PEACE HISTORY This Day
December 24, 1865
Months after the fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, called the Ku Klux Klan. Its first priority, declared in its creed, was “to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal.”
December 24, 1924
Costa Rica withdrew from The League of Nations to protest Monroe Doctrine of U.S. which stated U.S. is the big Daddy of North and South America.
December 24, 1992
President George Herbert Walker Bush pardoned six people in the Iran-Contra case, among them former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, and Robert McFarlane, the President’s former national security advisor. He did so with less than one month to go in his presidency. These people and others were responsible for selling arms to the revolutionary government of Iran in hope of the release of hostages held in Iran, despite then-President Reagan’s repeated pledge not to negotiate with hostage-takers. The money raised through the arms sales was used to fund the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua, who were violently trying to overthrow the elected government. This support was in violation of an explicit legal ban on such activities under the Boland Amendment [see December 22, 1982 above].
Note: This Day in Peace History material is adapted by Top Pun from This Week in Peace History, a publication of www.peacebuttons.info, and This Week in Peace & Justice History from the San Antonio Peace Center.