Daniel Orr's Blog, page 77

December 14, 1960 – The UN passes Resolution 1514 (XV) titled “Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”

On December 14, 1960, the United Nations General Assembly
(UNGA) passed Resolution 1514 (XV) titled “Declaration of the Granting of
Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”, which established
decolonization as a fundamental principle of the UN.  Five days later, on December 19, the UN
released UNGA Resolution 1573 that recognized the right of self-determination
of the Algerian people.

On January 8, 1961, in a referendum held in France and Algeria,
75% of the voters agreed that Algeria
must be allowed self-determination.  The
French government then began to hold secret peace negotiations with the
FLN.  In April 1961, four retired French
Army officers (Generals Salan, Challe, André Zeller, and Edmond Jouhaud, and
assisted by radical elements of the pied-noir community) led the French command
in Algiers in a military uprising that deposed the civilian government of the
city and set up a four-man “Directorate”. 
The rebellion, variously known as the 1961 Algiers Putsch (French:
Putsch d’Alger) or Generals’ Putsch (French: Putsch des Généraux), was a coup
to be carried out in two phases: taking over authority in Algeria with the
defeat of the FLN and establishment of a civilian government; and overthrowing
de Gaulle in Paris by rebelling paratroopers based near the French capital.

Algerian War of Independence.

(Taken from Algerian War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)

De Gaulle invoked the constitution’s provision that gave him
emergency powers, declared a state of emergency in Algeria, and in a nationwide
broadcast on April 23, appealed to the French Army and civilian population to
remain loyal to his government.  The
French Air Force flew the empty air transports from Algeria
to southern France to
prevent them from being used by rebel forces to invade France, while the French commands in Oran and Constantine
heeded de Gaulle’s appeal and did not join the rebellion.  Devoid of external support, the Algiers
uprising collapsed, with Generals Challe and Zeller being arrested and later
imprisoned by military authorities, together with hundreds of other mutineering
officers, while Generals Salan and Jouhaud went into hiding to continue the
struggle with the pieds-noirs against Algerian independence.

On April 28, 1961, in the midst of the uprising, French
military authorities test-fired France’s first atomic bomb in the Sahara
Desert, moving forward the date of the detonation ostensibly to prevent the
nuclear weapon from falling into the hands of the rebel troops.  The attempted coup dealt a serious blow to
French Algeria, as de Gaulle increased efforts to end the war with the Algerian
nationalists.

In May 1961, the French government and the GPRA (the FLN’s
government-in-exile) held peace talks at Évian,
France, which
proved contentious and difficult.  But on
March 18, 1962, the two sides signed an agreement called the Évian Accords,
which included a ceasefire (that came into effect the following day) and a
release of war prisoners; the agreement’s major stipulations were: French
recognition of a sovereign Algeria; independent Algeria’s guaranteeing the
protection of the pied-noir community; and Algeria allowing French military
bases to continue in its territory, as well as establishing privileged
Algerian-French economic and trade relations, particularly in the development
of Algeria’s nascent oil industry.

In a referendum held in France on April 8, 1962, over 90% of
the French people approved of the Évian Accords; the same referendum held in
Algeria on July 1, 1962 resulted in nearly six million voting in favor of the
agreement while only 16,000 opposed it (by this time, most of the one million
pieds-noirs had or were in the process of leaving Algeria or simply recognized
the futility of their lost cause, thus the extraordinarily low number of “no”
votes).

However, pied-noir hardliners and pro-French Algeria
military officers still were determined to derail the political process,
forming one year earlier (in January 1961) the “Organization of the Secret
Army” (OAS; French: Organisation de l’armée secrète) led by General Salan, in a
(futile) attempt to stop the 1961 referendum to determine Algerian
self-determination.  Organized
specifically as a terror militia, the OAS had begun to carry out violent
militant acts in 1961, which dramatically escalated in the four months between
the signing of the Évian Accords and the referendum on Algerian
independence.  The group hoped that its
terror campaign would provoke the FLN to retaliate, which would jeopardize the
ceasefire between the government and the FLN, and possibly lead to a resumption
of the war.  At their peak in March 1962,
OAS operatives set off 120 bombs a day in Algiers,
targeting French military and police, FLN, and Muslim civilians – thus, the war
had an ironic twist, as France and the FLN now were on the same side of the
conflict against the pieds-noirs.

The French Army and OAS even directly engaged each other –
in the Battle of Bab el-Oued, where French security forces succeeded in seizing
the OAS stronghold of Bab el-Oued, a neighborhood in Algiers, with combined casualties totaling 54
dead and 140 injured.  The OAS also
targeted prominent Algerian Muslims with assassinations but its main target was
de Gaulle, who escaped many attempts on his life.  The most dramatic of the assassination
attacks on de Gaulle took place in a Paris
suburb where a group of gunmen led by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, a French
military officer, opened fire on the presidential car with bullets from the
assailants’ semi-automatic rifles barely missing the president.  Bastien-Thiry, who was not an OAS member, was
arrested, put on trial, and later executed by firing squad.

In the end, the OAS plan to provoke the FLN into launching
retaliation did not succeed, as the Algerian revolutionaries adhered to the
ceasefire.  On June 17, 1962, the OAS the
FLN agreed to a ceasefire.  The
eight-year war was over.  Some 350,000 to
as high as one million people died in the war; about two million Algerian
Muslims were displaced from their homes, being forced by the French Army to
relocate to guarded camps.

December 13, 1942 – World War II: Second day of Operation Winter Storm, the German attempt to relieve the trapped forces at Stalingrad

In early December 1942, General Erich von Manstein,
commander of the newly formed German Army Group Don, which was tasked with
securing the gap between German Army Groups A and B, was ready to launch a
relief operation to Stalingrad.  Began on December 12 under Operation Winter
Storm, German Army Group Don succeeded in punching a hold in the Soviet ring
and advanced rapidly, pushing aside surprised Red Army units, and came to
within 30 miles of Stalingrad on December 19. 
Through an officer that was sent to Stalingrad,
General Manstein asked General Paulus to make a break out towards Army Group
Don; he also sent communication to Hitler to allow the trapped forces to break
out.  Hitler and General Paulus both
refused.  General Paulus cited the lack
of trucks and fuel and the poor state of his troops to attempt a break out, and
that his continued hold on Stalingrad would tie down large numbers of Soviet
forces which would allow German Army Group A to retreat from the Caucasus.

On December 23, 1942, Manstein canceled the relief operation
and withdrew his forces behind German lines, forced to do so by the threat of
being encircled by Soviet forces that meanwhile had launched Operation Little
Saturn.  Operation Little Saturn was a
modification of the more ambitious Operation Saturn, which aimed to trap German
Army Group A in the Caucasus, but was rapidly readjusted to counter General
Manstein’s surprise offensive to Stalingrad.  But Operation Little Saturn, the Soviet
encirclement of Stalingrad, and the trapped Axis forces so unnerved Hitler that
on his orders, German Army Group A hastily withdrew from the Caucasus
in late December 1942.  German 17th Army
would continue to hold onto the Taman Peninsula in the Black Sea coast, and planned to use
this as a jump-off point for a possible future second attempt to invade the Caucasus.

Case Blue.

(Taken from Battle of Stalingrad – Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)

Meanwhile to the north, German Army Group B, tasked with
capturing Stalingrad and securing the Volga, began its advance to the Don River on July 23, 1942.  The German advance was stalled by fierce
resistance, as the delays of the previous weeks had allowed the Soviets to
fortify their defenses.  By then, the
German intent was clear to Stalin and the Soviet High Command, which then
reorganized Red Army forces in the Stalingrad
sector and rushed reinforcements to the defense of the Don.  Not only was German Army Group B delayed by
the Soviets that had began to launch counter-attacks in the Axis’ northern
flank (which were held by Italian and Hungarian armies), but also by
over-extended supply lines and poor road conditions.

