Vol. 74/No. 46      December 6, 2010

Thirteen people were reported killed November 21 when police opened fire on a march of about 50,000 people, mostly women, in the township of Mamelodi.

Residents of the township had refused to go to work that day. They staged the march to protest a new restriction barring funerals on weekends, the occupation of the township by troops, and increases in rent and utility costs.

The National Union of Mineworkers scored a victory October 31 when an industrial court ordered the reinstatement of miners fired for participating in the miners’ strike in September.  
 
December 5, 1960
DEC. 1—The suspension of constitutional rights by Venezuelan President Betancourt and his use of military force to quell demonstrations of workers and students has brought that country the serious risk of a renewed army dictatorship.

After the hated Jiminez dictatorship was toppled in 1958, Betancourt was elected on the basis of promises to bring urgently needed social reforms to the country which suffers misery and deprivation while U.S. tycoons plunder its rich oil resources.

Betancourt’s failure to carry out his campaign promises paralleled his efforts to stamp out popular sympathy for the Cuban revolution.  
 
December 14, 1935
Confronted by a tidal wave of mass protest which has been mounting ever since the formation of the Joint Committee to Aid the Herndon Defense ended Angelo Herndon’s isolation from the broad labor and radical movements, the State of Georgia has executed its first retreat.

Judge Hugh M. Dorsey of Atlanta has declared unconstitutional the 1866 “slave insurrection” law, under which Herndon was sentenced to an 18-20 year term on the chain gang.

He was forced to release Herndon because neither the Talmadge faction nor the Roosevelt faction of Georgia politicians wants to go before the workers to justify Herndon’s conviction.  
 
 
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