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The pact was signed at the Warsaw Palace
1955: Communist states sign Warsaw Pact
England have
The Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies have signed a security pact in
the Polish capital, Warsaw, after a three-day conference.
Announcements in Warsaw and Moscow said the Soviet Prime Minister, Marshal
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin, and leaders of seven other countries approved
the draft of a new mutual aid agreement called the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship,
Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance.
It is designed, among other things, to ensure close integration of
military, economic and cultural policy between eight Communist nations.
Signatories to the treaty - the USSR, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania - have agreed to unify their forces under
one command although at this stage it is not known who will take this post.
Fear of West German army
Yugoslavia, the only European Communist state not included in the pact, was
expelled in 1948 from Cominform, the Communist information agency for refusing
to acknowledge Sovietsupremacy.
The treaty, signed at the Warsaw Palace, comes in the wake of news that
West Germany has been accepted by western nations into Nato (North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation) following talks earlier this month in Paris.
In a speech at the beginning of the Warsaw talks, Marshal Bulganin warned
that the USA, Britain and France were turning West Germany into "the principal
hotbed of the danger of war in Europe" by allowing it to re-arm.
He said allowing West Germany into Nato was "the major obstacle" to
reunification of Germany.
Existing bilateral agreements between nations of the Eastern Bloc, he
stated, were no longer sufficient to ensure their security and this Warsaw Pact
wouldsupersedeall of those.
He added that Nato was also encouraging countries in the Near and Middle
East to form military blocs to plan attacks on the Soviet Union and its
allies.
In his concluding speech today, Marshal Bulganin emphasised the pact was
inspired by the Leninist principle of peaceful co-existence between democratic
nations and said they wanted to abide by the United Nations Charter.
However the Times newspaper editorial today points out that unifying the
armies of all eight countries will also allow the USSR to base its own troops in
member states and "would certainly help to keep the satellites in order".
Nelson Mandela has supported his wife
1991: Winnie Mandela gets jail term for kidnaps
Artificially 1969:
The
Winnie Mandela, the wife of anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela, has
been given a six-year prison sentence for her part in the kidnap of four
youths.
Her lawyers lodged an appeal against the sentence and Mrs Mandela was freed
on bail.
The woman known to her supporters as the "Mother of Africa" was found
guilty yesterday.
Passing sentence the judge, Mr Justice Stegmann, called her an "unblushing
and unprincipled liar".
He said it was impossible to imagine the kidnaps taking place without Mrs
Mandela being a "moving force".
Mrs Mandela's housekeeper and driver were also found guilty of taking part
in the kidnapping of the four youths who were suspected of being police
informers.
One of the four - 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsi - later died of his
injuries.
Earlier this year Winnie Mandela's chief bodyguard, Jerry Richardson, was
sentenced to death for the boy's murder.
Fall from grace
Nelson Mandela, 73, has so far vigorously supported his wife's claims of
innocence.
But Mrs Mandela's attempt to distance herself from the activities of her
bodyguards - known as the "Mandela Football Club" - appear to have failed.
The sentence compounds the fall from grace for the woman who for more than
three decades was thefigureheadof the struggle against apartheid in South
Africa.
She and her husband spent only four months as a married couple before he
was sent to prison where he would spend the next 27 years.
She was harassed by the authorities and sent into internal exile.
In 1985 she returned to Soweto in defiance of the banning order in place
against her.
However, her critics said she encouraged violence in the township including
the notorious "necklace killings" - putting a tryre around a victim's neck and
setting it alight.
By the time her husband was released from jail last year Winnie Mandela was
deeply unpopular.
Vocabulary:
supremacy:supreme power of authority(霸权，至高)
supersede:to take place of; replace(取代)
figurehead:傀儡领袖 |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:48:41