An Ambiguous Turning Point: Grenada and its Aftermath
Halliday, Fred
" A PERIOD OF SELF-DOUBT IS OVER. . . . history will record that one of our turning points came on a small island in the Caribbean where America went to take care of her own and to rescue a...
...The projection of U.S...
...One of them, the United States, provided all the forces that actually did the fighting: with as many as 6,000 combat personnel on shore, U.S...
...Finally, Premier George Chambers of Trinidad was resentful of the increased influence of neighboring Barbados and judged (wrongly, as it turned out) that the substantial Gre- nadian population in Trinidad would oppose the in- vasion...
...The U.S...
...history will record that one of our turning points came on a small island in the Caribbean where America went to take care of her own and to rescue a neighboring nation from a growing tyranny...
...But it also reflected the particular politics of the small English-speaking islands...
...The U.S...
...We've given you thoughtful, in-depth writing by our in-house team of experts: Deborah Huntington, Robert Armstrong, George Black, Janet Shenk...
...The latter reflected the strong Christian values of the islands, inflamed by the fierce anti-communism espoused by U.S.-based evangelical churches...
...By the early 1980s CARICOM encompassed all the English-speaking states...
...bases U.S...
...2 In a remarkable about-face, the United States did agree to provide $21 million for completion of the Point Salines airport project...
...In Washington, the deeper significance of events in Grenada has been largely ignored...
...He is the author of five books, of which the most recent is The Making of the Second Cold War (London, Verso Books, 1983...
...10011 5. Location of headquarters or general business offices of the publishers: 151 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 6. Names & addresses of publisher, editor and managing editor: Publisher-Janet Shenk, Editor-George Black, Managing Editor-Virginia Cannon, Addresses of all-151 West 19th Street, New York, NY., 10011 7. Owner: North American Congress on Latin America, Inc., 151 West 19th Street, New York, N.Y...
...But the surviving elements of his party, funded by merchants who had grown rich during the Gairy years, enabled him to regain his position in some parts of the island...
...And the military coup led by Gen...
...2 The remaining six states were English-speaking Caribbean islands who provided token police con- tingents...
...P.S...
...All U.S...
...economic plans and the possible strategic and military consequences of the Grenada operation...
...Grenada underscored the benefits of limiting press access in a combat situation...
...the expansion of bases in Puerto Rico and the 1982 Memorandum of Understanding had furthered it...
...The United States, along with Jamaica and Barbados, saw its chance in the spectacular disintegration of the NJM...
...3. On the background to the English-speaking Carib- bean, see A.J...
...Lucia *) Barbados Grenada STrinidad and Tobago uela Washington's Caribbean: Heightened anxiety over security issues Airfields for Soviet bloc use Anchorages for Soviet ships Cuban-supported insurgencies CubantSoviet bloc military and internal security assistance U .S...
...of issues published annually: 6 3[b...
...forces.' In the English-speaking Caribbean, the implosion of the NJM meant the extinction of the one clear alternative to the pro-U.S...
...6 What the memorandum clearly had in mind was the prevention of further Grenada-style insurrec- tions, or threats of the kind seen in St...
...hostility to the largest island in the Caribbean--Cuba...
...security advisory teams had arrived in Antigua, St...
...O'Shaughnessy, Grenada, pp.206-8, gives details of the 150-strong contingent of psychological warfare experts flown in from Fort Bragg...
...occupation forces used the material gathered in the course of the detention and interrogation of prisoners to build up a detailed profile-organizational and personal---of the revolutionary regime...
...The emerging security system, too, was more low-key than Washington might have wished...
...Guyana's fears of Venezuela's claim to the disputed Essequibo terREPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24ONE GIFT THAT GOES BEYOND THE NEWS Latin America...
...In radio and newspaper advertisements and leaflet campaigns, it played on the deep-rooted anti-communism of the Caribbean islands, focussing particular antipathy on Cuban aid workers, just as had been done in Jamaica before the 1980 elections...
...The overwhelming power of the United States-a power enhanced by proximity- had now consolidated its foothold in a previously British domain...
...The large-scale arrests of NJM supporters and members of the People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) and their detention in appalling conditions were used to intimidate the population as a whole and to prevent the NJM from emerging in any form...
...H OPES OF ENORMOUS FOREIGN AID programs proved over-optimistic...
...Then, when the moment was ripe and the regime had disintegrated, it struck...
...law forbade...
...Together, Seaga and Adams led the campaign to have Grenada expelled from CARICOM...
...Second, the intervention had broad similarities to the pattern set in the Dominican Republic nearly two decades earlier...
...Author's interview with George Brizan, St...
