This Day in History: Mar 23, 1979: Two men sentenced in murder of former Chilean diplomat

Federal Judge Barrington Parker presides over the sentencing of Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ross Diaz for the murder of Orlando Letelier. Novo and Ross Diaz were initally sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

The murder to which Judge Parker referred had occurred on September 21, 1976, when a car bomb exploded while victims, Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador, and his friends Michael and Ronni Moffitt were driving on Washington D.C.'s Embassy Row. Letelier was the intended target because of his political work against Chile's dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Letelier was the ambassador to the United States for Chile's leftist government led by Salvador Allende in the early 1970s. However, after a CIA-supported coup by Pinochet in 1973, he was sent to a concentration camp on Dawson Island in the Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. He survived and was exiled to the United States where he spent his time lobbying against the new military dictatorship.

According to the prosecution, a man named Michael Townley was contacted by key figures in Pinochet's regime to assassinate Letelier and he used Cuban exiles, among them Novo and Ross Diaz, to help carry out the hit. The entire plot was unraveled when Townley was caught and turned into a prosecution witness. For his cooperation, Townley was given a new identity and only a 40-month prison sentence. He never expressed any remorse and is thought to have returned to Chile after his release.

General Pinochet was granted amnesty for his crimes when he stepped down from power in Chile. However, while traveling in England in 1998 he was arrested based on charges for human rights abuses by a Spanish prosecutor.

Novo and Ross Diaz's sentence was turned over on appeal and they were later acquitted. Evidence has since come to light suggesting that the CIA might have been aware of the impending assassination in advance and, perhaps because of the U.S.'s close relationship with Pinochet, done nothing to stop it.

In South Africa: William J. Burchell (71), botanist and explorer of the South African interior, dies

Date: 23 March, 1863

William John Burchell, English Explorer, naturalist, traveller, artist, and author was born in 1792, the son of a wealthy nurseryman.   Burchell travelled nearly 7 000 km throughout South Africa between 1810 and 1815, collecting specimens of animals and plants. He described his journey in a book Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa.  His collection contains the most extensive examples of African fauna and flora.  Burchell's travels however exhausted his fortune, and he became quite isolated and disillusioned.   On 23 March 1863, he ended his own life in London.  Burchell is remembered through a genus of plants named after him as well as a number of animal species.
References:

1. William Burchell, [ online], Available at: en.wikipedia. [Accessed 15 March 2010]
2. William Burchell, [ online ], Available at: oum.ox.ac.uk [Accessed 15 March 2010]
3. Wallis, F. (2000). Nuusdagboek: feite en fratse oor 1000 jaar, Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.

This Day in History: Mar 22, 1765: Stamp Act imposed on American colonies

In an effort to raise funds to pay off debts and defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the British government passes the Stamp Act on this day in 1765. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, from newspapers and pamphlets to playing cards and dice.

Though the Stamp Act employed a strategy that was a common fundraising vehicle in England, it stirred a storm of protest in the colonies. The colonists had recently been hit with three major taxes: the Sugar Act (1764), which levied new duties on imports of textiles, wines, coffee and sugar; the Currency Act (1764), which caused a major decline in the value of the paper money used by colonists; and the Quartering Act (1765), which required colonists to provide food and lodging to British troops.

With the passing of the Stamp Act, the colonists' grumbling finally became an articulated response to what they saw as the mother country's attempt to undermine their economic strength and independence. They raised the issue of taxation without representation, and formed societies throughout the colonies to rally against the British government and nobles who sought to exploit the colonies as a source of revenue and raw materials. By October of that year, nine of the 13 colonies sent representatives to the Stamp Act Congress, at which the colonists drafted the "Declaration of Rights and Grievances," a document that railed against the autocratic policies of the mercantilist British empire.

Realizing that it actually cost more to enforce the Stamp Act in the protesting colonies than it did to abolish it, the British government repealed the tax the following year. The fracas over the Stamp Act, though, helped plant seeds for a far larger movement against the British government and the eventual battle for independence. Most important of these was the formation of the Sons of Liberty--a group of tradesmen who led anti-British protests in Boston and other seaboard cities--and other groups of wealthy landowners who came together from the across the colonies. Well after the Stamp Act was repealed, these societies continued to meet in opposition to what they saw as the abusive policies of the British empire. Out of their meetings, a growing nationalism emerged that would culminate in the fighting of the American Revolution only a decade later.

