Vol. 76/No. 13 April 2, 2012
April 3, 1987
The Pentagon has announced plans for its most massive military maneuvers yet in Central America and the Caribbean. Slated for May, the operation will involve a total of 50,000 air, sea, and land forces.Military officers said the maneuvers will coincide with a projected “spring offensive” by the U.S.-sponsored contras, who have suffered crippling blows from Nicaraguan troops.
Such U.S. maneuvers have often been used in the past to cover arms shipments to the contras, and to step up pressure on Sandinista forces while the contras attempt to infiltrate Nicaraguan territory.
The operation, dubbed “Solid Shield,” will also include special operations on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. In Honduras, 5,000 U.S. ground troops will be deployed.
April 2, 1962
Premier Fidel Castro has launched an all-out campaign to cleanse the Cuban Revolution of whatever anti-democratic abuses may have crept in and to nip a growing bureaucratism in the bud.In his speech to the students at the University of Havana, Castro denounced tampering with or falsifying the facts of history as cowardly and anti-Marxist, decried privilege and called for a spirit of self-sacrifice by revolutionists.
The second speech took the form of a withering exposure and denunciation of methods employed by Anibal Escalante, Communist Party leader, who had been entrusted with the key post in organizing the new party. Escalante, Castro charged, had abused his position to build an “apparatus” of Communist Party appointees in key posts regardless of their abilities, merits or the desires of the people.
March 27, 1937
CHICAGO—Fighting militantly against boss and police intimidation that has attempted to raise a red scare, the taxi drivers who struck spontaneously have organized the Midwest Taxi Drivers Union and cleared the streets of cabs by militant strike action. The offices of the union were raided by the police last week, the strikers frisked for guns and weapons and the files ransacked without a warrant. In face of the violent reign of terror in which dozens of cabbies have already been arrested, the union has organized solidly 75 per cent of the drivers in Chicago.They demand union recognition [and] an increase in wages, which are now about $15 a week and often sink as low as $6 or $8.
Although many of the drivers have never before been engaged in strike activities, their morale is excellent.
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