...But instead, the United States concentrateLI d UI Uollil4li ai lnllU I1111r, LU VIU.,I Ufense forces and limited itself to encouraging mutual support among Eastern Caribbean states and guaran- teeing a backup commitment from Washington...
...Yet there were other, harsher lessons in the events of October 1983, which both sides of the political divide have appeared reluctant to learn...
...patrol boats worth $1.4 million each were provided to St...
...The U.S...
...Instead, the main focus was on the dispute between Trinidad, the richest member state, and other members requesting free access to Trinidad's markets...
...Any danger of a blockade, of the kind to which Cuba had been subjected by the OAS in the early 1960s, seemed remote...
...The smaller states, meanwhile, saw the events in Grenada as a threat to future tourism and foreign investment...
...Bar- badian plans for a mini-NATO in the Eastern Carib- bean failed to muster suttfficient support...
...If you're not a subscriber, give yourself a gift...
...2 4 Its meetings, composition and decisions were known only to a very few...
...Seaga leaned heavily on the aftermath of the events in Grenada, building on the anti-communist feelings he had aroused earlier with the dramatic expulsion of Soviet and Cuban diplomats...
...It proposed a pool of just ten journalists, which would exclude representatives from any daily newspaper (a stipulation that the Pentagon later withdrew under intense pressure...
...Documents captured by U.S...
...Latin America Monitor: The Caribbean, no.5, August 1-31, 1984...
...Canada chipped in with another $6 million...
...20The fact that the United States could overwhelm an island of 110,000 people, in which few had the heart to resist, scarcely made a dent on geopolitical realities...
...T HESE WERE SOME OF THE LESSONS learned by U.S...
...intervention by Governor General Sir Paul Scoon was concocted by the pliant Scoon and his American prompters after the event...
...Le Monde, September 21, 1984...
...Its proposed leader, economist Alister MacIntyre, refused to return at all, in part because he wanted the prior withdrawal of all U.S...
...You want the news that reaches beyond the news stories...
...In addition to $7.4 million in military aid already programmed for the Eastern Caribbean in fiscal year 1984, a further $15 million was appropriated, much of it destined to maintain the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force (CPF) on Grenada...
...The process, starting with Jamaica in 1962 and end- ing with St...
...Prostitution, vir- tually suppressed under the NJM, made a reappearance...
...Hud- son Austin was a deeply alarming precedent for local political systems which, for all their quirks and distortions, shared a common adherence to some form of Westminster-style parliamentary democ- racy...
...References AN AMBIGUOUS TURNING POINT 1. For general accounts of the Grenada crisis and its background, see Grenada: Whose Freedom?, (London: Latin America Bureau, 1984...
...Out of deference to the United Kingdom, power was formally vested in Governor General Sir Paul Scoon, and an Advisory Council was set up to run the country's affairs until elections could be held...
...Together with Scoon, these officials formed the triumvirate that ran Grenada...
...On the other hand, Barbados and Jamaica remained deeply antagonistic to the NJM, and a set of regional forums now existed within which Grenada's opponents could try to mobilize support--CARICOM (the largest and most diverse, and therefore least effective), the OECS and the new group of five signatories of the October 1982 memorandum...
...Fourth, the United States worked hard to maximize support for the intervention abroad and among U.S...
...By the end, a sweeping majority of the Central Committee of the NJM had opted for "Leninist principles" rather than "right opportunism...
...The Center for Popular Education, an adult literacy program, was disbanded...
...The serial independence of the eleven English-speaking states followed...
...And the sharp symbolic break from the per- ceived "impotence" of U.S...
...The Voice of America was relayed nightly over Radio Grenada...
...The T-shirts and badges bearing Bishop's image made it clear that his memory was respected by much of the Grenadian population...
...The oscillation of U.S...
...and two states on the Latin American mainland...
...The pact foresaw the establishment of a headquarters in Barbados and the creation of emergency mutual assistance plans...
...Lucia, Dominica and Barbados...
...There are now questions as to whether addition U.S...
...This leaning was not due to leadership alone...
...Lucia, Dominica and Antigua...
...Though some foreign businesses have explored the possibilities of investing in Grenada, most have held back from making any significant commitment, preferring to wait for the outcome of the elections TZ 28A S THE DECEMBER 1984 ELECTIONS FOR a 15-member parliament drew nearer, the hazy physiognomy of island politics became clearer...
...Perhaps the most striking instance of Grenada's ability to coexist amicably with its neighbors came in 1981...
...The initial euphoria of the Eastern Caribbean nations has faded, to be replaced by anxiety about U.S...
...Though the United States would no doubt learn to live with a Gairy victory, it certainly did not relish the prospect...
