Word: militia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Prague riot police cracked down on student demonstrators. With his authority rapidly crumbling, Jakes launched a last-minute bid to crush the uprising. Advised by Czechoslovakia's military that it would take no part in a violent action against the populace, Jakes turned in desperation to the People's Militia, units composed mostly of factory workers that function in effect as the Communist Party's private army. Beginning Nov. 19, militia units were deployed at factory gates and inside industrial compounds around the country. Care was taken to ensure that each unit was deployed outside its own home region. However...
...truth to it. On weekends rifle ranges around the country resound with the din of thousands of Swiss practicing their marksmanship. At the same time, Northrop F-5E Tiger fighter jets skim along mountain faces and blue-gray-uniformed figures clamber down couloirs and across alpine meadows. With a militia of 625,000 men, Switzerland, as the well-worn saying goes, does not have an army, it is an army...
...television, Kanturek said the government should urge Parliament to adopt new laws guaranteeing free elections and freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion and speech, and to abolish the People's Militia, the Communist Party paramilitary force...
...thing, hardly ground for arrest. For two weeks a tiny group of Bulgarian environmentalists called Ecoglasnost manned a table in a Sofia park to gather signatures on a petition calling for public debate on two controversial river-diversion schemes. They had collected nearly 7,000 names, when police and militia units suddenly swooped down, scattered bystanders and arrested seven of the organizers...
General Michel Aoun, the Lebanese Christian leader, rejected the agreement promptly because it provides no timetable for the withdrawal of occupying Syrian forces. Also opposed were militia commanders of Lebanon's large Shi'ite Muslim community, who want to abolish rather than readjust sectarian quotas. Yet the latest eight-month round of fighting has wearied most of the beleaguered country, and there were some signs that both Aoun and Shi'ite leaders would eventually be persuaded to fall into line...