On August 10, 1942, German 6th Army had moved to the west
bank of the Don, although strong Soviet resistance persisted in the north.  On August 22, German forces established
bridgeheads across the Don, which was crossed the next day, with panzers and
mobile spearheads advancing across the remaining 36 miles of flat plains to Stalingrad.  On
August 23, German 14th Panzer Division reached the Volga
River north of Stalingrad
and fought off Soviet counter-attacks, while the Luftwaffe began a bombing
blitz of the city that would continue through to the height of the battle, when
most of the buildings would be destroyed and the city turned to rubble.

On August 29, 1942, two Soviet armies (the 62nd and 64th)
barely escaped being encircled by the German 4th Panzer Army and armored units
of German 6th Army, both escaping to Stalingrad and ensuring that the battle
for the city would be long, bloody, and difficult.

On September 12, 1942, German forces entered Stalingrad, starting what would be a four-month long
battle.  From mid-September to early
November, the Germans, confident of victory, launched three major attacks to
overwhelm all resistance, which gradually pushed back the Soviets east toward
the banks of the Volga.

By contrast, the Soviets suffered from low morale, but were
compelled to fight, since they had no option to retreat beyond the Volga because of Stalin’s “Not one step back!”
order.  Stalin also (initially) refused
to allow civilians to be evacuated, stating that “soldiers fight better for an
alive city than for a dead one”.  He
would later allow civilian evacuation after being advised by his top generals.

Soviet artillery from across the Volga
and cross-river attempts to bring in Red Army reinforcements were suppressed by
the Luftwaffe, which controlled the sky over the battlefield.  Even then, Soviet troops and supplies
continued to reach Stalingrad, enough to keep
up resistance.  The ruins of the city
turned into a great defensive asset, as Soviet troops cleverly used the rubble
and battered buildings as concealed strong points, traps, and killing
zones.  To negate the Germans’ air
superiority, Red Army units were ordered to keep the fighting lines close to
the Germans, to deter the Luftwaffe from attacking and inadvertently causing
friendly fire casualties to its own forces.

The battle for Stalingrad
turned into one of history’s fiercest, harshest, and bloodiest struggles for
survival, the intense close-quarter combat being fought building-to-building
and floor-to-floor, and in cellars and basements, and even in the sewers.  Surprise encounters in such close distances
sometimes turned into hand-to-hand combat using knives and bayonets.

By mid-November 1942, the Germans controlled 90% of the
city, and had pushed back the Soviets to a small pocket with four shallow
bridgeheads some 200 yards from the Volga.  By then, most of German 6th Army was locked
in combat in the city, while its outer flanks had become dangerously
vulnerable, as they were protected only by the weak armies of its Axis
partners, the Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians.  Two weeks earlier, Hitler, believing
Stalingrad’s capture was assured, redeployed a large part of the Luftwaffe to
the fighting in North Africa.

Unbeknown to the Germans, in the previous months, the Soviet
High Command had been sending large numbers of Red Army formations to the north
and southeast of Stalingrad.  While only intending to use these units in
sporadic counter-attacks in support of Stalingrad, by November 1942, Stalin and
his top generals had reorganized these forces for a major counter-offensive
codenamed Operation Uranus involving an enormous force of 1.1 million troops,
1,000 tanks, 14,000 artillery pieces, and 1,300 planes, aimed at cutting off
and encircling German 6th Army and units of 7th Panzer Army in Stalingrad.  German intelligence had detected the Soviet
buildup, but Hitler ignored the warning of his general staff, as by now he was
firmly set on taking Stalingrad at all costs.

On November 19, 1942, the Soviet High Command launched
Operation Uranus, a double envelopment maneuver, with the Soviet Southwestern
Front attacking the Axis northern flank held by the Romanian 3rd Army.  The next day, the Soviet Stalingrad Front
thrust from the south of the Axis flank, with the brunt of the attack falling
on Romanian 4th Army. The two Romanian Armies, lacking sufficient anti-tank
weapons and supported only with 100 obsolete tanks, were overwhelmed by sheer
numbers, and on November 22, the two arms of the Soviet pincers linked up at
Kalach.  German 6th Army, elements of 4th
Panzer Army, and remnants of the Romanian armies, comprising some
250,000-300,000 troops, were trapped in a giant pocket in Stalingrad.

The German High Command asked Hitler to allow the trapped
forces to make a break out, which was refused. 
Also on many occasions, General Friedrich Paulus, commander of German
6th Army, made similar appeals to Hitler, but was turned down.  Instead, on November 24, 1942, Hitler advised
General Paulus to hold his position at Stalingrad
until reinforcements could be sent or a new German offensive could break the
encirclement.  In the meantime, the
trapped forces would be supplied from the air. 
Hitler had been assured by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering that the 700
tons/day required at Stalingrad could be
delivered with German transport planes. 
However, the Luftwaffe was unable to deliver the needed amount, despite
the addition of more transports for the operation, and the trapped forces in Stalingrad soon experienced dwindling supplies of food,
medical supplies, and ammunition.  With
the onset of winter and the temperature dropping to –30°C (–22°F), an
increasing number of Axis troops, yet without adequate winter clothing,
suffered from frostbite.  At this time
also, the Soviet air force had began to achieve technological and combat parity
with the Luftwaffe, challenging it for control of the skies and shooting down
increasing numbers of German planes.

Meanwhile, the Red Army strengthened the cordon around
Stalingrad, and launched a series of attacks that slowly pushed the trapped
forces to an ever-shrinking perimeter in an area just west of Stalingrad.

In early December 1942, General Erich von Manstein,
commander of the newly formed German Army Group Don, which was tasked with
securing the gap between German Army Groups A and B, was ready to launch a
relief operation to Stalingrad.  Began on December 12 under Operation Winter
Storm, German Army Group Don succeeded in punching a hold in the Soviet ring
and advanced rapidly, pushing aside surprised Red Army units, and came to
within 30 miles of Stalingrad on December 19. 
Through an officer that was sent to Stalingrad,
General Manstein asked General Paulus to make a break out towards Army Group
Don; he also sent communication to Hitler to allow the trapped forces to break out.  Hitler and General Paulus both refused.  General Paulus cited the lack of trucks and
fuel and the poor state of his troops to attempt a break out, and that his
continued hold on Stalingrad would tie down large numbers of Soviet forces
which would allow German Army Group A to retreat from the Caucasus.

On December 23, 1942, Manstein canceled the relief operation
and withdrew his forces behind German lines, forced to do so by the threat of
being encircled by Soviet forces that meanwhile had launched Operation Little
Saturn.  Operation Little Saturn was a
modification of the more ambitious Operation Saturn, which aimed to trap German
Army Group A in the Caucasus, but was rapidly readjusted to counter General
Manstein’s surprise offensive to Stalingrad.  But Operation Little Saturn, the Soviet
encirclement of Stalingrad, and the trapped Axis forces so unnerved Hitler that
on his orders, German Army Group A hastily withdrew from the Caucasus
in late December 1942.  German 17th Army
would continue to hold onto the Taman Peninsula in the Black Sea coast, and planned to use
this as a jump-off point for a possible future second attempt to invade the Caucasus.