...6 Throughout this period, security arrangements remained in the hands of the United States and its Caribbean associates...
...B Y MID-1984 THE AMBITIOUS PLANS hatched by the United States and its closest re- gional allies, Jamaica and Barbados, were faltering...
...Anthony Payne, Paul Sut- ton and Tony Thorndike, Grenada: Revolution and Invasion, (London: Croom Helm, 1984...
...Its three main leaders were George Louison, Kendrick Radix and Lyden Ramdhanny, all of them strong Bishop loyalists...
...The participation of token forces from other islands, as well as widespread local support for the intervention, led the United States to envision a new security system among the British Commonwealth Caribbean states, one explicitly designed to prevent "new Grenadas...
...In the island of St...
...Neither of the legal grounds offered had real validity...
...military strategy to conservative evangelicals...
...U.S...
...6. Caribbean Contact, December 1982...
...troops, but to withdraw them fairly rapidly and then crown the withdrawal process with an election and the installation of a friendly regime...
...After the killing of Bishop, the widespread hatred of Coard-and especially of his Jamaican-born wife, Phyllis--was all too evident...
...economic aid...
...Barbados' Grantley Adams airport, for example, was Grenada's only jet airlink with the outside world...
...line was held by Dominica's Eugenia Charles and by John Compton, prime minister of St...
...Charge d'Affaires Loren Lawrence admitted that, "I think if you get the wrong kind of govern- ment elected, it would be the best thing that could happen for the Left...
...Payne and Paul Sutton, eds., Dependency under Challenge: The Political Economy of the Commonwealth, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), and Robin Cohen and Fitzroy Ambursley, eds., Crisis in the Caribbean, (London: Heinemann, 1983...
...We] see eye-to-eye with America and England because of the traditions we've been brought up in...
...2 7 In a thinly veiled allusion to Gairy, U.S...
...combat troops were withdrawn by the end of 1983...
...Lucia, who had won his last election on the slogan "Christians Ever...
...There, Prime Minister Edward Seaga, faced with growing economic problems and a major conflict with the IMF, called a snap election...
...Extent and nature of circulation: Average no...
...As one analyst put it, "The imperial hawk renewed its plumage not even by battling a sparrow but by 0 5 Maurice Bishop: A charismatic leader swooping and preening on its grave...
...It reprints the minutes of the Extraordinary General Meeting of Full REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 46Members of the NJM, September 25, 1983, in their entirety...
...He appeared to have emerged (temporarily, at least) as a major winner from the Grenada invasion...
...the Democratic Movement, led by law professor Francis Alexis...
...The backbone of the CPF was formed by 350 Jamaican Special Service Unit personnel.' 7 The U.S...
...I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and com- plete...
...As Dominican Prime Minister Eugenia Charles told interviewer Morley Safer of CBS' 60 Minutes, "I don't go following new fads, if I can put it that way...
...The president was not alone in seeing the invasion as a watershed in the politics of the region...
...One petition, organized by the Chamber of Commerce and calling for the island to be permanently attached to the United States, reportedly gathered 6,000 signatures...
...Christopher de Riggs had collaborated with the Revolutionary Military Council but took no further public stand, while Ian St...
...The political repercussions of the inva- sion were remarkably short-lived...
...Nor has the invasion ushered in a new political beginning...
...The Advisory Council, drawn in the main from Grenadian technocrats returning from exile, did have some early problems...
...In 1980-81 Barbados denied the airport's diplomatic facilities to NJM government officers...
...The "request" for U.S...
...On the one hand, the majority of states had learned to accept the revolution...
...But it was by no stretch of the imagina- tion as important as the political dilemma confronted by the NJM...
...They may well have been exaggerated-whether for factional advantage or lack of any comparative perspective-by those involved in the October Central Committee meetings...
...Unemployment increased substantially for two NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 27A Lovely Piece of Real Estate Governor General Scoon opens the Point Salines Airport and for matching investments from foreign governments and aid agencies...
...At CARICOM summits in October 1982 and July 1983, Maurice Bishop received a warm welcome from many of those present...
...occupation has also failed to bring about the internal changes in Grenada that many of that island's relieved but bewildered inhabitants expected...
...There was to be no Puerto Rico-style bonanza of U.S...
...attitudes toward Grenada- never cordial, even under the Carter Administration-deteriorated sharply once President Reagan entered the White House...
...Don't forget to enclose $18 per gift subscription...
...4 The shift since World War II from British to U.S...
...v~The , , Bahamas ATLANTIC OCEAN 1 s...
...9 The apparent success of the U.S.-Jamaican-Barbadian position, however, soon proved less than complete...
...2. Payne et al., Grenada, pp.160-1...
