25 years ago: John F. Kennedy Jr. and two companions died in a plane crash.
On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bassett, and her sister Lauren were killed in a crash of a small plane piloted by Kennedy after he became disoriented during a night flight over Long Island Sound while en route from the New York area to Martha’s Vineyard.
John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1998
Kennedy, the 38-year-old son of the assassinated president, had only qualified as a pilot the previous year and had little experience flying at night or over water, where navigation and direction are difficult, and he was not yet qualified to fly instruments. Kennedy was still belted into the cockpit when search and rescue teams found the wreckage of the plane.
The tragic incident triggered more than a week of sensationalized media coverage, with JFK Jr.’s death a great loss to American society and robbing the country of what one newspaper described as “the Prince of Camelot.” Television stations interrupted their regular programming to cover the search around the clock, and commentators expounded on the event’s profound significance.
“There was clearly a conscious attempt to give the Kennedys’ disappearance and probable deaths the full ‘Diana’ treatment, emulating the intensive coverage that followed the death of the British princess in a car accident in 1997,” the WSWS wrote at the time.
This included a public funeral at sea on the deck of a U.S. Navy ship, at the order of Democratic President Bill Clinton, although Kennedy was not serving in any military role at the time of his death and was a civilian.
Kennedy was an ordinary scion of a wealthy family who rose to extraordinary fame following the tragic assassinations of his father in 1963 and his uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, in 1968. He was an average-to-mediocre student, earned a degree in American Studies from Brown University, graduated from law school and passed the bar on his third try.
He then worked for several years as an assistant district attorney in New York City before giving up law and politics to go into publishing with the ill-fated magazine George, which combined the world of politics with the personalities he knew well.
The episode marked the rise of aristocracy in American bourgeois culture. The political and media establishments downplay the fact that thousands of ordinary workers die every year in accidents, from tornadoes and hurricanes to horrific workplace disasters. They argue that these deaths are not the fault of capitalist society, but a matter of “personal responsibility.” But in the case of John F. Kennedy Jr., a death that was largely due to the recklessness of an individual who had contributed little to American society was presented as a disaster of historic proportions.
50 years ago: Military coup sparks Greek-Turkish crisis over Cyprus
On July 15, 1973, the Greek military junta, backed by the CIA, staged a coup in Cyprus, overthrowing the government of the Republic of Cyprus and placing the island under dictatorial control. The Greek coup sparked war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus five days later.
Located between Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, Cyprus is an important trading and military strategic point in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1878, the Ottoman Empire agreed to lease the island to the British government, and Britain took full control after World War I.
Cyprus gained independence from British rule and established itself as a republic in 1960. For centuries, the island’s population has been divided along ethno-linguistic and religious lines, with about 80 percent Greek and Christian and 20 percent Turkish and Muslim. The Turkish minority has often faced discrimination and violence from Greek right-wing nationalist paramilitary groups that demand that the island be brought under Greek rule itself.
The Turkish ruling elite continued to oppose Cyprus’ integration into Greece, claiming responsibility for protecting the interests of the Turkish Cypriots, but also sought to secure access to valuable mineral deposits and fishing rights, and to use the issue as a distraction from political conflicts within Turkey itself.
Map of Cyprus after the Turkish invasion and de facto partition [Photo: GIS]
The 1960 constitution guaranteed Turkish Cypriots full political rights and 30 percent of the seats in parliament. Greek nationalists vehemently opposed such concessions, seeing direct rule of the island by the Greek military junta that took power in 1967 as a path to stripping Turkish Cypriots of their rights and political influence on the island.
A Greek nationalist coup on July 15th ousted Cyprus President Archbishop Makarios III, who quickly fled to London. At the time of the coup, the Greek military junta had already managed to win over hundreds of officers from the island’s military, the Cyprus National Guard.
The junta elected Nicos Sampson as Cyprus’ president, a far-right Greek nationalist who was vehemently anti-Turkish, and his rise to power raised fears among the Turkish community that genocide and forced deportations might be on the agenda.
On July 20, 1974, 40,000 Turkish troops landed in northern Cyprus, reinforcing armed Turkish Cypriot militias to oppose the Greek forces. Fighting continued for about a month until a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared on August 18. Over 6,000 casualties were recorded on both sides during the fighting.