Meanwhile in Stalingrad, by
early January 1943, the situation for the trapped German forces grew desperate.  On January 10, the Red Army launched a major
attack to finally eliminate the Stalingrad
pocket after its demand to surrender was rejected by General Paulus.  On January 25, the Soviets captured the last
German airfield at Stalingrad, and despite the
Luftwaffe now resorting to air-dropping supplies, the trapped forces ran low on
food and ammunition.

With the battle for Stalingrad
lost, on January 31, 1943, Hitler promoted General Paulus to the rank of Field
Marshal, hinting that the latter should take his own life rather than be
captured.  Instead, on February 2,
General Paulus surrendered to the Red Army, along with his trapped forces,
which by now numbered only 110,000 troops. 
Casualties on both sides in the battle of Stalingrad, one of the
bloodiest in history, are staggering, with the Axis losing 850,000 troops, 500
tanks, 6,000 artillery pieces, and 900 planes; and the Soviets losing 1.1
million troops, 4,300 tanks, 15,000 artillery pieces, and 2,800 planes.  The German debacle at Stalingrad and withdrawal
from the Caucasus effectively ended Case Blue,
and like Operation Barbarossa in the previous year, resulted in another German
failure.

On December 12, 1915 – China's President Yuan Shikai announces his plan to restore the monarchy with himself as “Emperor of the Chinese Empire”

In late 1915, Yuan Shikai, President of the Republic of
China, made plans to return the country to a monarchy.  He reasoned that the 1911 Revolution that had
toppled the Qing dynasty, and the ensuing republican government, were divisive,
transitory phases, and that only a monarchy could restore order and unity to
the nation.  In November 1915, a “Representative
Assembly” was formed to study the matter, which subsequently issued many
petitions to Yuan to become emperor. 
After pretending to refuse these petitions, on December 12, 1915, Yuan
accepted, and named himself “Emperor of the Chinese Empire”.  Yuan’s reign, as well as the country’s return
to a monarchy as the “Empire of China”, was set to commence officially on
January 1, 1916, when Yuan would perform the accession rites.

(Taken from China (1911-1928): Xinhai Revolution, Fragmentation, and Struggle for Reunification – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Yuan Shikai in Power From
the outset, tensions existed between the pro-Sun groups, led by the Tongmenhui,
and President Yuan and his supporters. 
To counter Yuan’s power base which was in the north, on February 14,
1912, the provisional Senate voted to make Nanjing the capital of the republic.  However, two weeks later, mutinous Beiyang
Army units rioted in Beijing.  Yuan, who most likely masterminded the
disturbance, announced that he would remain in Beijing to guard against future unrest.  The provisional Senate thus reconvened, and
in another vote taken in April 1912, named Beijing as the capital of the republic.

President Yuan soon gained full control of government, and
appeared intent on extending his powers. 
To counter Yuan and also prepare for the upcoming parliamentary
elections, in August 1912, Sun’s supporters formed the Kuomintang (KMT,
English: Chinese Nationalist Party), merging the Tongmenhui and five smaller
organizations.  In National Assembly
elections held in December 1912-January 1913, the KMT won a decisive victory,
taking the most number of seats in both legislative houses over its rivals,
including the pro-Yuan Republican Party.

Song Jiaoren, a leading KMT politician who had campaigned
strongly against Yuan and had vowed to reduce Yuan’s powers through
legislation, appeared headed to become Prime Minister, and thus would form a
new Cabinet.  But in March 1913, he was
assassinated, perhaps under Yuan’s orders. 
When the newly elected National Assembly convened, the KMT-dominated
legislature moved to enact measures to curb Yuan’s powers, and prepared to
formulate a permanent constitution and hold national elections for the
presidency.  Yuan now moved to destroy
the political opposition, while his opponents in the south grew more militant –
as a result, China
began to fracture politically.

In July 1913, many southern provinces rose up in rebellion
(sometimes called Sun Yat-sen’s “Second Revolution”), this time against
Yuan.  The Beiyang government (as the
government in Beijing
was called during the period 1912-1927) was militarily prepared, as Yuan had
recently received a foreign loan which he used to build up his Beiyang
Army.  In September 1913, Yuan’s forces
crushed the rebellion, and captured the insurgent strongholds in Nanchang and Nanjing,
and forced Sun and other KMT leaders to flee into exile abroad.

In October 1913, the now intimidated National Assembly
elected Yuan as president of the republic for a five-year term.  Yuan proceeded to break up all political
opposition, first removing, coercing, or bribing KMT provincial officials.  Then in November 1913, he dissolved the KMT
and expelled KMT legislators from the National Assembly.  As these expulsions caused the legislature to
fail to reach a quorum to reconvene, in January 1914, Yuan dissolved the
National Assembly altogether.  In its
place, Yuan formed a quasi-legislative body of 66 of his supporters, who drew
up and passed a “constitutional compact”, a new charter which replaced the 1912
provisional constitution, and which gave Yuan unlimited powers in political,
military, foreign affairs, and financial policy decisions.  In December 1914, Yuan’s presidential tenure
was extended to ten years, with no terms limits –Yuan now ruled as a dictator.

Then in late 1915, Yuan made plans to return the country to
a monarchy.  He reasoned that the 1911
Revolution that had toppled the Qing dynasty, and the ensuing republican
government, were divisive, transitory phases, and that only a monarchy could
restore order and unity to the nation. 
In November 1915, a “Representative Assembly” was formed to study the
matter, which subsequently issued many petitions to Yuan to become
emperor.  After pretending to refuse
these petitions, on December 12, 1915, Yuan accepted, and named himself
“Emperor of the Chinese Empire”.  Yuan’s
reign, as well as the country’s return to a monarchy as the “Empire of China”,
was set to commence officially on January 1, 1916, when Yuan would perform the
accession rites.

Widespread protests broke out across much of China.  Having experienced great repression under the
Qing dynasty, the Chinese people vehemently opposed the return to a
monarchy.  On December 25, 1915, the
military governor of Yunnan
Province declared his
province’s secession from the Beiyang government, and prepared for war.  In rapid order, other provinces also seceded,
including Guizhou, Guangxi,
Guangdong, Shandong,
Hunan, Shanxi,
Jiangxi, and Jiangsu. 
The decisive showdown between Yuan’s army and forces of the rebelling
provinces took place in Sichuan Province, where rebel forces (under Yunnan Province’s
National Protection Army) dealt Yuan’s army a decisive defeat.  During the fighting, Beiyang generals, who
also opposed Yuan’s imperial ambitions, did not exert great effort to defeat
the rebel forces.  In fact, Beiyang Army
commanders had already stopped supporting Yuan. 
Furthermore, while the foreign powers recognized the Beiyang regime as
the official government over China,
Yuan’s planned monarchy received virtually no international support.  Isolated and forced to postpone his accession
rites, Yuan finally abandoned his imperial designs on March 22, 1916.  His political foes then also pressed him to
step down as president of the republic. 
Yuan died three months later, in June 1916, with his crumbling
government already unable to hold onto much of the country.

Major warlord cliques during China’s period of fragmentation.

Fragmentation,
Warlordism, and Struggle for Reunification After Yuan’s death, China
fragmented politically, and entered into a long period of warlordism.  Provinces and regions fell under the control
of a military strongman, called a warlord, who ruled virtually independent of,
or were only nominally subservient to the Beiyang government.  China’s
central government in Beijing
practically ceased to exist.

The origin of warlordism can be traced to the Qing’s military
reforms, which focused on strengthening provincial armies (rather than on
building up a single centralized national army), and the period of Yuan’s
consolidation of power.  Yuan had given
the local civilian governments the power over the military, thereby producing
civilian-military administrators.

