|
|
|
|
1 may
|
First of May rendered fiery in England by crises, growing unemployment and outbreaks of racism. The Federation of the steelworkers calls a strike for the 15th.
Protests in the Arab world for the military parade announced by Israel for 2 May in eastern Jerusalem occupied after the war of June '67. The UN Security Council had asked Israel in vain to desist from its decision.
At the end of April the Black Power leader, Stokely Carmichael, had married the South African singer, Miriam Makeba, for years in exile from her country dominated by apartheid.
Anti-Francoist demonstrations in Spain.
Strong tension in the Parisian universities of the Sorbonne and Nanterre. For the whole month of April left-wing students and Fascists of the Occident group have faced each other and clashed a number of times.
|
|
|
2 may
|
All the Arab shops are closed in Jerusalem on the occasion of the Israeli parade. The Arabs do not leave their homes in protest. The prime minister Eshkol states that Israel will never return to the frontiers previous to the war, considered "insecure".
The "march of the poor" led by rev. Ralph Abernathy and Coretta King leaves Memphis, from the hotel where Luther King was killed. The millionaire Nelson Rockefeller Republican candidate to the USA presidency. He represents the left of the party.
Closed in Nanterre the faculty of Arts. The next morning the police will invade the campus. At the Sorbonne the Fascists destroy the offices of the student trade union UNEF.
|
|
|
3 may
|
With a concert in New York the Beach Boys begin a tour of 17 performances. In the second half of the concert the Maharishi Yogi intervenes with spiritual readings. The negative response of the public leads to the cancellation of more than half of the concerts.
The police abandon the Columbia University of New York from which on 30 April it had made the occupying students evacuate with a violence never used before, at least not against whites.
Third day of demonstrations and clashes in Madrid.
Three hundred students meet in the Sorbonne in protest against the closure of Nanterre. The CRS surround the university. Negotiations between students and police last hours while thousands of students crowd the surrounding streets. In the evening violent clashes.
USA and North Vietnam announce that they have reached an agreement for the beginning of "pre-negotiations of peace" in Paris on 10 May. The talks should lead to a new Conference of Geneva.
|
|
|
4 may
|
The UNEF and the teachers' trade union proclaim a general strike and a demonstration starting from the 6th. The 6th will also see the meeting of the disciplinary commission of the university before which 6 students, among whom Cohn-Bendit, must appear.
A delegation of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party led by Dubcek is in Moscow.
The eighteen year old singer Mary Hopkin appears for the first time on British television with the model Twiggy. Hopkin will sign a contract with the recording company of the Beatles, Apple, and will reach first position in the top ten with "Those Were the Days".
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs is at the centre of the preparations for the negotiations between the USA and North Vietnam. For the location there is talk of two castles near Paris.
|
|
|
5 may
|
Condemned to 8 months the printer of the Milanese student newspaper "La zanzara". On the occasion of the trial for an investigation on youth sexuality he had written an outraged letter to the public prosecutor. Tried for contempt.
The South Vietnamese resistance attacks in 122 localities the USA troops and the regular army. It is not a new Tet, but a political offensive aimed at weighing on the Paris talks.
Many are the songs written in honour and in memory of Luther King: to "Why? The King of Love is Dead" by Nina Simone are added "It's up to Me and You" sung by Ella Fitzgerald, a song by Oliver Nelson and a requiem composed by Ronnie Roullier.
Six students are tried for the clashes of the 3rd; four are condemned to sentences of detention without suspension. The Sorbonne remains occupied by the police.
|
|
|
6 may
|
The Vietcong offensive is concentrated in Saigon. Fighting around the airport and in many neighbourhoods. Attacked also 80 new military objectives throughout the country.
In an interview with Rude Pravo on the talks of Moscow, Dubcek appears moderately reassured but does not hide the "anxiety" expressed by the Russians with regard to a possible anti-Socialist exploitation of the democratization process.
The trial for the clashes of Piazza Cavour ends with one sentence of 10 months and three of 8 months. The prosecutor had asked for sentences of up to two years. The defendants will all be released the next day.
The films selected for the "Semaine internationale de la Critique" of Cannes, which is about to begin are, among others, "Story of Anna Magdalena Bach" by Straub-Huillet; "Concert for an exile" by Désiré Ecaré (Ivory Coast); "The edge" by Robert Kramer.