The ceasefire resulted in the division of the island, with the south held by Greece and the north by Turkish forces. Before the coup, Turkish and Greek communities were scattered across the island, but now both nationalities have been forcibly relocated to either side of the border.
In total, over 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes and relocate to the other side of the new border. The division of Cyprus along ethnic lines between Greek and Turkish remains to this day.
The provocative Greek coup and Turkish invasion of the island accelerated a political crisis within Greece. Facing popular opposition following the 1973 Athens uprising, the Greek military junta hoped that a coup abroad and the annexation of Cyprus would help resolve the internal crisis.
However, the Cyprus coup was deeply unpopular among Greek workers who opposed the war with Turkey and feared that the working class would intervene directly to topple the dictatorship, and just days after the Cyprus coup, the crumbling military junta called for national elections to be held in November.
The present-day Greek state, the Third Hellenic Republic, was born as a result of elections carefully planned to avoid revolutionary situations. The bourgeois New Democratic Party won the elections and formally took power in December 1974 under the leadership of Konstantinos Karamanlis, who became Prime Minister.
75 years ago: Laos was granted false independence within the French Union.
On July 19, 1949, French President Vincent Auriol signed an agreement in Paris with King Sisavang Vong of Laos, recognising Laos as an independent state within the French Union. In practice, however, major authority over state power, including foreign policy, remained with France, with Sisavang acting as a puppet ruler.
Over the centuries, the area that became Laos was ruled by several principalities. In the late 19th century, it was colonized by France. During World War II, Laos, along with Indochina, was occupied by Japan. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, France moved immediately to retake Laos.
President Bill Clinton tours Clarksdale, Mississippi with local politicians and business leaders
Leaders of the anti-French Free Laotians movement were forced to flee to Thailand, while France garnered support within the Laotian system still dominated by feudal princes, including Sisavan, the last ruler of the Kingdom of Luang Prabang who, with French support, became King of Laos in 1947.
The granting of nominal independence in 1949 was intended to neutralize Laotian bourgeois opposition: most of the Free Lao movement’s leaders returned from Thailand and agreed to operate within the political system established by France, including a new constitutional monarchy and limited national representation in a state still dominated by Paris.
However, dissidents in the Free Lao Movement rejected the new organization as a sham. Led by Prince Suphanuwong and other radical nationalist leaders, the organization was officially established as the Pathet Lao in 1950. Appealing to anti-colonial sentiment and the social hardships of the peasants, the Pathet Lao allied with the Indochinese independence movement to fight French and later American imperialism and their local agents.
100 years ago: Argentine police and ranchers massacre 400 indigenous people
On July 16, 1924, a group of armed police, ranchers, and other whites killed more than 400 Toba and Mocobi men, women, and children, along with a few white peasants who supported them, in the settlement of Napalpe in Argentina’s Chaco province, in what became known as the Napalpe Massacre.
130 policemen and settlers opened fire on Napalpi with their rifles. Those who survived were beheaded with machetes or hanged. The killers raped the women and dismembered the bodies of the dead, taking ears and testicles as trophies. The terror continued for days as anyone who escaped the initial bloodshed was hunted down and killed.
Chaco people, photographed in 1892
In the 1880s, Argentine forces began a campaign to subjugate the native people of the Chaco and clear land for commercial cotton cultivation, which included forced relocations and murder. Napalpi, which means “cemetery” in Toba-Com, was one of the settlements established in 1911. The government also built a series of forts to isolate the native people from Argentine ranchers.
Indigenous people around Napalpe began growing cotton for the market. In 1924, authorities imposed a 15% tax on cotton, which increased tensions and led to violence between indigenous people and settlers. Indigenous farmers refused to sell their crops. It was at this point that the governor of Chaco, Fernando Centeno, began preparing for a massacre.
In August, the National Assembly sponsored an investigation, but, as one observer noted, witnesses were hounded to prevent them from testifying. It wasn’t until 2022 that a government-sponsored “truth trial” was held to investigate the massacre, but because none of those involved were still alive, no one was ever charged. The judges found the Argentine government responsible for the massacre.
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