Word: lasts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rumor mill had already established the date and time of the coming coup: Dec. 1 at 3 a.m. But Manila was used to rumors. And since the failure of the last big putsch, in August 1987, most of the talk had led nowhere, good only for a stir in the stock market or titillation among armchair plotters in the capital's gossipy coffee shops. At 10 p.m. on Nov. 30, the speculation was scotched as the government announced the arrest of three members of an elite military division who had attempted to sabotage a provincial communications station south of Manila...
...President's decision was an appropriate and prudent one under the circumstances." But Aquino may be haunted by her decision for the rest of her political life. Alluding to the Philippines' former status as a U.S. possession, Max Soliven, a columnist for the pro-Aquino Philippine Star, wrote last week: "When a government cannot overcome a rebellion without 'outside' help, I hope that this does not make it a colony, a satrapy, or a banana republic, all over again...
...rest of the world, however, she has remained one of liberty's most potent symbols. And for the U.S. she represents one of the few genuine foreign policy triumphs of the decade -- the moral shift in American diplomatic thinking away from collaborating with authoritarian allies to standing with democracy. Last week, when it came to a choice between a military putsch that might have brought a vicious but strategic stability to the Philippines and a woman who headed the weak but nevertheless legitimate government of the country, Washington chose Aquino...
Coup plotters have taken advantage of the resulting frustration among the younger officers to organize against Aquino. According to Candido Filio, a military analyst with the University of the Philippines, Gringo Honasan did not need support from the top brass to launch last week's coup attempt. "He has been working the line of company commanders," says Filio. As it turned out, at least two generals joined the rebellion...
Ironically, they were shepherds of peace last week, anchored in Marsaxlokk Bay. Malta is a scarred limestone fortress fought over for centuries, the gashes of German and Italian bombs still visible from the battering it took in World War II. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev searched for a way to dismantle their huge arsenals even while transported and comforted by their monstrous machines. Their task will not be easy. Everywhere one looked along this peculiar journey were reminders of how much the military structure girdles, orders and even calms the world. Anybody who tries to change it quickly had best...