Hundreds of warlords appeared across China.  They had varying strengths and control over
local, provincial, or regional jurisdictions. 
Individual warlords, even the most powerful, did not have enough power to
defeat all the other warlords, and achieve their ultimate goal of reunifying China.  Consequently, warlords often banded together
to form regional cliques.  Dozens of such
cliques formed and ruled vast regions.

Even then, all the warlords acknowledged that whoever of
them controlled Beijing
had the greatest authority.  This was so
for a number of reasons: the Beiyang government continued to be recognized by
the foreign powers as the legitimate authority in China, it could apply for foreign
loans, and it collected customs duties.

The Beiyang Army itself also fragmented into three competing
warlord cliques: Anhui
clique, Zhili clique, and Fengtian clique. 
These three cliques became the most powerful of the warlord groups, and
subsequently vied with each other for control of Beijing, either through political
maneuverings or outright warfare.  This
period of internecine strife in China
is known as the Warlord Era, spanning the years 1916-1928.

December 11, 1981 – Salvadoran Civil War: Government forces perpetrate the El Mozote Massacre

A Salvadoran military unit, the Atlacatl Battalion, whose
commanders were trained in the U.S. Army-run School of the Americas, was
particularly feared by the rural population during the Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992).  In December 1981, in a major ground sweep in
rebel-held areas in Morazan
Province, the Atlacatl
Battalion became involved in the so-called El Mozote Massacre, which took place
in December 11, 1981, where some 700 to 900 residents were killed.  These soldiers are also believed to have
carried out the El Calabozo Massacre, which took place on August 21-22, 1982,
where, on the bank of the Amatitán
River, located in San
Vicente Province, some 200 fleeing civilians were shot and killed.  The killings were prompted by the perception
that these civilians were members of or actively supported the insurgency.

Map showing location of El Salvador in Central America.

(Taken from Salvadoran Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – 26 Wars in the Americas and the Caribbean)

Background During
the 1970s, El Salvador
experienced great social unrest as a result of a number of factors: an unstable
political climate, economic problems, an entrenched system of economic and
social inequalities, and a growing population competing for an increasingly
limited amount of resources.  The
long-repressed lower social classes, which form the vast majority of the
population, had become radicalized, and advocated both militant and violent
methods of expression.  In turn, the
government imposed harsh measures against threats to its authority.

At the heart of the conflict was the country’s economically
polarized social classes, the unequal distribution of wealth, resources, and
power between the small Spanish-descended elite and the vast majority of
Amerindian and mestizo (mixed American-European descendants) populations. Since
the colonial era when the Spanish Crown gave out vast tracts of lands to
personal favorites through royal patents, just 2% of the population (the
so-called “Fourteen Families”) owned 60% of all arable land, which subsequently
was converted to latifundia, i.e. vast plantations that produced coffee beans,
and later, sugarcane and cotton, for the lucrative export market.  Some 60% of the rural population did not own
land, and of those who did, 95% of them owned farmlands too small to subsist
on.

Apart from controlling the economy, the biggest landowners
held a monopoly on the governmental, political and military infrastructures of
the country.  Government policies favored
the oligarchy and thus widened the economic gap, limiting available resources
and opportunities to the lower classes, and relegating the vast majority to
become (exploited) plantation farm hands in the primarily agricultural economy
that existed for much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1932, peasants in the western provinces, supported by the
nascent Salvadoran Communist Party, rose up in rebellion because of economic
hardships caused by the ongoing Great Depression.  Government forces put down the rebellion and
then carried out a campaign of extermination against the Pipil indigenous
population, whom they believed were communists who had supported the uprising
that was aimed at overthrowing the government. 
Some 30,000 Pipil civilians were killed in the military repression.

For nearly five decades thereafter (1932-1979), the country
was ruled by a long line of military leaders (under a façade of democracy),
including one military-controlled civilian government.  The military’s hard-line rule suppressed
dissent and promoted the interests of the upper class.  But in 1959, Fidel Castro’s communist victory
in the Cuban Revolution profoundly altered the political and security paradigm
in the Western Hemisphere, and challenged for the first time United States
hegemony and the region’s democratic, economic, and social institutions.  Consequently, revolutionary groups sprung up
all across Latin America to initiate armed
struggles aimed at toppling democratic and military governments, and then
setting up communist regimes.

In El Salvador, the local Communist Party was revitalized
after a long hiatus; in 1970, dissenting elements that advocated armed
revolution broke away from the party and reorganized as the Popular Liberation
Forces “Farabundo Marti” (FPL; Spanish: Fuerzas Populares de Liberación
“Farabundo Martí”), an armed group that carried out a rural-based
guerilla war against the government. 
Other communist insurgent groups soon formed as well, including the
People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP; Spanish: Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo),
formed in 1972, and the National Resistance (RN; Spanish: La Resistencia
Nacional), formed in 1975.

Revolutionary activity at this time did not seriously
threaten the government; the focus of leftist radicalism was on “mobilizing the
masses”, where clandestine Marxist-leftist groups organized or formed alliances
with Salvadoran Communist Party-affiliated peasant groups, labor unions, and
student movements that carried out labor strikes, street protests, and media
campaigns in San Salvador, the country’s capital, that called for reforms and
better working and living conditions, as well as create a climate that would
encourage a general uprising.  These
clandestine groups often had an armed wing that conducted terror activities
against conservative groups (landowners, businessmen, military officers,
right-wing politicians, etc.), targeting them with assassinations, kidnappings,
and extortions.  Worth noting is that while
these clandestine groups derived much of their support from the “masses”, they
also received substantial financial backing from secret sympathizers from the
upper classes, even some among the wealthiest.

In the 1960s, a middle-ground political force emerged, the
Christian Democratic Party, which was led by middle-class professionals who
rejected left-wing and right-wing politics and advocated a moderate, centrist
line that they believed led to political stability and greater economic parity,
conditions that were favorable to the growth of the country’s middle
class.  These political centrists, led by
José Napoleón Duarte, initially had little support but soon expanded to become
a major political force by the early 1970s. 
In presidential elections held in February 1972, Duarte won the popular vote, but the
government used fraud that allowed the candidate who was a military officer to
win.  In the highly charged, unstable
climate of the Cold War, the right-wing government viewed politics of
moderation as threatening and even communist-leaning.

The Salvadoran insurgency received a great boost when in
July 1979, Sandinista communist rebels in nearby Nicaragua deposed pro-U.S. dictator
Anastacio Somoza.  In El Salvador, now ruled by General Carlos
Humberto Romero, an increase in urban violence and rural insurgent action took
place in the period leading up to the Marxist victory in Nicaragua.  In response, the Salvadoran government
intensified repressive measures in urban areas and military operations in the
countryside.  In towns and cities, the
government’s internal  security forces
(National Guard, National Police, and Treasury Police) organized “death squads”
to kill leaders of peasant, labor, and student organizations, leftist
politicians, academics, journalists, and many others whom they regarded as
communists.  Hundreds were arrested and
jailed, tortured, and executed or “disappeared”.

In October 1979, a group of army officers, alarmed that the
increasing violence was creating conditions favorable to a communist take-over
similar to that which occurred in Nicaragua, carried out a coup that
deposed General Romero.  A five-member
civilian and military junta, called the Revolutionary Junta Government (JRG;
Spanish: Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno) was formed to rule the country until
such that time that elections could be held. 
In March 1980, after some restructuring, Duarte joined the junta and eventually took
over its leadership to become the country’s de facto head of state.  The junta was openly supported by the United States, which viewed Duarte’s
centrist politics as the best chance to preserve democracy in El Salvador.

