour's Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair, 43, has taken some ideas from Bill Clinton, co-opting Tory positions to raise the fortunes of his party (whose constituency had fallen from 53 percent in 1980 to 32 percent in 1994), and he becomes the first Labour prime minister since 1979. Even though Britain is more prosperous than her European neighbors, the scandal-plagued Conservatives suffer their worst defeat since 1832, and Blair becomes the nation's youngest prime minister since 1812.
Albania verges on anarchy as insurgents demand the resignation of President Sali Berisha and others whom they hold responsible for 20 pyramid schemes that have sucked the equivalent of $1.2 billion from the people of Europe's poorest country (Albania's national budget is only about $960 million, one-third of it aid from the European Union).
The Irish Republican Army announces at Dublin July 19 that it will resume the cease-fire that it broke in February 1996 after deciding that the British Government was not serious about peace talks on Northern Ireland (see Good Friday accord, 1998).
Thousands of Turkish women (and some men) march through the streets of Ankara February 15 to protest the policies of the nation's new Islamic-led government (see 1996). They carry banners that read, "Women's Rights Are Human Rights," "Down with Shariah," and "Women Exist." Turkey's military ousts Prime Minister Erbakan June 18, calling his pro-Islamic Welfare Party divisive and undemocratic. Erbakan is replaced June 30 by secular leader Mesut Yilmaz, now 50, who has headed two previous but short-lived governments (see 1999).
Scottish nationalists win a vote September 11 to establish a legislature of their own for the first time since 1707. Britain's prime minister Tony Blair has favored devolution, but although the move is considered the greatest upheaval since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 it does not sever Scotland from the United Kingdom.
French voters oust Prime Minister Alain Juppé and elect socialist Lionel Jospin, 59, despite President Chirac's warnings against turning the government over to a socialist-communist majority. The unemployment rate is a record 12.8 percent, the socialists promise to create 700,000 government-backed jobs and stimulate demand by raising wages and cutting the work week from 39 hours to 35 without reducing pay, but pragmatists say any new regime will have to support Chirac's efforts to modify the welfare state and take other austerity measures to meet the criteria for joining Europe's single currency, the euro, in 1999.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees January 15 after much delay to hand over Hebron on the West Bank to Palestinian control in a deal brokered by U.S. mediator Dennis Ross (see 1996), but bulldozers begin work in East Jerusalem March 18 on the hilltop Har Homa housing project that has been called "provocative." Palestinians and world opinion have opposed the project on grounds that it may jeopardize the peace process begun with the Oslo accord of 1993, but Netanyahu defies his critics and proceeds with it, despite terrorist acts that kill and wound many Israelis. Soldiers in riot gear protect the bulldozers from interference. A scandal over Netanyahu's January appointment of Likud Party crony Roni Bar-On as attorney general threatens to bring down the government, but a 12-week national police probe ends in late April without the indictment that Likud supporters had feared. Terrorist attacks and retaliations continue to undermine efforts to pursue the peace process, Israeli secret service (Mossad) agents botch an attempt to kill a Hamas leader at Amman, Jordan, September 25, but while the incident strains Israel's relations with King Hussein it actually boosts Netanyahu's popularity at home (see 1998).
Iranian voters defeat strict Islamic clerics and elect a moderate to the presidency in elections held May 23. A direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed, Mohammed Khatami, 54, is a scholar who since 1992 has been director of the National Library; he succeeds President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has served for two terms; his reading of Islamic law rejects coercion and oppression, and he hopes to legalize political parties, but his powers are limited. The CIA has promised for more than 5 years to make public its files related to a secret mission to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953, but it reveals May 28 that nearly all the documents were routinely burned in the early 1960s (see 1998).
Algeria's military-backed government holds elections June 4 in an effort to end the undeclared war that has killed more than 50,000 since 1992, but the Islamic fundamentalist Salvation Front is banned, the turnout is relatively low, and although the party representing the interests of President Liamine Zeroual wins 155 seats of the 380-seat assembly (no other party wins even half that many), opposition parties charge fraud, the unemployment rate continues to be nearly 30 percent, the government's attempt to restore democracy and peace meets with little success, and massacres by the militants continue to exact a fearsome toll (some 412 men, women, and children are hacked to death in villages 180 miles west of Algiers the night of December 30, first day of Ramadan).
