As Prime Minister, Palme’s internationalism was remarkable – supporting the Vietcong against the United States during the Vietnam War, condemning Franco’s regime in Spain as “goddamn murderers” for executing political prisoners and visiting Cuba in 1975, where he condemned the Batista regime and praised Cuba’s revolutionaries. Even this wasn’t the height of the Palme government’s internationalism. Under his leadership, Sweden not only supported but funded the FMLN in El Salvador and Sandinistas in Nicaragua during their fights against the US-backed Contra militias. Most famously, it also provided funding the African National Congress in South Africa. Palme was one of the world’s most vocal opponents of apartheid. When he was assassinated, ANC President Oliver Tambo wrote an incredible essay in his memory:
Love the official police story that the killer was some random advertising guy that worked nearby, who just happened to know that Palme was going to pass near his office at that time, who just happened to have a gun(how? no one knows, maybe he just borrowed a magnum and kept it in his office for emergencies) and who literally just walked up and shot the prime minister with no hesitation or actual clear motive aside from supporting the opposing party.
Their original theory was also really dumb, which was that a guy addicted to drugs thought the prime minister was his dealer and shot him, this time the evidence was literally that the police framed him in a suspect lineup, by putting him alongside only officers in civilian clothing who looked nothing like him, and who wore polished black shoes while he wore regular white shoes, and the police had literally told the witness(Palmes wife) that the suspect was an alcoholic, upon which she said "Well you can tell who's the alcoholic".
Other than that the only people who claimed to identify him were people who had identified like 3 other dudes as the killer already and other drug addicted acquainances of his who were repeatedly interrogated and were told there was a bounty out for identifying the killer, until they suddenly remembered that they had seen him at or near the crime scene.
Luckily he was acquitted after originally being convicted of the murder, and managed to at least earn some money from it by giving out interviews and riding on the public speculation on if he did it or not.
I fucking hate modern S they suck so goddamn hard compared to Palme :yea:
If only Europe had leaders like Palme today, I think that would be especially relevant at a time like this
Olof Palme is a pretty cool "what-if" story, and used to be seen as a scandinavian version of the JFK-shooting. i don't actually think my country ever had a social democrat this cool, and at this point our Socialdemocrats are so captured by the professional class, that they probably never will do anything cool like sending guns to people fighitng the americans.