In South Africa: President Vorster challenges Dr Rhoodie

President B.J. Vorster, in a lengthy statement, challenged Dr. Rhoodie to release any document which may implicate him in the Information affair. He emphasised that the question was not whether state money has been available for secret projects, but whether that money has been misused. He denied that he was informed of the secret funding of The Citizen and rejected as contemptible Dr. Rhoodie's attempt to drag Minister Horwood into the affair. The Prime Minister, P.W. Botha, in a cautiously worded statement issued by his office, said the Cabinet knew of secret projects, but not about the state funding of The Citizen, nor of irregularities that had taken place. He said he had undertaken to resign only if it could be proved that members of his Cabinet had been aware of one specific project, namely the funding of The Citizen, before he came into power in September 1978.

Source:
Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.

This Day in History: Mar 21, 1871: Stanley begins search for Livingstone

On this day in 1871, journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous search through Africa for the missing British explorer Dr. David Livingstone.

In the late 19th century, Europeans and Americans were deeply fascinated by the "Dark Continent" of Africa and its many mysteries. Few did more to increase Africa's fame than Livingstone, one of England's most intrepid explorers. In August 1865, he set out on a planned two-year expedition to find the source of the Nile River. Livingstone also wanted to help bring about the abolition of the slave trade, which was devastating Africa's population.

Almost six years after his expedition began, little had been heard from Livingstone. James Gordon Bennett, Jr., editor of the New York Herald, decided to capitalize on the public's craze for news of their hero. He sent Stanley to lead an expedition into the African wilderness to find Livingstone or bring back proof of his death. At age 28, Stanley had his own fascinating past. As a young orphan in Wales, he crossed the Atlantic on the crew of a merchant ship. He jumped ship in New Orleans and later served in the Civil War as both a Confederate and a Union soldier before beginning a career in journalism.

After setting out from Zanzibar in March 1871, Stanley led his caravan of nearly 2,000 men into the interior of Africa. Nearly eight months passed--during which Stanley contracted dysentery, cerebral malaria and smallpox--before the expedition approached the village of Ujiji, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Sick and poverty-stricken, Livingstone had come to Ujiji that July after living for some time at the mercy of Arab slave traders. When Stanley's caravan entered the village on October 27, flying the American flag, villagers crowded toward the new arrivals. Spotting a white man with a gray beard in the crowd, Stanley stepped toward him and stretched out his hand: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

These words--and Livingstone's grateful response--soon became famous across Europe and the United States. Though Stanley urged Livingstone to return with him to London, the explorer vowed to continue his original mission. Livingstone died 18 months later in today's Zambia; his body was embalmed and returned to Britain, where he was buried in Westminster Abbey. As for Stanley, he returned to Africa to fulfill a promise he had made to Livingstone to find the source of the Nile. He later damaged his reputation by accepting money from King Leopold II of Belgium to help create the Belgian-ruled Congo Free State and promote the slave trade. When he left Africa, Stanley resumed his British citizenship and even served in Parliament, but when he died he was refused burial in Westminster Abbey because of his actions in the Congo Free State.

In South Africa: Police kill 69 people during the Sharpeville Massacre

Date: 21 March, 1960

On 21 March, 1960, a breakaway organisation from the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) staged an anti-pass demonstration outside Sharpeville police station near Vereeniging. They handed over their passes demanding an end to the pass laws. However, the march ended in tragedy when the police opened fire on the marchers, killing 69 people and injuring close to 200 people, in what has come to be known as the Sharpeville Massacre. Some commentators argue that it was the events of Cato Manor, the year before, that caused panic amongst the policemen and caused them to open fire on the peaceful protesters.

According to reports, the ANC had planned a similar campaign against the pass laws due to start on 31 March 1960. The PAC rushed ahead and announced the beginning of their campaign to start ten days earlier. Human Rights Day on 21 March has been a public holiday in South Africa since 1994 observed to commemorate this important event in our history.

References

• Boddy-Evans A. ‘Sharpeville Massacre’, from African History, [online], Available at www.africanhistory.about.com[Accessed: 21 February 2012]
• South African History Online, ‘Sharpeville Massacre’, [online], Available at www.sahistory.org.za[Accessed: 21 February 2012]