The United Nations Security Council votes June 11 to tighten restrictions on Iraq if she has not stopped blocking UN inspectors from searching for weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam Hussein has been doing since February 1991. Australia's UN ambassador Richard Butler takes over July 1 as head of the weapons-inspection team and reports October 6 that the Iraqis are using every effort to keep his people from discovering the whereabouts, number, and production sites of germ war shells that may already be loaded on planes and short-range missiles; Britain, the United States, and seven other countries propose keeping those Iraqis responsible for this obstruction from traveling abroad, but the French demur October 23 and Saddam expels U.S. members of a United Nations inspection team November 13; the entire team withdraws in protest after 7 years in which it has uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction than were taken out in the 1991 Gulf War, President Clinton threatens military action if Saddam does not back down, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny M. Primakov reaches an accommodation with Saddam November 19, the UN inspectors return to work November 22, but there are fears that Iraq has used the time to build up stocks of nerve gas and biological weapons such as anthrax, aflatoxin, botulinum, and smallpox toxins that could pose a threat not only to her neighbors but to the whole world. Secretary of Defense William Cohen warns November 25 that Iraq may possess enough of the nerve gas VX to kill everyone in the world but adds that more than 25 countries have, or are developing, nuclear capability and/or weapons of mass destruction (see 1998).
Six Islamic militants in Egypt open fire with automatic weapons outside the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut's Temple at Luxor November 17, killing 36 Swiss and 22 other foreign tourists. Two police officers and two Egyptian civilians are also killed before the police finally kill the perpetrators, whose motivation has been to damage Egypt's $3 billion-per-year tourist industry as part of an ongoing effort to topple the government and replace it with an Islamic state.
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party is roundly defeated in February 3 elections to Nawaz Sharif, the 47-year-old industrialist whose Pakistan Muslim League ran the government from 1990 to 1993 (see 1996), but three-fourths of the population remains illiterate, only 17 percent of the electorate votes, economic conditions are dismal, and powerful Islamic religious groups keep up pressure to oust India from Kashmir (see 1999).
India's parliament votes early in the year to let Bombay be called by its Gujarati and Marathi name Mumbai; parliament defeats Prime Minister Deve Gowda's 10-month-old government April 11, and former foreign minister I. K. (Inder Kumar) Gujaral, 77, is sworn in as prime minister at New Delhi April 21. Like many Hindus living in what became Pakistan 50 years ago, Gujaral fled with his family to India at that time but is determined to improve relations with Pakistan (see 1998). A caste-based riot breaks out at Mumbai July 11; state and federal legislators vote July 14 to make Kocheril Raman Narayanan, 76, the nation's president. He becomes the first member of the "untouchable" caste to attain such high office.
Cambodia's Khmer Rouge hard-liners split into factions following reports of a June 13 order by Pol Pot to liquidate his key aide Son Sen along with his family (see 1996). Co-Prime Minister Hun Sen, 45, seizes power July 5, ordering his troops to attack the stronghold of his coalition partner Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of King Nordom Sihanouk, and routing the prince's royalist forces. A onetime commander of the Khmer Rouge movement, Hun Sen fled to Vietnam to escape the bloodshed of the Pol Pot regime from 1975 to 1979; he promises to reopen Parliament, hold elections, and work with an opposition party, but although he calls July 13 for a free press and protection of human rights, Western diplomats distrust him, charging that he has had dozens of political opponents killed and hundreds arrested. His troops include former Khmer Rouge commander Ke Pauk, who has been responsible for tens of thousands of murders. Pol Pot's former comrades capture their erstwhile leader in the jungle June 20; he is condemned by a "people's court" July 25 after a show trial and sentenced to life imprisonment (see 1998).
Former Philippine president Diosdado Macapagal dies at Makati, Philippines, April 21 at age 86; former Vietnamese puppet emperor (and acting prime minister) Bao Dai in exile at Paris July 31 at age 83, having spent most of the money he appropriated while in power.
Guyana's president Cheddi Jagan suffers a heart attack at Georgetown February 15, is flown to Washington, D.C., for treatment, but dies at Walter Reed Hospital March 6 at age 78; his Chicago-born wife, Janet, wins a hard-fought election to succeed him and at age 77 is sworn in December 19, becoming the first elected woman president in South American history and Guyana's first white president. "I intend to be a president of all the people," Jagan says in her inaugural address, but supporters of London-educated People's National Congress leader Desmond Hoyte, 63, challenge the election results (see 1998).