However, neither the coup nor the junta altered the power
structures, and the military continued to wield full (albeit covert) authority
over state matters.  The junta implemented
agrarian reform and nationalized some key industries, but these programs were
strongly opposed by the oligarchy. 
Militias and “death squads” that the junta ordered the military to
disband simply were replaced with other armed groups.  The years 1980 and 1981 saw a great increase
in the military’s suppression of dissent.

December 10, 1963 – Zanzibar gains independence; a violent revolution begins one month later

On January 12, 1964, Zanzibar,
a country of small islands located just east of the African mainland experienced
an armed revolution that overthrew the ruling parliamentary monarchy and
established a socialist government.  The
revolution took place just over a month after December 10, 1963, when Britain ended its protectorate and granted Zanzibar full
independence under Zanzibari Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.  Sultan Abdullah’s family had ruled
pre-British Zanzibar
through a long line of dynastic succession dating back to 1698.

Location of Zanzibar shown.

(Taken from Zanzibar Revolution – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Background In
July 1963, legislative elections in Zanzibar
had given the Arab Zanzibari political coalition, led by the Zanzibar
Nationalist Party (ZNP), a majority in parliament.  The main opposition party, the black
African-dominated Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) had won fewer seats in the
elections, despite garnering 54% of the popular vote.  The ASP had accused the government of
carrying out electoral fraud to ensure the ZNP’s victory.  As a result, violence broke out that caused a
number of civilian deaths.

Zanzibari society was religiously homogenous, with 99% of
the population belonging to the Islamic faith. 
The country had three major ethnic groups: black Africans and mixed
African-Persians (called Shirazi), both groups numbering 230,000 persons and
comprising 76% of the population; ethnic Arabs at 50,000 or 17% of the
population, and ethnic Indians at 20,000 or 6% of the population.

Traditionally, Zanzibar
was stratified into three economic groups: ethnic Arabs, who owned vast tracts
of agricultural lands; ethnic Indians, who dominated the business sector as
traders and merchants; and the indigenous Africans, who comprised the great
majority of the laborers and farm workers. 
However, many exceptions had developed over time, e.g. the majority of
new Arab immigrants to Zanzibar
were poor, and some black Zanzibaris became wealthy landowners.

A few weeks after Zanzibar
gained its independence, rumors arose that the outlawed communist Umma Party
was planning to overthrow the government and was secretly bringing in weapons
to the island.  The Zanzibari sultan
asked Britain for military
assistance, but the British government, which had already withdrawn British
troops from Zanzibar,
denied the request.  Zanzibar’s defense thus was left to the
island’s small police force.

Revolution Early
in the morning of January 12, 1964, in Zanzibar’s
main island of Unguja
(also more commonly called Zanzibar, Map 20),
hundreds of fanatical fighters belonging to the Afro-Shirazi Youth led by John
Okello, attacked police stations and seized armories outside Zanzibar’s
capital of Stone Town. 
Now possessing firearms, the rebels proceeded to Stone Town,
where they overwhelmed more police units and took control of government
buildings, public utilities, and the city’s radio station.  Within a few hours, the rebellion had gained
the support of the vast majority of the general population.  Scores of local civilians took up arms and joined
the rebels in defeating the remaining government forces.  Just nine hours after the uprising began, the
rebels had gained full control of the capital. 
Zanzibar’s
government collapsed, and the sultan and his Cabinet fled into exile abroad.

Okello called on the ASP’s leader, Abeid Karume, to form a
new government.  The ASP and the Umma
Party formed a ruling revolutionary council that was led by Karume, who also
became Zanzibar’s
first president.  Karume’s government
renamed the country the “People’s Republic of Zanzibar
and Pemba”, and abolished the Zanzibar
Sultanate and banned the deposed Sultan Abdullah from returning.  Free politics ceased as the state-run ASP
became the sole legal party that was allowed to operate.

A complete overhaul of Zanzibari society took place with the
government’s implementation of sweeping social and economic reforms.  Lands owned by ethnic Arabs were seized as
were businesses owned by ethnic Indians. 
The seized assets were handed out to black Zanzibaris.  Virtually overnight, Arab and Indian
domination of Zanzibari society vanished completely.

After the rebels had seized Stone Town’s
radio station at the height of the revolution, Okello went on the air and
broadcast inflammatory speeches urging the civilian population to carry out
violence.  Okello claimed to hold the
military rank of a “Field Marshall” and greatly exaggerated his feats in the
revolution as they were transpiring.

As a consequence of Okello’s broadcasts, in the days that
followed, the Zanzibari countryside became scenes of violence as armed bands
descended on Arab and Indian settlements and killed whole families, destroyed
houses, and seized lands and properties. 
Dramatic scenes of this event were captured in the documentary Africa
Addio, produced by an Italian film crew that was coincidentally working in Zanzibar at that
time.  Filmed from an aircraft in flight,
the documentary shows scenes of many dead people on the ground, piled up dead
bodies at the back of dump trucks traveling down the road, long lines of people
being led away by armed guards, and people attempting to flee the island aboard
packed dinghies.  The human death toll
from the violence has not been determined exactly, and is given by various
sources as from a few thousands to several thousands.

December 9, 1987 – Start of the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

On December 6, 1987, an Israeli citizen was murdered in Gaza.  Two days later, four Palestinian residents of
the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza
were killed in a road accident by a truck belonging to the Israeli Army.  Many residents of the Jabaliya camp took to
the streets in protest, believing that the four Palestinians were killed
deliberately in reprisal for the Gaza
murder.  Israeli security forces moved in
to disperse the crowd, but in the process, opened fire and killed a
protester.  Demonstrations then broke out
in other refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, triggering a full-blown uprising.

Map showing location of Gaza and West Bank.

The 1987 Palestinian uprising is more commonly known as the
First Intifada, where the word “intifada” is Arabic that means “to shake off”,
and has come to denote an uprising or rebellion.  The 1987 Intifada initially took the form of
spontaneous, disorganized street rallies and demonstrations consisting of tens
of thousands of Palestinians who incited anarchy and clashed with Israeli
security forces.  Youths and minors often
formed the front lines, leading Israeli authorities to accuse the Palestinians
of using the children as “human shields”. 
The protesters lobbied stones and Molotov cocktails (home-made
incendiary bombs) at the police, burned tires, and set up road blocks and
barricades.  Militancy increased when the
protesters began using firearms and grenades as weapons.  Other Palestinians supported the intifada
through non-violent means, such as not paying taxes, boycotting Israeli
products, and undertaking other forms of civil disobedience.

The depth and speed of the intifada surprised Israeli
authorities, who believed that the actions were being planned and carried out
by the PLO.  In fact, each local protest
action was organized by community leaders in response to and in support of
other uprisings that were already taking place, creating a snowball
effect.  Eventually, however, the
intifada came under the centralized command of the Unified National Leadership
of the Uprising (UNLU), an alliance of PLO factions in the occupied
territories, which began to carry out more organized militant actions.  Two other Palestinian armed groups, Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, also rose to prominence during the intifada and emerged as the
political and military rivals to the PLO.

