On Day History: 1968

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Senin, 25 Juli 2011

On this day in history: South Vietnamese opposition politician sentenced, 1968

With no end in sight to the conflict between his country and North Vietnam, Trương Đình Dzũ stood as a candidate in the 1967 South Vietnamese presidential elections on a peace ticket with a dove as his campaign symbol. He proposed negotiation with the Viet Cong, holding out the possibility of a coalition government, to end the Vietnam War. Trương Đình Dzũ received around 17% of the vote putting him in second place behind General Nguyen Van Thieu on 38%.

Under the political regulations of the time advocation of negotiation with the communists was forbidden, but it was not against the law. So when the authorities placed Trương Đình Dzũ under arrest it was for illegally opening a bank account in San Francisco. Following a trial by a Special Military Court he was sentenced to five years hard labour on 26th July 1968. As a result of public opinion at home and international pressure, Trương Đình Dzũ only served five months of the sentence.

Related posts
The Catonsville Nine: 17th May 1968
Bobby Kennedy assassinated: 5th June 1968
Australian Prime Minister visited Vietnam: 7th June 1968
Nixon won presidential election: 5th November 1968

Senin, 04 Oktober 2010

On this day in history: Police baton-charge civil rights marchers in Derry, 1968

In the late 1960s, a civil rights movement appeared in Northern Ireland. Borrowing language and tactics from the American Civil Rights Movement, organisations such as the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) began campaigning for civil rights for various groups, particularly for Catholics who felt discriminated against by a Stormont government dominated by Protestant Unionists. They called for an end to the gerrymandering of election wards that preserved Unionist rule; the end of unequal allocation of housing and discrimination in employment; and repeal of the Special Powers Act, which gave the Royal Ulster Company (RUC) repressive powers.

Local groups also formed to protest against particular problems, such as the Derry Housing Action Committee, which sought to draw attention to the plight of the homeless and tenants of unscrupulous landlords by organising peaceful protests. In September 1968, this committee planned a march through the city on behalf of the NICRA to be held on Saturday 5th October 1968. On the 1st October, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, a Protestant fraternal society, announced that they would also be marching on the same day, along the same route, at the same time.

The Home Affairs Minister, William Craig, decided to ban the civil rights march, but around four-hundred demonstrators defied the ban, including members of both Stormont and Westminster parliaments. As the protesters gathered to set off the RUC broke-up the march with a baton charge. In the melee many marchers received injuries including some of the MPs.

The violent prevention of the march angered Catholic communities not only in Northern Ireland but also around the world following the transmission of television footage of the police action. Some residents of Nationalist areas in Derry were so incensed that they took to the streets in three days of riots. Elsewhere in the province, the baton-charge radicalised civil-rights supporters setting the scene for over thirty years of sectarian violence.

The University of Ulster web-site includes information about the Derry March.

Related posts
Night of the Barricades: 10th May 1968
Belgrade student revolt: 2nd June 1968
Buffalo Nine arrested: 19th August 1968
Tlatelolco Massacre: 2nd October 1968
Rodney Riots: 16th October 1968

Jumat, 01 Oktober 2010

On this day in history: Tlatelolco Massacre, 1968

In the months leading up to the start of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, students from around the country gathered in protest as they had done elsewhere in the world that year. The Mexican government responded to these demonstrations with repressive measures: students were subject to indiscriminate arrest and beatings and the army occupied the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Undeterred the students staged their largest demonstration so far at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of the city on 2nd October 1968, ten days before the Games' opening ceremony.

Around fifteen thousand students marched through the city wearing red carnations to protest the military occupation of the university before gathering at the Plaza. As the sun set the military and armed police surrounded the square and opened fire on both demonstrators and bystanders. The indiscriminate killing continued through the night, with nearby residences also subject to attack in house-to-house raids.

Between two- and three-hundred men, women and children died that night at the hands of the authorities. Witnesses claimed that the bodies were later removed in garbage trucks. The government explanation for the massacre was that armed demonstrators had fired down on the police and army from the surrounding buildings first, and that their forces responded in self-defence.

The National Security Archives pages on the George Washington University site include a number of articles about the massacre as well as the text of related document.

Related posts
Emiliano Zapata assassinated: 10th April 1919
Night of the Barricades: 10th May 1968
Belgrade student revolt: 2nd June 1968
Jim Hines won Olympic 100m final: 14th October 1968

Rabu, 18 Agustus 2010

On this day in history: Buffalo Nine arrested, 1968

In the summer of 1968, a group of anti-war protesters centred on the University of Buffalo in New York State began to engage in draft resistance. Fearing arrest, a number of them sought sanctuary in the Unitarian Universalist Church on Elmwood Avenue. They remained for twelve days attracting a group of supporters, while the Unitarian minister mediated between the activists and the F.B.I agents, U.S. Marshals and city police who surrounded the building.

The mediation failed: on 19th August the Federal Marshall's stormed the church, which they forcefully cleared using blackjacks (or according to some accounts, chains), making eight arrests on charges including draft evasion and assault on federal officers. Those arrested were William Berry, Bruce Beyer, and Bruce Cline of the Buffalo Draft Resistance Union; Vietnam veterans Ray Malak, James McGlynn and Thomas O'Connell; Carl Kroneberg of the Peace and Freedom Party; and Jerry Gross, Chairman of Youth Against War and Fascism. Following an investigation, they later also arrested Bill Yates, an organiser for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

In February 1969, the first federal trial of the nine began in a U.S. Courthouse besieged by protesters from the University of Buffalo and elsewhere. After the judge sentenced Beyer to three years imprisonment the nine became a cause célèbre on campus attracting even more support from students and faculty members. A group of students formed the Buffalo Nine Defence Committee and published a newsletter, Liberated Community News, the offices of which were violently raided by the city police much to the disgust of the ACLU. The inability of the jury to reach a verdict on the other defendants' cases necessitated another trial, which became a political circus. Berry, Malak and Yates gave raised fist salutes when introduced and, in contempt of court, Malak and Yates remained seated when the judge left for a recess, actions that probably played a part in their convictions and sentences of three years each. Berry and Kroneberg were acquitted, and the government decided to drop Gross' case after the jury, again, couldn't reach a verdict.

The Buffalonian website hosts a reprint of a 1977 article by Elwin H. Powell, Promoting the Decline of the Rising State, a personal reflection on the anti-war protest movements in the city between 1965-76.

Related posts
The Catonsville Nine: 17th May 1968

Selasa, 10 Agustus 2010

On this day in history: Last steam-hauled mainline passenger train on British Railways, 1968

On 11th August 1968 a special train set off from Liverpool Lime Street station on a return trip to Carlisle. The train, known as the 'Fifteen Guinea Special' because of the cost of the fair, was the last steam-hauled passenger service on British Rail's standard gauge tracks. The next day saw a start of a ban instituted by British Rail management, from then on only diesel and electric locomotives were to be used.

Around 450 enthusiasts set off at 9:10 am on the 314-mile round trip, and thousands more gathered at the stations and other points along the route to wave at the train as it passed. Four locomotives were used to haul the train over various stages: on the first leg, between Liverpool and Manchester, the LMS Stanier Class 5 locomotive 45110 was used; between Manchester Victoria and Carlisle, the BR standard class 7 70013 'Oliver Cromwell' provided the power; from Carlisle back to Manchester two more Class 5s - 44781 and 44871 - were used; 45110 hauled the final leg back to Lime Street where it was greeted as it steamed in at just before 8 pm by a large crowd.