Word: gripping
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Baby Doc's grip began to falter last November when his security forces opened fire on student demonstrators in the coastal town of Gonaives. Three people were killed. The ensuing protests added momentum to a rebellion among young Haitians who saw little chance for improvement in their lives under Duvalier. The opposition movement was supported by the Roman Catholic Church, which since the 1983 visit of Pope John Paul II had protested Duvalier's indifference to the country's squalor. Last month a new wave of protests swept the country. Although Duvalier's troops and police maintained control of Port...
...light of this decision, what we need is for more congressmen to take a stand like our hero Mike Synar (D-Md.) who brought the ill-fated law to court. But representatives need to do more than that; they need to free themselves from the grip of the extremists in order to better represent the majority of Americans...
...protests that lured thousands of Haitians into the streets last week to denounce the government probably represent a point of no return for the country. Even if Duvalier's reign has not yet ended and he somehow manages to cling to power for a while, his viselike grip on Haiti has been irrevocably shattered...
...fact, much more is at stake in the crisis engendered by Marcos' fading grip: the stability of the Philippine archipelago and U.S. influence in the entire region. The Philippines is an important member of the Association of South East Asian Nations, a six-nation group* that has enjoyed surprising stability and prosperity in the wake of the U.S. defeat in Viet Nam. Collapse of the Philippines in the face of a Communist insurgency would severely impair the security of the remaining ASEAN members and pose a threat to U.S. allies as far away as Australia...
Whatever the ups and downs of his health, Marcos has always insisted on keeping a patriarchal grip on the apparatus of power. An outsider who was allowed to visit a caucus of the ruling New Society Movement last year reported that the session resembled "a big meeting of all the warring tribes, in which the President was like the chief, called upon to arbitrate all of their family feuds." None of the burning national difficulties of the day, such as the Communist insurgency and the ailing economy, were discussed. Instead, local and provincial party bosses offered up their special pleading...