(Taken from Palestinian Uprising of 1987 – 1993 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background As a
consequence of the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948
Arab-Israeli War, some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs lost their homes and became
refugees.  Most of them eventually
settled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.  The Palestinian Jews emerged victorious, in
the process establishing the state of Israel.  Then with the Israeli Army’s victory in the
Six-Day War in 1967 (separate article), the Israelis gained control of Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Jerusalem.  Israel imposed militarized authority over the
“occupied territories” (as the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East
Jerusalem were called collectively) as a means to deter
opposition.  Check points and road blocks
were raised, searches and arrests conducted, and civilian movement curtailed
and monitored.  Perceived enemies were
eliminated, imprisoned, or deported. 
Furthermore, the Israeli government encouraged its citizens to migrate
to the occupied territories, where Israeli housing settlements soon began to
emerge.

The Palestinians greatly resented the presence of the
Israelis, whom they regarded as a foreign force occupying Palestinian
land.  Furthermore, as the Israeli
authority became established and greater numbers of Israeli settlements were
being built, the Palestinians believed that their lands eventually would be
integrated into Israel.  The Israeli occupation was also perceived as
a serious blow to the Palestinian people’s aspirations for establishing a
Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, a political
and armed movement, was formed in 1964 and was headed by Chairman Yasser Arafat
to lead the Palestinians’ struggle for independence.  However, the PLO experienced many setbacks,
not only in the hands of Israel
but also by the Arab countries to which the Palestinians had turned for
support.  In 1970, the PLO was expelled
from Jordan and thereafter
moved to Lebanon
where, in 1982, it also was forced to leave. 
Subsequently, the PLO moved its headquarters to Tunisia, whose distant location
prevented the Palestinian leadership from exercising direct control and
influence over the affairs of Palestinians in the occupied territories.  The PLO itself was wracked by internal
dissent among some factions that opposed Arafat, who had cast aside his
hard-line stance against Israel
and adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Furthermore, later developments in the Middle
East boded ill for the Palestinians.  Egypt,
the militarily strongest Arab country and a main supporter of the PLO, had
signed a peace treaty with Israel
in 1979 and ceased its claim to the Gaza Strip. 
Jordan had not only
expelled the PLO but had relinquished its claim to the West
Bank and consequently stripped the Palestinian residents there of
Jordanian citizenship.  Syria, another major backer of the PLO, had a
falling out with Arafat during the 1982 Lebanon War and began to support a
rival PLO faction that ultimately forced Arafat and his Fatah faction to leave Lebanon
a second time.  For so long, the Arab
countries’ regional security concerns centered on the Palestinians’ struggle
for statehood.  In the 1980s, however,
much of the concentration was on the Iran-Iraq War, relegating the Palestinian
issue to a lesser focus.  Palestinians
believed that many Arab countries, because of the Arab military defeats to the
Israelis, generally had abandoned active support for the Palestinians’ nationalist
aspirations.

The Palestinians’ frustrations were compounded by dire
economic circumstances in the West Bank and Gaza. 
Nearly half of all Palestinians were poor and lived in refugee camps in
cramped, squalid, and poorly serviced conditions.  Unemployment was high and so was the
Palestinians’ birth rate, leading to more people competing for limited
opportunities and resources.

Ever since the Israelis took over the occupied territories,
tensions between Israelis and Palestinians persisted, which often erupted in
violence.  Then during the second half of
1987, these tensions rose dramatically, ultimately leading to a major
Palestinian uprising that was triggered by the following events.

December 8, 1936 – Anastacio Somoza is elected president of Nicaragua, starting a dictatorship and dynastic reign of over four decades

On December 8, 1936, Anastacio Somoza was elected president of Nicaragua, winning an implausible 99.83% of the votes. Somoza then ruled the country as a dictator or through figureheads under his control, and gained all aspects of government. Over time, he accumulated massive wealth and owned the biggest landholdings in the country.  His many personal and family businesses extended into the shipping and airlines industries, agricultural plantations and cattle ranches, sugar mills, and wine manufacturing.  President Somoza took bribes from foreign corporations which he had granted mining concessions in the country, and also benefited from local illicit operations such as unregistered gambling, organized prostitution, and illegal wine production.

Nicaragua in Central America.

President Somoza suppressed all forms of opposition with the
use of the National Guard, Nicaragua’s
police force, which had turned the country into a militarized state.  President Somoza was staunchly anti-communist
and received strong military and financial support from the United States, which was willing to take Nicaragua’s
repressive government as an ally in the ongoing Cold War.

Somoza’s rise to power began in 1933 as Director of the National Guard. He had ordered the assassination of left-wing nationalist Augusto Sandino who had waged a long guerrilla war against the Nicaraguan government, and United States Marines which had occupied the country since 1912. Thereafter, Somoza’s power and influence grew, leading to his deposing President Juan Batista Sacasa in June 1936 and installing a puppet head of state leading up to his own election as president in December 1936.

(Taken from United States Occupation of Nicaragua, 1912- 1933 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)

Background In
many instances, Nicaragua’s political troubles prompted American intervention,
such as those that occurred in 1847, 1894, 1896, 1898, and 1899, when U.S. forces
were landed in that Central American country. 
These occupations were brief, with American troops withdrawing once
order had been restored, although U.S. Navy ships kept a permanent watch
throughout the Central American coastline. 
The officially stated reasons given by the United
States for intervening in Nicaragua
was to protect American lives and American commercial interests in Central America. 
In some cases, however, the Americans wanted to give a decided advantage
to one side of Nicaragua’s
political conflict.

In 1912, the United States
again intervened in Nicaragua,
starting an occupation of the country that would last for over two decades and
would leave a deep impact on the local population.  The origin of the 1912 American occupation
traces back to the early 1900s when Nicaragua,
then led by the Liberals, offered the construction of the Nicaragua
Canal to Germany
and Japan.  The Nicaragua
Canal was planned to be a shipping
waterway that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean through the Caribbean Sea.

The Liberals wanted less American involvement in Nicaragua’s
internal affairs and therefore offered the waterway’s construction to other
countries.  Furthermore, the United States had decided to forgo its original
plan to build the Nicaragua Canal in favor of completing the partly-finished Panama Canal (which had been abandoned by a French
construction firm).

For the United States,
however, the idea of another foreign power in the Western Hemisphere was
anathema, as the U.S.
government believed it had the exclusive rights to the region.  The American policy of exclusivity in the
Western Hemisphere was known as the Monroe Doctrine, set forth in 1823 by
former U.S.
president James Monroe.  Furthermore, the
United States believed that Nicaragua had ambitions in Central
America and therefore viewed that country as a potential source of
a wider conflict.  U.S.-Nicaraguan
relations deteriorated when two American saboteurs were executed by the
Nicaraguan government.  Consequently, the
United States broke off
diplomatic relations with Nicaragua.

In October 1909, Nicaraguan Conservatives, backed by some
Liberals, carried out a rebellion against the government.  The United States threw its support
behind the rebels.  Then when the
rebellion spread, the United States
sent warships to Nicaragua
and subsequently, in December 1909, landed troops in Corinto and Bluefields
(Map 23).  More American forces arrived
in May 1910.

In August 1910, Nicaragua’s ruling government
collapsed, replaced by a U.S.-friendly administration consisting of
Conservatives and Liberals.  The United States bought out Nicaragua’s
large foreign debt that had accumulated during the long period of
instability.  Consequently, Nicaragua owed the United States the amount of that
debt, while the Americans’ stake was raised in that troubled country.

Then in 1912, Nicaragua’s ruling coalition broke
down, sparking a civil war between the government and another alliance of
Liberals and Conservatives.  As the
rebels gained ground and began to threaten Managua,
Nicaragua’s capital, the United States
landed troops in Corinto, Bluefields, and San Juan del Sur.  At its peak, the U.S.
troop deployment in Nicaragua
totaled over 2,300 soldiers.  Within a
month of the deployment, in October 1912, the American troops, supported by
Nicaraguan government forces, had defeated the rebels.

