IRANIAN MILITANTS TAKE AMERICAN EMBASSY STAFF HOSTAGE
In 1953, the United States restored the Shah of Iran to his throne in order to prevent the nationalization of the country's oil industry and to stop Soviet influence in Iranian affairs. The CIA trained the Shah's cruel secret police and provided billions of dollars of arms and financial aid to the Shah's government. Many Iranians never forgot American interference in their domestic affairs, and in 1979 revolutionaries led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist, overthrew the Shah. When the Shah fled the country and was admitted to the United States for medical treatment, student mobs in Iran stormed the American Embassy in Teheran and took hostages of 52 members of the diplomatic staff stationed there. These prisoners are currently undergoing solitary confinement, beatings, and terrifying mock executions.
The students are demanding the return of the Shah to stand trial, and the release of his assets to the new Iranian government, claiming the assets were stolen from Iran by the United States. The United States has refused to return the Shah or to apologize for past US aid to his regime. It has attempted to isolate Iran economically by freezing Iranian assets in the United States and urging other nations to sever trade ties to Iran--there are even rumors of unilateral military action being planned by the United States to attempt to free the hostages.
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SOVIET TROOPS ENTER AFGHANISTAN TO INSTALL NEW REGIME
Afghanistan
has recently become a focus of superpower rivalry. In April 1978, a
military coup brought a left-wing regime to power in Afghanistan.
Nur Mohammed Taraki, looked to the Soviet Union for support in modernizing
his country--improving health care and literacy, recognizing the rights of
women, and separating church and state. The USSR sent military equipment
and economic support but hesitated to send troops. Fundamentalist
Islamic groups call for a holy war against the "godless
Communists" and the Mujahadeen take to the mountains to wage guerilla
war with covert American aid.
In response to the unrest , Taraki's successor, Hafizullah Amin, launched
a campaign of terror, arresting and shooting his opponents. Fearing that
Amin will lose the war, Soviet leaders decided to remove him from power,
andin 1979 the Soviet Union sent tens of thousands of men in tanks and
trucks across their southern border into Afghanistan. This is the first
time the Soviet Union has occupied a country beyond the boundaries of the
Warsaw Pact. Many of the Soviet conscripts have been told they are going
to Afghanistan to fight Americans. Brutality and savage retaliation
against both Afghan soldiers and civilians is the Soviet response to
growing casualty lists--now over 1500 a month.
The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan has been condemned by the
United States and the People's Republic of China. President
Carter has blocked grain deliveries to the Soviet Union, and is launching
a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow. U.S. spending on arms has
increased, China has moved troops to its extensive border with the USSR.
Both the US and China are funneling covert support to the Mujaheddin with
the help of General Zia-ul-Haq, neighboring Pakistan's military ruler.
Previously, the U.S. Congress had cut military aid to Zia because of human
rights violations, failure to curb drug trading and concerns over nuclear
proliferation.