...power in the Caribbean Basin had been underway for some time...
...instead it has turned the clock back, and perhaps even opened the door for the return of former dictator Sir Eric Gairy-a prospect that now alarms even Wash- ington...
...For the first time in memory, crime has become a concern...
...The United States may take comfort from the collapse of the NJM and the likelihood that no similar regime will come to power in the Caribbean in the near future, but its satisfaction may be short-lived...
...representatives and by the premiers of Barbados, St...
...candidate, Joaquin Balaguer, triumphed in presidential elections...
...By the middle of 1984, the beautiful waterfront of St...
...Whyte, a conservative businessman with interests in Trinidad, had contested the 1977 election in an alliance with the NJM and the GNP...
...Caribbean Contact, August 1984...
...Indeed, revelations a year later of bungled actions by special forces and the high number of casualties from "friendly fire" cast doubt on how accomplished the operation was...
...If the NJM survived as an organization in any sense, it was in jail, in the form of the majority of the Central Committee...
...The October crisis, the invasion itself and the subsequent roundup of suspected NJM members by U.S...
...NJM voluntary labor programs had improved housing, roads and other facilities...
...Caribbean Insight, August 1984...
...The United States may have been optimistic about the votegathering potential of Brizan, who combined general support for social reform with a high degree of political caution...
...Their armed forces are correspondingly tiny, and there need be no present threat for their governments to feel insecure...
...Inflation ran at 20% during the first six months of 1984, and polls showed that the PNP would win an election if one were called...
...Unemployment had been greatly reduced, from 27% to 11%, and GNP had risen at an average rate of 3% from 1979-1982...
...This holiday season, go beyond the news...
...First, the groundwork for invasion was prepared in part by the years of U.S...
...Vincent, just to Grenada's north, an election in late July 1984 brought to power the New Democratic Party of James Mitchell, who openly questioned the need for a new integrated security system in the region...
...A small island, led by a relatively inexperienced group of young militants, was squeezed until it broke...
...Their combined impact was, to borrow Regis Debray's phrase, to "revolutionize the counterrevolution...
...attempts to extend REPORT ON THE AMERICAS I I 30its dream of rollback to Managua, Havana and points east...
...At the same time, they turned Grenadians against the NJM regime-not an especially difficult task, given the hostility toward Coard and his associates...
...2 " Despite White House attempts to sell the new Grenada as an investment paradise, it seemed that the island was fated after the invasion to slide back into stagnation and dependency...
...According to owner Bill Ingle, "[The White House] asked me what I wanted...
...Though Whyte pulled out of the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 29A vely Piece of Re Al Estate A Lovely Piece of Real Estate new grouping, a discreet meeting on St...
...Ten others (Bernard and Phyllis Coard, Hudson Austin, Selwyn Strachan, Liam James, Chalkie Ventour, Ewart Layne, Leon Cornwall, Kamau McBarnette and Tan Bartholemew) were in Richmond Hill Jail, accused of Bishop's murder...
...Their dual legacy was an emphasis on one-man leadership and a pervasive anti-communism in rhetoric and program...
...governments-many of them craven and corrupt-that had ruled the islands since independence...
...At the July 1984 CARICOM summit in Nassau, Bahamas, the issue of regional security was hardly discussed...
...copies each issue during the previous 12 months A. Total no...
...The Caribbean mini-states, in the face of international recession and their own divided priorities, remain as weak and vulnerable as ever...
...Washington embarked on a sustained campaign of harassment against Gre- nada, through public rhetoric, military maneuvers and economic boycotts and brought pressure to bear indirectly through the Caribbean states...
...Few other businessmen," commented PBS's McNeill-Lehrer Report, "are likely to get the kind of encouragement and tax breaks that Bill Ingle got...
...Give the important gift, a subscription to REPORTON THEAMERICAS...
...HE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE CARIBbean is around 28 million...
...In December 1979, a rebel seizure of St...
...The great majority is hispanophone-17 million Spanish speakers live in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico...
...In the same year, Jamaican and Barbadian security forces began training with the Puerto Rican National Guard...
...In the last months of NJM rule, the police had been granted the right to select their own uniforms...
...and Caribbean authorities appeared less than enthusiastic about his return, and intimated that a Gairy election victory might imperil future prospects of large-scale economic aid...
...propaganda expert named Mark Kirischik was brought in from the U.S...
...The much-debated question of whether the OECS technically invited the United States to intervene in Grenada is probably irrelevant in the final analysis...
...State economic activity was concentrated in agriculture, tourism and the notorious airport construction project...
...Economic pressure from Washington contributed to the administrative and financial tensions within the NJM leadership...