The United States
tightened its control of Nicaragua
in August 1914 when both countries signed an agreement whereby the Americans
gained exclusive rights to construct the Nicaragua Canal,
as well as to establish military bases to protect it.  The U.S.-Nicaragua treaty mostly served as a
deterrent against other foreign involvement in Nicaragua,
since by this time, the Americans already were operating the Panama
Canal nearby.

The U.S. Army’s presence in Nicaragua from 1912 to 1925 brought
peace in that Central American country. 
At the Nicaraguan government’s request, the U.S. Army helped to organize
Nicaragua’s armed forces and police forces (collectively called the National
Guard) to eliminate the many private militias and other armed groups that local
politicians were using to advance their personal interests.  After the National Guard was formed, the United States withdrew its forces from Nicaragua.  Nine months later, however, in-fighting among
Conservatives led to the overthrow of the incumbent president, again prompting
the United States to
redeploy its military forces in Nicaragua
to stop the disturbance from spreading.

Peace and order was restored once more, and a new Conservative
government came to power.  The
Conservatives’ authority was challenged by the Liberals, however, who formed
their own government.  Fighting soon
broke out between the rival political parties, which rapidly escalated into a
civil war.  Once more, the United States
intervened and restored peace after threatening to use military force against
the Liberals.  In the peace treaty that
followed, the Conservatives and Liberals agreed to two stipulations: that the
Conservative government would complete its term of office before new elections
were held; and that all remaining private militias and armed groups would be
disbanded and subsequently incorporated into the government forces to form an
expanded, non-partisan National Guard.

December 7, 1939 – World War II: Finnish forces ambush a Soviet Army battalion

Under the night darkness on December 7, 1939, Finnish ski
troops ambushed a bivouacked Soviet battalion, killing all the soldiers.  The next day, the Finns again swept down on
and annihilated another camped Russian unit. 
More attacks continued in the next several days, and Soviet reconnaissance
planes were unable to spot the Finnish units concealed in the snow-covered
forests.  In these battles, Soviet
casualties totaled 4,000 killed and 5,000 wounded against some 2,000 Finnish
soldiers killed.

Finland and nearby countries.

In similar circumstances, in the Battle of the Mottis,
Finnish ski units succeeded in cutting communication and supply lines among
individual units of the Soviet 168th Division that were spread out along the
northern shore of Lake
Ladoga.  The Finns attacked individual Russian pockets
(called “mottis” by the Finns) in a mobile siege strategy.  Faced with disaster by a severed supply line,
in mid-January 1940, the Russians tried to break out by attacking in force,
only to be cut down by heavy Finnish machinegun fire.  Some 3,000 Russians were killed, while 8 of
the 11 mottis were overwhelmed.

(Taken from Winter War – Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)

Background In
1932, Finland also signed a
non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,
which was extended to ten years in 1934. 
Even so, relations between Finland
and the Soviet Union remained detached, even guarded, not least because of
ideological differences and the lingering suspicion generated by the Finnish
Civil War where the Soviets had supported the Red Guards, and Germany the
White Guards.  Finland
distrusted the Soviets, particularly since the latter harbored and supported
the exiled Finnish communist movement, while the Soviet
Union regarded the ruling right-wing conservative Finnish
government as fascist and reactionary.

While officially neutral, Finland appeared to be pro-German,
because of German assistance during the Finnish Civil War, which raised Soviet
suspicions.  Soviet mistrust was
furthered by a number of events: in 1937, when a German naval flotilla arrived
in Helsinki, in 1938, when Finland held celebrations honoring German support
during the civil war, and in 1939, when Franz Halder, the German Army chief of
staff, arrived in Helsinki.

Soviet pressure on Finland for territorial concessions
had begun in April 1938, the secret negotiations continuing intermittently
until the summer of 1939, with no agreement being reached because of strong
Finnish opposition.  In June 1939,
following the visit of high-level German military officials to Finland, Stalin
was convinced that not only was a Soviet-German war imminent, but that German
forces would use Finland as a springboard to attack the Soviet Union.

But the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact quelled Stalin’s concerns
and seemingly gave assurance that the Germans would not interfere in Finland.  Thus, the Soviets increased their pressure on
the Finnish government, in October 1939 releasing the following demands: that
the Finnish-Soviet border along the Karelian Isthmus be moved west to a point
20 miles east of Viipuri; that Finnish fortifications in the Karelian Isthmus
be dismantled; that Finland cede to the Soviet Union the islands in the Gulf of
Finland, the Kalastajansaarento (Rybachi) Peninsula in the Barents Sea, and the
Salla area; and that Hanko be leased for 30 years to the Soviet Union, where a
Russian military base would be built.  In
return, the Soviets would cede to Finland Repola and Porajarvi from Eastern
Karelia, a territory whose size of 3,400 square kilometers was twice as large
as those demanded from Finland.

For Stalin, the Soviet-Finnish negotiations must address the
security guarantees for Leningrad,
since the city was located just 20 miles from the Finnish border and within
firing range of Finnish heavy artillery. 
Stalin wanted to adjust the border here further to the west into Finland, with
the ceded territory serving as a buffer zone between the two nations.  However, the Finnish government saw these
territorial demands as the first step to an eventual Soviet take-over of Finland.  On October 6 and 10, the Finnish government
issued a call-up of reserves and effectively conducted a general mobilization,
fearing that the Soviet demands would be tantamount to Finland meeting the same
fate as the Balkan States.  The
negotiations, though conducted openly, were characterized by great mutual
distrust: the Finns believing that the Soviet offer was merely a first step to
gobble up Finland, and the
Soviets who believed that Finland
would side with Germany
in a future war.

The Finns presented a counter-offer, agreeing to cede
territory in the Karelian Isthmus that would double the distance of the Finnish
border to Leningrad.  But by then, Stalin was in no mood for more
talks and was determined to use armed force, deciding that the Finns were
negotiating in bad faith.

December 6, 1987 – The Palestinian Uprising of 1987 – 1993: An Israeli citizen is murdered in Gaza; two days later , two Palestinians are killed

On December 6, 1987, an Israeli citizen was murdered in Gaza.  Two days later, four Palestinian residents of
the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza
were killed in a road accident by a truck belonging to the Israeli Army.  Many residents of the Jabaliya camp took to
the streets in protest, believing that the four Palestinians were killed
deliberately in reprisal for the Gaza
murder.  Israeli security forces moved in
to disperse the crowd, but in the process, opened fire and killed a
protester.  Demonstrations then broke out
in other refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, triggering a full-blown uprising.

Map showing location of Gaza and the West Bank.

The 1987 Palestinian uprising is more commonly known as the
First Intifada, where the word “intifada” is Arabic that means “to shake off”,
and has come to denote an uprising or rebellion.  The 1987 Intifada initially took the form of
spontaneous, disorganized street rallies and demonstrations consisting of tens
of thousands of Palestinians who incited anarchy and clashed with Israeli
security forces.  Youths and minors often
formed the front lines, leading Israeli authorities to accuse the Palestinians
of using the children as “human shields”. 
The protesters lobbied stones and Molotov cocktails (home-made
incendiary bombs) at the police, burned tires, and set up road blocks and
barricades.  Militancy increased when the
protesters began using firearms and grenades as weapons.  Other Palestinians supported the intifada
through non-violent means, such as not paying taxes, boycotting Israeli
products, and undertaking other forms of civil disobedience.