A march of 15,000 people leaves the Sorbonne, passes along the right bank and demonstrates in front of the Palais Royal, it returns to the Latin Quarter and tries to occupy the university. The students face the police until late evening. 487 the injured.
|
|
|
7 may
|
At the pop festival of Rome, opened on 5th by Julie Driscoll, the police invade the stage when the band Move uses some effects with explosives.
The Vietcong occupy the industrial and commercial area of Cholon, in Saigon. USA planes bombard the areas of the South Vietnamese capital occupied by the guerrillas.ri.
50,000 students pass in cortege the southern area of Paris, avoiding the Latin Quarter presided over by the police. The cortege goes up the Champs Elysées as far as the Arc de Triomphe. Sit-in around the monument in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier, the site of the most important official ceremonies of the republic On the way back the UNEF orders the break-up of the demonstration, but Maoist militants attack the police and manage to draw other demonstrators into the clashes which last until morning.
Clash between Robert Kennedy and McCarthy, the two leaders of the left of the party. Kennedy wins the two most important tests: the elections in Indiana and those in the capital, Washington.
|
|
|
8 may
|
Israeli patrols attacked in the Sinai and in Galilee. After the clash of Karameh, on 21 March, the Palestinian resistance has enormously increased its forces and intensified its raids in the occupied territories and in the state of Israel.
The government undertakes to reopen the Sorbonne and Nanterre if the riots do not continue. In the evening a cortege of 30,000 people parades through the Latin Quarter. At the end the service of order of the UNEF imposes its break-up to respect the agreements with the authorities..
A note of the Soviet agency Tass attacks some Czechoslovakian newspapers for the accusations addressed to the Russian security services on the death of the minister Masaryk in '48. The "Masaryk case", filed as "suicide", was reopened at the instigation of the students.
|
|
|
9 may
|
Having just arrived in Paris, Xuan Thuy, head of the North Vietnamese delegation, asks for the suspension of the USA bombardments and affirms that in the first phase of the talks he will also represent the South Vietnamese NLF.
"Gone with the wind" shown in the new 70 mm copy inaugurates the XXI festival of Cannes which, for the first and only time, will be interrupted in its first week in solidarity with the student and workers protests that are going on in France.
The rector reopens the Sorbonne and Nanterre but the police does not abandon the university. In the afternoon, faced with a sit-in of thousands of students, the secretary of the SNESUP, Geismar, criticizes himself for having sought an agreement with the rector. Louis Aragon, outstanding star among the intellectuals of the French Communist party, is irreverently apostrophized by the students during the course that he holds in the Sorbonne. He promises to open to the protesters the magazine that he directs, "French Letters".
Strike of the Marzotto factory of Valdagno, where negotiations are again interrupted. Of those arrested on 19 April, 12 are still in prison.
Worried appeals of Radio Prague after a sudden summit of 5 countries of the Warsaw pact in Moscow. Absent the two 'reformist' countries, Czechoslovakia and Romania. The delegation of East Germany leads the attack on the Spring of Prague.
|
|
|
10 may
|
Seven leaders of the opposition killed in an ambush in southern Sudan. Among them is also William Deng, president of the African national union, the main opposition group.
A protest cortege parades below the prison of the Santé. The police blocks the bridges leading to the right bank, the students occupy the Latin Quarter and raise tens of barricades. At 2am, after hours of negotiations, the police attack the barricades. The clashes are very violent and continue until dawn.a.
Evacuated, after 43 days of occupation, the faculty of Arts in Pavia. The day before, 5 students had been denounced for violence against the rector. In Perugia the rector has the flag hung at half mast in protest against the ferment of the students. In Rome, under the initiative of the ANAC, a National Committee against Repression is established. Pier Paolo Pasolini also joins the Committee which also participates in the national movement in Pisa. In spite of the poem on Valle Giulia.
The Greek left-wing leader Giorgio Tsarouha dies in Salonika, immediately after his arrest, officially from a heart attack. For the opposition it is murder. Tsarouha had already been brutally beaten by the Fascists in '62 in the same aggression that ended in the death of Lambrakis.
Opening of the Conference of Paris between the United States and North Vietnam.
|
www.media68.com | february 1998