...The relatively open and relaxed character of the NJM succumbed to a much harder line in the face of these challenges...
...Both were enhanced by the fierce restrictions placed on press coverage of the invasion...
...We got tax holidays, duty-free arrangements...
...forces led the Grenadian population to believe in a future of substantial prosperity...
...Unviable political structures remain...
...But it also served to integrate the United States more closely into the security system of the Eastern Caribbean...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS FRED HALLIDAY is a lecturer in international relations at the London School of Economics and a fellow of the Transnational Institute...
...In part, it lay in the shrewd choice of themes for domestic consumption--"endangered" American medical students, inflated Cuban troop figures, a national security threat averted "just in time...
...Some U.S...
...charge d'affaires-first Charles Gillespie and later Loren Lawrence...
...The most vocal opposition to the provisional regime did not come from opponents of the U.S...
...Two coup plots in Dominica in 1981, in which the local defense force collaborated with neo-Nazi mercenaries from the United States, increased the general alarm...
...Addressing a group of business leaders in December 1983, AID Deputy Director Jay Morris made it clear that the first rush of funds from Washington-a total of $57 million-was only "a one year bulge...
...From U.S...
...The English speakers number somewhat over five million, and fall into three geographical groups: Jamaica in the west, with the largest anglophone population of more than two million...
...Third, Grenada offers some guidelines to the kind of political and psychological warfare opera- tions that might accompany U.S...
...If this inconclusive and tenuous new order was evident in the English-speaking islands as a whole, it was even more glaring in the island which had been the object of all the trouble...
...George's, Grenada, June 1983...
...Four features of the islands are especially interesting in assessing their recent political orientation...
...Vincent-and two (Jamaica and Barbados) were non-OECS nations with vociferously pro-U.S...
...It also grew from the deep suspicion of land expropriation among a population for which ownership of land, 22 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS GULF OF MEXICO 0 aj a E in "0p Guiana REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22after its emancipation from slavery, was a para- mount guarantee of freedom...
...The new generation of Caribbean rulers was in general deferential both to the former colonial power, Great Britain, and to the rising influence of the United States...
...the Christian Democrat Party of Winston Whyte...
...Annual subscription price: $18 (individuals) 4. Location of known office of publication: 151 West 19th Street, New York, N.Y...
...Author's observation, St...
...Halliday visited the Eastern Caribbean in 1983...
...7. Ibid., April 1984...
...In the broader context of the Caribbean Basin-what President Reagan calls America's "Fourth Frontier"--the invasion has suggested a new willingness by Washington to use force...
...Brizan had been an official in the Ministry of Education, who had left the NJM while remaining broadly supportive of its goals...
...Radix had been Minister of Justice...
...We'll send your friends a personalized gift card in time for the holidays...
...With a single federated state proving impossible, a looser set of institutions was set up: first a Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA), which collapsed in 1972, and then that same year a new Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM...
...foreign doctors, teachers and other aid personnel left the country or were expelled by the interim regime...
...AT HOME, THIS PRO-IMPERIAL SENTIment was sustained by a political system that relied heavily upon personalist political parties and labor unions...
...it reflected the strong affinity for the culture of the metropolitan powers in the politics of the Caribbean...
...o The OECS coalition that had backed the invasion was dissolving...
...The United States also moved quickly to consolidate its position...
...Of the remaining three still at liberty, only George Louison remained loyal to Bishop's memory...
...Led by Fennis Augustine, former Grenadian High Commissioner in London, they favored setting up a more broadly based socialist party, less radical than the NJM...
...But after these initial skirmishes, the rest of the Advisory Council appeared to accept the U.S...
...Needless to say, U.S...
...retreat from Lebanon in February 1984 more than outweighed the impact of the Grenada landings...
...Only in mainland Guyana was there a fierce struggle for independence...
...indeed, it was showing signs of moving in the direction urged upon it by its CARICOM associates...
...Indeed, in the interlude between October 13, when Bishop was placed under house arrest, and his death on October 19, some OECS members seriously considered a rescue attempt...
...The effect of the intervention was to arrest and dismantle this process of socioeconomic transformation.' 9 The social services set up by the NJM were immediately reduced...
...hold on the entire region...
...2 6 But their strongest card was the more conservative Blaize...
...Caribbean Review, Vol.XII, no.4 (Fall 1983) is a special issue entitled "Grenada Explodes...
...In the puzzle of Caribbean politics, the characteristic figure was the labor leader of the 1940s and 1950s who became a corrupt but successful politician in the post-independence era...
...Between Gairy and the remnants of the NJM, four other minor groupings appeared: the Grenada National Party (GNP) of Herbert Blaize, which had been Gairy's principal challenger until it was displaced by the NJM...
