“So, this is how you welcome your guests — with bombs!” he said angrily, on arrival. He had just escaped being blown up while being driven to the Governor’s residence. However, the car that followed them wasn’t as lucky; the people in it were injured, when the bomb detonated.
After a short rest at the Governor’s residence, the man insisted on visiting those who were injured. But, no one informed the drivers of the changed itinerary. So, half way through the journey the cars had to reverse down the street and onto a side street. The line of cars stalled. Princip, sitting at a café across the street, walked across, and shot the royal couple.
This act triggered the first world war. The couple that had been shot was none other than Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, and his wife Sophie. They were assassinated on June 28, 1914.
So, why did Princip assassinate the couple? Sarajevo was an Austrian territory. Princip, a member of a Serbian military organisation, Black Hand, that wanted to free the states annexed by Austria-Hungary. His answer was assassination.
Princip was arrested and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. In the hours following the assassination, anti-Serb riots broke out in Sarajevo and other places within Austria-Hungary.
Two months later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. While its allies declared war on Austria-Hungary and their allies.
And, the rest as they say, is history.
In cold blood
“If you are not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary,” thundered Malcolm X, an American-Muslim human rights activist.
On February 19, 1965, Malcolm X, told a reporter that he was receiving death threats from the Nation of Islam (NOI), a group he had denounced a year ago.
Two days later, preparing to address the Organisation of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, he was heckled by someone in the audience. While his bodyguards checked the disturbance, a man rushed out and shot him in the chest with a sawed off shotgun. Two other men charged on stage firing semi-automatic handguns. Malcolm X was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Malcolm had been one of the most prolific members of the NOI — joining its ranks and steadily rising in popularity, under the patronage of the group’s leader, Elijah Muhammad. Gradually, however, he felt stifled and unhappy with the flexibility in the group’s functioning.
He also expressed a desire to work with other civil rights leaders, but could not do so as Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so.
Tension mounted between Malcolm and the group’s members over the former’s rising popularity, which threatened to eclipse the leader.
Finally, Malcolm admitted that though he was still a Muslim, “he felt that the Nation had “gone as far as it can” because of its rigid teachings and decided to depart from the group.
A trust betrayed
On October 30, 1984, charismatic and popular, three-time prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, visited Orissa. In her address at the Parade Ground in front of the Secretariat she said her blood was associated with the health of the nation. The next day, as she walked across her garden on 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi to attend an interview by British actor Peter Ustinov, her words proved prophetic. As she passed the wicket gate guarded by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, they opened fire. She had been assassinated!
The trigger for the assassination goes back to Operation Blue Star. Between June 1 and 8, 1984, she ordered the Indian Armed forces to flush out militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers hiding in the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab. Called ‘Operation Blue Star’, it left the Sikh temple heavily damaged, earning Indira Gandhi ill will.
An atmosphere of distrust reigned within the government, resulting in a conspiracy to assassinate her.
Following her assassination, millions of Sikhs were displaced and nearly 3000 were killed in anti-Sikh riots.
On a campaign trail
It was December 27, 2007 as the year was winding to a close. Benazir Bhutto had a busy schedule ahead of her. In the morning she met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
In the afternoon, she gave a rousing speech at the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). At the end of the meeting, she left in her bulletproof vehicle.
On an adrenalin high, she opened her car’s escape hatch and stood up to wave to the surrounding crowds. A man standing close by fired three gunshots at her and detonated a suicide vest packed with ball bearings. Bhutto was fatally injured.
Reports differ as to whether she was hit by bullets, shrapnel from the explosion or suffered severe skull fractures.
After Bhutto’s death, there were wide spread riots. Some opposition groups even predicted a civil war.
Fallen stalwarts
Throughout history, several greats have been assassinated — American Presidents Abraham Lincoln (1865) and John F. Kennedy (1963) and, Nigerian journalist, Dele Giwa (1986), and closer home, in India, Mahatma Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, to name a few.
And finally, who can forget the dying declaration, “Et tu, Brutus?” by legendary emperor Julius Caesar, who was stabbed to death in the hallowed halls of the Senate. It is said that the unforeseen result of the assassination was the precipitation of the end of the Roman Republic.
