Vol. 78/No. 20 May 26, 2014
May 26, 1989
PANAMA CITY, Panama — Nearly 2,000 U.S. troops have arrived at Howard Air Force Base as Washington intensifies its drive to overthrow the government of Panama. The soldiers bring to 13,000 the number of GIs stationed here in violation of Panamanian sovereignty.On May 15 at a news conference on Panamanian soil, U.S. Ambassador Arthur Davis called on “officers of the Defense Forces” of Panama to oust Gen. Manuel Noriega as their commander in chief.
U.S. President George Bush ordered 1,900 U.S. troops to Panama the next day, stating “I am concerned about the safety of U.S. citizens.” But no threats of violence or actual physical attacks on U.S. citizens have been reported here, even by the U.S. military television station Southern Command Network.
May 25, 1964
The U.S. is stepping up its anti-Cuba drive. The past week saw a new raid on Cuba’s coast, carried out by U.S.-armed, supplied and directed exiles. The U.S. press is playing up extravagant threats by these counter-revolutionary groups of more attacks on Cuba.At the same time the U.S. Commerce Department imposed even tighter restrictions on shipment of food and medicines to Cuba, extending the embargo to these items, which in theory though not in fact, had previously been exempted.
Some people, taking State Department statements at face value, assume that raids like this are made by exiles “on their own” from points outside the U.S. However, a similar raid on Cuba’s north coast last Oct. 21 was exposed beyond doubt as a direct CIA operation from U.S. territory.
May 26, 1939
Two years ago this Memorial Day ten strikers fell dead under police bullets at Republic Steel’s South Chicago plant. Scores of their fellow-strikers were wounded.They had come, several hundred of them, in peaceful parade to demonstrate their demand for union recognition.
That was two years ago. But the martyrs who lost their lives then in the workers’ cause are as fresh in our minds and hearts as though Memorial Day, 1937 were today. And lest we forget, every day of boss rule piles added horrors before us.
Against the armed might of bossdom, against the armed forces of fascist hatred, let us pit the organized ranks of working class militants, banded together in Workers Defense Guards, ready to defend workers’ lines from murderous assault.