...Certainly there was considerable animosity to the NJM elsewhere in the Caribbean...
...The fact is that both sides had compelling reasons of their own for supporting the invasion...
...servicemen may have died in covert operations on Grenada...
...8 T HE RESPONSE TO THE GRENADA CRISIS in the English-speaking Caribbean was far from uniform...
...Guyanese Premier Forbes Burnham was even accused of leaking news of the impending invasion to the Revolutionary Military Council in Grenada...
...leaders...
...another has been to coordinate economic and foreign policies among member states...
...There were moves by the more conservative states, led by Jamaica, to isolate Grenada or even expel it from CARICOM, but these were blocked...
...Limited though it was, this new system did rein- force military ties between the islands and the United States...
...You've found a sound understanding of Latin America in NACLA's REPORT ON THE AMERICAS...
...Intelligent...
...copies printed B. Pald circulation 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales 2. Mail subscriptions C. Total paid circulation D. Free distribution by mail, carrier or other means: samples, complimentary & other free copies E. Total distribution F. Copies not distributed 1. Office use, left over, unaccounted spoiled after printing 2. Returns from news agencies G. Total 11,030 2,810 7,116 9,926 460 10,386 344 300 11,030 Actual no...
...Some went even further...
...These have been as important in deter- mining the aftermath of the Grenada operation as they were in shaping the course of the crisis itself...
...George's-the Carenage-was described by one visitor as being full of "prostitutes, beggars and rastas" at night...
...the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, divided into what are now eight independent states and a number of smaller colonies...
...Premier Tom Adams had envisioned the creation of a 1,500- man Regional Defense Force, to be financed by $20 million in US aid...
...Part of your present...
...The revolution had already died of internal, not external, causes...
...For analysis of the internal workings of the NJM, see note 1 above...
...But the 150-strong psychological warfare ("psyops") group flown in from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, went further...
...and Hugh O'Shaughnessy, Grenada: Revolution, Intervention and Aftermath, (London: Sphere Books, 1984...
...Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, St...
...Shaping your future...
...5 Though many of their politics and values were shared, the islands were defiantly independent vis-Avis each other, and prone to disagreement on many specific issues...
...A British-backed attempt in 1958 to have all the islands achieve independence in a single West Indian Federation broke down in 1962...
...By 1982 40% of GNP was accounted for by the state...
...Of these four, only Blaize was well known from the pre-1979 period...
...Yet the NJM regime worked hard to minimize the shock of its appearance...
...economic needs have still not been met...
...Implicitly or explicitly, they espoused the highly abstracted and dangerous form of politics pursued by the Coard faction and demonstrated that they had no serious estimation of the lethal consequences of the NJM's final caricature of vanguard politics...
...Sections of the Caribbean press also kept up a persistent clamor of condemnation...
...domination did little to weaken this, and the economic anxieties of the recession only enhanced it...
...At the same time, the NJM had set up a number of mass or- ganizations in which thousands of people participated...
...5. The author is particularly grateful to Tony Thorndike for this point...
...The latter-Belize and Guyana-enjoy closer ties to the Caribbean than to their Spanish-speaking neighbors...
...While the private sector-particularly the tourist industry--had been encouraged to continue their activities and cooperated with the NJM regime, a significant state sector had emerged...
...Only one enterprise, the Ingle Toy Company of New Jersey, had invested in Grenada by August 1984-and that was a meager total of $500,000, in a factory that employs just 80 workers...
...pressure on the Grenadian revolution...
...defense budget contained $5 million as a military grant to the Eastern Caribbean and a further $300,000 for training...
...In the Eastern Caribbean, pressing economic problems came to dominate relations between the local states...
...But the new security system failed to provide any solution to the mounting internal political and economic problems of the Caribbean, or to create any new, more unified loyalty to the United States in the region...
...The former dictator, who had spent his years of exile in Washington, returned to Grenada in March 1984 and promptly presented his GULP as the appropriate successor to the NJM...
...It sought to tarnish and discredit the memory of Bishop himself by painting a picture of economic incompetence, political repression and secret military deals with the Soviet Union and Cuba...
...entities...
...Instead, in an eerie replay of Grenada's mass mobilizations of the early 1970s against independence, the main protest came from those who wanted the occupation prolonged and the elections postponed...
...Real power remained in the hands of the senior U.S...
...By October 1982 the elements of a new U.S.-backed regional military buildup were in place...
...policymakers, indeed, argued in favor of holding the Grenadian elections back until all U.S...
...AFTER THE OCCUPATION, WASHINGTON moved rapidly to set up an interim administration in Grenada...
...by September 1984 a total of 270 U.S...