The depth and speed of the intifada surprised Israeli
authorities, who believed that the actions were being planned and carried out
by the PLO.  In fact, each local protest
action was organized by community leaders in response to and in support of
other uprisings that were already taking place, creating a snowball effect.  Eventually, however, the intifada came under
the centralized command of the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising
(UNLU), an alliance of PLO factions in the occupied territories, which began to
carry out more organized militant actions. 
Two other Palestinian armed groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, also rose
to prominence during the intifada and emerged as the political and military
rivals to the PLO.

(Taken from Palestinian Uprising of 1987 – 1993 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background As a
consequence of the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948
Arab-Israeli War, some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs lost their homes and became
refugees.  Most of them eventually
settled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.  The Palestinian Jews emerged victorious, in
the process establishing the state of Israel.  Then with the Israeli Army’s victory in the
Six-Day War in 1967 (separate article), the Israelis gained control of Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Jerusalem.  Israel imposed militarized authority over the
“occupied territories” (as the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East
Jerusalem were called collectively) as a means to deter
opposition.  Check points and road blocks
were raised, searches and arrests conducted, and civilian movement curtailed
and monitored.  Perceived enemies were
eliminated, imprisoned, or deported. 
Furthermore, the Israeli government encouraged its citizens to migrate
to the occupied territories, where Israeli housing settlements soon began to
emerge.

The Palestinians greatly resented the presence of the
Israelis, whom they regarded as a foreign force occupying Palestinian
land.  Furthermore, as the Israeli
authority became established and greater numbers of Israeli settlements were
being built, the Palestinians believed that their lands eventually would be
integrated into Israel.  The Israeli occupation was also perceived as
a serious blow to the Palestinian people’s aspirations for establishing a
Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, a political
and armed movement, was formed in 1964 and was headed by Chairman Yasser Arafat
to lead the Palestinians’ struggle for independence.  However, the PLO experienced many setbacks,
not only in the hands of Israel
but also by the Arab countries to which the Palestinians had turned for
support.  In 1970, the PLO was expelled
from Jordan and thereafter
moved to Lebanon
where, in 1982, it also was forced to leave. 
Subsequently, the PLO moved its headquarters to Tunisia, whose
distant location prevented the Palestinian leadership from exercising direct
control and influence over the affairs of Palestinians in the occupied
territories.  The PLO itself was wracked
by internal dissent among some factions that opposed Arafat, who had cast aside
his hard-line stance against Israel
and adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Furthermore, later developments in the Middle
East boded ill for the Palestinians.  Egypt,
the militarily strongest Arab country and a main supporter of the PLO, had
signed a peace treaty with Israel
in 1979 and ceased its claim to the Gaza Strip. 
Jordan had not only
expelled the PLO but had relinquished its claim to the West
Bank and consequently stripped the Palestinian residents there of
Jordanian citizenship.  Syria, another major backer of the PLO, had a
falling out with Arafat during the 1982 Lebanon War and began to support a
rival PLO faction that ultimately forced Arafat and his Fatah faction to leave Lebanon a
second time.  For so long, the Arab
countries’ regional security concerns centered on the Palestinians’ struggle
for statehood.  In the 1980s, however,
much of the concentration was on the Iran-Iraq War, relegating the Palestinian
issue to a lesser focus.  Palestinians
believed that many Arab countries, because of the Arab military defeats to the
Israelis, generally had abandoned active support for the Palestinians’
nationalist aspirations.

The Palestinians’ frustrations were compounded by dire
economic circumstances in the West Bank and Gaza. 
Nearly half of all Palestinians were poor and lived in refugee camps in
cramped, squalid, and poorly serviced conditions.  Unemployment was high and so was the
Palestinians’ birth rate, leading to more people competing for limited
opportunities and resources.

Ever since the Israelis took over the occupied territories,
tensions between Israelis and Palestinians persisted, which often erupted in
violence.  Then during the second half of
1987, these tensions rose dramatically, ultimately leading to a major
Palestinian uprising that was triggered by the following events.

December 5, 1983 – Dirty War: Military rule ends in Argentina

On December 5, 1983, military junta rule by the National Reorganization Process (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional) ended in Argentina. A succession of juntas had ruled with authoritarian powers since 1976 after the military seized power by ousting President Isabel Peron (wife of former President Juan Peron) in a coup.

(Taken from Dirty War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)

The military’s stated reason for the Peron coup was to
prevent the communist take-over of the country. 
Thereafter, a military junta came to power.  Argentina’s legislature was
abolished, while the judicial courts were restructured to suit the new
militarized system.  The academic and
intelligentsia were suppressed, as were labor and peoples’ assemblies.  The military government instituted harsh
measures to stamp out communist and leftist elements.  Also targeted by the military were opposition
politicians, journalists, writers, labor and student leaders, including their
supporters and sympathizers.

Argentina and nearby countries. During the Dirty War, the Argentine military government used “dirty” methods in its anti-insurgency campaign to stamp out leftist and perceived communist elements in the country.

The military operated with impunity, arbitrarily subjecting
their suspected enemies to arrests, interrogations, tortures, and
executions.  One infamous method of execution
was the “death flight”, where prisoners were drugged, stripped naked, and held
down with weights on their feet, and then boarded onto a plane and later thrown
out into the Atlantic Ocean.  Since death flights and other forms of
executions made certain that the bodies would not be found, the victims were
said to have disappeared, striking great fear among the people.  Another atrocity was allowing captured
pregnant women to give birth and then killing them, with their babies given to
the care of and adopted by military or right-leaning couples.  The military and Triple A death squads
carried out these operations clandestinely during the Dirty War.

The military government’s anti-insurgency campaign was so
fierce, sustained, and effective that by 1977, the leftist and communist groups
had practically ceased to exist. 
Hundreds of rebels, who had escaped to the nearby countries of Brazil, Uruguay,
Paraguay, Bolivia, and Chile,
were arrested and returned to Argentina.  The United States provided technical
assistance to the integrated intelligence network of these countries within the
scope of its larger struggle against communism in the Cold War.

The Argentinean government continued its draconian rule even
after it had stamped out the insurgency. 
The Dirty War caused some 9,000 confirmed and up to 30,000 unconfirmed
victims from murders and forced disappearances. 
By 1982, however, the military’s anti-insurgency campaign, which had
found wide popular support initially, was being criticized by the people because
of high-level government corruption and a floundering national economy.

Seeking to revitalize its flagging image, the military
government launched an invasion of the British-controlled Falkland
Islands in an attempt to stir up nationalist sentiments and thereby
regain the Argentinean people’s support. 
The Argentinean forces briefly gained control of the islands.  A British naval task force soon arrived,
however, and recaptured the Falkland Islands,
driving away and inflicting heavy casualties on the Argentinean forces.

Consequently, Argentina’s military government
collapsed, ending the country’s militarized climate.  Argentina then began to transition
to civilian rule under a democratic system. 
After the country held general elections in 1983, the new government
that came to power opened a commission to investigate the crimes committed
during the Dirty War.  Subsequently, a
number of perpetrators were brought to trial and convicted.  Some military units broke out in rebellion in
protest of the convictions, forcing the Argentinean government to pass new laws
that reduced the military’s liability during the Dirty War.  In 1989, a broad amnesty was given to all
persons who had been involved, indicted, and even convicted of crimes during
the Dirty War.

In June 2005, however, the Argentinean Supreme Court
overturned the amnesty laws, allowing for the re-opening of criminal lawsuits
for Dirty War crimes.  The fates of many
persons killed and disappeared, as well as the infants taken from their
murdered mothers, remain unsolved and are subject to ongoing investigations.