The hostage crisis at Lima ends April 22 after 4 months in which all efforts to negotiate a settlement have failed. Peruvian commandos storm the Japanese ambassadorial residence, kill the 14 Tupac Amaru rebels there, and release 71 hostages (a 72nd—Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Giusti Acuña—is wounded in the shooting of his guerrilla captors and dies of a heart attack).
M-16 assault rifle inventor Eugene Stoner dies of cancer at his Palm City, Calif., home April 24 at age 74.
Mexican voters end 68 years of hegemony by the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that has held power since 1929. Labor leader Fidel Velásquez Sánchez dies June 21 at age 97, after 6 decades of controlling the Mexican labor movement and allowing workers' living standards to decline, but political reforms instituted by President Ernesto Zedillo enable six of the country's 31 states to elect non-PRI governments July 6, and Party of the Democratic Revolution leader Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, 63, is elected mayor of Mexico City in a free and open election (mayors have been appointed by the PRI since 1928). The PRI has allegedly been stealing elections for years, and its overwhelming repudiation puts the leftist Cárdenas, whose late father helped to found the PRI and was president from 1934 to 1940, in line to be elected president himself in 2000. A massacre of 45 Tzotzil men, women, and children in the Indian township of Chenalhó near the Guatemalan border December 22 is blamed on men allied with President Zedillo's PRI.
Former Paraguayan president Gen. Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti dies of complications from liver cancer at New York April 21 at age 73; former Colombian president Virgilio Barco Vargas of stomach cancer at Bogotá May 20 at age 75; Brazilian social activist Herbert José "Betinho" de Souza of AIDS at Rio de Janeiro August 9 at age 61; former Colombian president Misael Pastrana Borrero of stomach cancer at a Bogotá clinic August 21 at age 73.
Zairean rebel leader Laurent Kabila issues an ultimatum February 5 to President Mobutu: relinquish power by February 21 or face an all-out rebel offensive (see 1996). Mobutu has been in France for treatment of his prostate cancer. Rebel forces take the country's third largest city, Kisangani, March 15; Mobutu leaves Kinshasa May 16, and prepares to go into exile as rebel forces wearing T-shirts and tennis shoes enter the capital city to a jubilant welcome. Mobutu Sese Seko has ruled the country for nearly 32 years, mercilessly suppressing dissent while filling his own pockets (and his foreign bank accounts) with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars from U.S. aid that his successors will try for years to recover. Kabila makes himself president of the mineral-rich nation and renames it the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mobutu dies in Morocco September 7 at age 66, but Congolese Tutsi gain so much power in the army and in local government that they are regarded by many other ethnic groups as invaders from Rwanda. The guerrilla war with Hutu rebels that continues in western Rwanda spreads into the Congo, and President Kabila is more intent on eliminating tribal enemies than on establishing a democratic political system (see 1998).
Sierra Leone's democratically-elected president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is ousted in a military coup d'état May 25 after 14 months in power (see 1996). Major Johnny Paul Koroma takes power and warns Nigerian peacekeeping forces not to interfere. He allies his new government with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) but by September the country is in chaos, with government troops fighting peacekeeping forces sent in by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and ECOMOG using air power against commercial targets in Freetown (see 1998).
Liberian warlord Charles G. Taylor, now 49, wins election to the nation's presidency in July elections that are called free and fair by outside monitors. Civil war has wracked the country since Taylor led a coup against President Doe in 1989 (see 1990).
Former Malawi president Hastings Kamuzu Banda dies at Johannesburg November 25 at age 90 (see 1994); his body lies in state beginning November 28 at Lilongwe's New State House, and he is given a state funeral with full military honors December 3.
Longtime South Korean dissident Kim Dae-jung is elected president December 18 at age 72, ending 5 decades of one-party rule and becoming the first opposition leader to gain the presidency in Korean history as the nation struggles with its worst economic problems since the end of hostilities with North Korea in 1953 (see 1996). A Roman Catholic, Kim founded the National Congress for New Politics Party 2 years ago and has been described as "Asia's Mandela." Ousting the scandal-ridden administration of Kim Young Sam, he brings a vision of a new Korea and a new Asia, promising policies based on political democracy, market-oriented economics, and social justice (see 1998).
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