...In most of the eleven British colonies, decolonization was quite strongly resisted...
...Over and above the personalist character of Carib- bean politics, the Grenadian leader had cultivated good working relations with several regional leaders...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS reasons: large-scale dismissals of state employees, including more than 1,000 members of the People's Revolutionary Army, and the running down of statecontrolled economic enterprises...
...But the Reagan Administration's success was all the greater because of the masterful public relations exercise which it mounted to galvanize domestic and foreign support...
...It brought the re- moval from power of the remnants of the NJM, a halt to the political and social gains of four and a half years of revolution and the imposition of an interim regime guided and sustained by the invading U.S...
...Vincent's Union Island had caused concern in the region...
...Kitts-Nevis on September 19, 1983, was remarkably tranquil by Third World standards...
...Now Grenada accelerated the process...
...Four were members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)-Antigua, Dominica, St...
...But overall, the record of the NJM period was one of substantial and sustained socioeconomic improvement...
...The period of NJM rule had seen substantial improvements in island conditions...
...The Grenadian contingent was provided by the 200-member local police force: this had not been radically transformed under the NJM and retained the structure and outlook of the post-colonial apparatus created by the Gairy regime...
...Similarly, Belize--with its territory threatened by Guatemala-had pressing reasons for denying the legitimacy of Grenada-style assaults...
...Washington appears set on a similar model for Grenada...
...and the National Democratic Party of George Brizan...
...Caribbean Insight, January 1984...
...The non-combatant forces from these island states suffered no casualties...
...Reagan's task here was made easier by the sanguinary outcome of the conflict within the NJM...
...The first organization to take advantage of the NJM's demise was the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) of Sir Eric Gairy...
...Ibid...
...T HE FORCE THAT INVADED GRENADA on October 25, 1983 comprised elements from seven nations...
...Then Attorney General Antony Rushford resigned in December 1983 in protest at Scoon's inactivity and pomposity...
...In the gathering gloom of the new Cold War, Grenada gave the United States its first successful counter-revolutionary intervention in the Third World since the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965...
...they caused some public outrage by choosing outfits modelled on those of a British military regiment.'" Supine and ineffective though they were, they nonetheless provided the core of the new 550-strong security force that the United States and the CPF sought to implant...
...in October 1966 the preferred U.S...
...invasion of Santo Domingo took place in May 1965...
...The United States and the Eastern Caribbean states lobbied hard for a four-party alliance to head off a Gairy victory...
...One of the few initiatives taken by the Advisory Council was to draw up plans for returning some NJM-created state enterprises to private ownership...
...Other Bishop supporters opposed this attempt to continue NJM policies so overtly...
...By mid-1984, the official unemployment rate had risen from I11% to over 30%, with some estimates placing the real rate of unemployment and underemployment as high as 60%.20 The impact of the U.S...
...The ignominious U.S...
...Initially the most hostile was Premier Tom Adams of Barbados, who publicly criticized the NJM regime and sought to harass it...
...Ramdhanny, one of the private sector entrepreneurs to support the NJM, had been Bishop's Minister of Tourism...
...George's, Grenada, June 1983...
...presence...
...permanent naval presence U S. military assistance (including international military education and training program) Guyana Suriname e norm of $1,000 or less...
...The invasion in itself, for all its speed and success, was of trivial military significance...
...Both U.S...
...Alexander Bustamante in Jamaica, Eric Williams in Trinidad and Tobago and Eric Gairy in Grenada were the prototypes...
...Washington also agreed to take up the portion of Grenada's nutmeg crop that had been destined to the Soviet Union under NJM ruleabout one-quarter of the annual output...
...Nineteen is the Statement of Ownership, management and circulation (Required by 39 U.S.C...
...Men such as these were able organizers and manipulators, and they left an indelible stamp on Carib- bean politics, where legitimacy and trust have always depended on the personal factor...
...In the wake of the invasion, advisors from the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) arrived on the island...
...But within the United States and in the Eastern Caribbean, it was manifestly welcomed...
...troops would encounter an entirely different reception if they tried to repeat the Grenada operation in Central America, let alone Cuba...
...The Bahamas, keen to assert its independence from the United States on matters of fiscal and financial control, opposed what it saw as a deepening U.S...
...But they did provide the nucleus of what later became the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force (CPF), a 1,000-strong police unit deployed in Grenada in the months following the invasion...
...See, for example, Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1983...
...troops...
...When the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) was formed as a sub-sector of CARICOM, Grenada expressed its willingness to join, and the other member states raised no objection...
...In Jamaica, the upheaval had an immediate effect...
...But whether this could ever form the basis of support for a new grouping claiming his political legacy remains to be seen...
