Vol. 80/No. 36      September 26, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

September 27, 1991

LONDON — Police riots and hundreds of arrests have met rebellions of youth in towns across Britain over the last four weeks.

From Cardiff in the South West to Handsworth, Birmingham, and Oxford in the Midlands, to North Shields and Newcastle in the North East, 5,000 people have taken to the streets in battles against police riot squads and militarized cops — the Special Patrol Group.

Parliamentary leaders of both Conservative and Labour parties have condemned the youth and praised the police actions.

The sources of the rebellions are the deteriorating social conditions and accompanying cop brutality. While young people face the prospect of long periods without work, they are the victims of constant police harassment.

September 26, 1966

The Peruvian military authorities, acting as both prosecution and judge, sentenced Hugo Blanco, the Trotskyist peasant leader, to 25 years in El Frontón, the grim prison in the harbor of Lima. His comrade and co-defendant Pedro Candala was given 22 years, likewise in El Frontón.

Up to the final moment on Sept. 8, it was feared that the military might carry out the plan they had reportedly envisaged — giving Hugo Blanco the death sentence. Evidently they reconsidered in view of the reaction that was visible even in the small town of Tacna where people lined up for admission into the large hall where the court was held and where the audience clearly favored the prisoners, at times expressing such sympathy that the judge had to clear the court.

September 27, 1941

The Seafarers International Union, AFL, has struck 23 American-flag ships with which it has contracts on foreign runs. Twenty of the vessels are now tied up in major Atlantic and Gulf ports and are surrounded by strong picket lines. The number of struck ships is mounting daily as the SIU continues to call off the crews of every contracted foreign run boat as it hits an American port. Strike action was taken to enforce its demands for war bonus payments.

The success of the union in completely tying up the struck ships for two weeks would have led to the capitulation of the bosses in most strikes. This time, however, the United States Maritime Commission has intervened and instructed the shipowners not to negotiate with the union until the strike has been called off.  
 
 
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