...It provoked a new hard line from the smaller states of the Eastern Caribbean and provided the United States with the perfect pretext for consolidating the security system it had been working on since the October 1982 memorandum...
...even most of the regime's previous supporters were revolted by the manner of its collapse...
...Signed) George Black, Editor number of deaths officially acknowledged by the Pentagon...
...Eight of the 38 state farms were in fact returned to private owners during the first part of 1984...
...Kendrick Radix of the Maurice Bishop Memorial Party agreed that, "You would have another revolution here in a matter of months...
...troops suffered 18 dead and 116 wounded...
...For all the later evidence of his rigid MarxismLeninism, Bernard Coard acquired a reputation with Western bankers as an orthodox and efficient finance minister...
...policymakers...
...While Jamaica, Barbados and the local OECS states paid for wages and maintenance, Washington picked up the tab for weapons, transport and logistics...
...See, for example, The Washington Post, November 8, 1983...
...The October inner-party crisis changed all that...
...Members of the Caribbean Publishers and Broadcasters Association led this charge, in particular Oliver Clark, editor of Jamaica's pro-Seaga Daily Gleaner and Ken Gordon, editor of the conservative Trinidad Express...
...Grenada: Report of a British Labour Movement Delegation," pp.25-30...
...In its long history of opposition to Third World national liberation movements and revolutions, the United States has had remarkably little success in achieving the "rollback" of an established revolutionary state...
...3 First, all have comparatively small populations and surface areas...
...The "Labour" parties of Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada are all in reality right-wing, pro-U.S...
...Four aspects of this process are worth a closer look...
...training teams in the Eastern Caribbean focussed on preparing Special Service Units of paramilitary forces...
...Of the 16 people who were Central Committee members as of September 20, 1983, three were shot dead on October 19-Bishop, Minister of External Relations Unison Whiteman and Fitzroy Bain, president of the Agricultural and General Workers Union...
...This did not, however, head off the widespread belief in the English-speaking Caribbean that the Cubans bore responsibility for the slaying of Bishop...
...Balaguer continued to repress his opponents, but in a muffled and sporadic way that did not visibly rely on U.S...
...forces in the invasion was cosmetic, so were the formal justifications given by the Reagan Administration...
...2 9 The United States sought to unsettle the NJM regime...
...Publication No.: 370500 2. Date of filing: October 1, 1984 3. Frequency of issue: Bi-Monthly 3[a...
...The invasion was a simple act of power politics by Washington, illegal and expedient...
...Covering for you what they know best...
...You want a say in that future...
...voters...
...In that month, five Caribbean nations-Dominica, St...
...Military aid to Iamaica which during the PNP government had sunk to zero, was scheduled at $4.2 million in 1984 and $5.3 million in 1985...
...He graphically illustrates the combination of intimidation and enticement employed on the Grenadian population...
...All three of these make extensive use of the NJM minutes and other captured government documents published since the inva- sion...
...T HE GRENADIAN REVOLUTION ERUPTED into this apparent backwater in March 1979...
...Just as the involvement of non-U.S...
...It had given birth to no like-minded movements elsewhere...
...Vincent and St...
...All these fragile sources of income have declined during the recession...
...Cuba, it is true, made apparent its anger at the faction that killed Bishop and opened the door for the invasion...
...There was also a profound sense of personal shock and outrage at the death of Bishop himself...
...The invasion of Grenada had a pan-Caribbean dimension...
...This sense of geopolitical vulnerability is made much more real, however, by the Caribbean's second characteristic: its precarious economic situation...
...Y ET THE GRENADA INVASION IS FOR many reasons an ambiguous turning point...
...its leaders were toning down their ver- bal attacks on the United States...
...In their refusal to face reality, they succeeded only in compounding the disaster of Grenada...
...HE ATTACKS ON NJM RULE TOOK PLACE to a backdrop of heightened anxiety about security issues in the Eastern Caribbean...
...funds...
...Vincent, St...
...Just fill out the order card in this issue and mail today...
...In the months leading up to the explosion of the Gre- nada crisis in October 1983 it seemed CARICOM had learned to live with the revolution...
...This group appears to have decided that it should wait before establishing an official public presence, though Augustine himself is slated to run in the election as an independent...
...The 1985 U.S...
...T HE POLITICAL INITIATIVE SEEMED, rather, to lie elsewhere...
...The next largest linguistic group is the six million French speakers in Haiti and the small French colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe...
...Indeed, by 1981, two years after the NJM seized power, Grenada had made considerable progress in convincing some CARICOM leaders to accept a degree of ideological pluralism in the Eastern Caribbean...
...Istands (UK) illa Antigua and Barbuda r, Guadaloupe (FR) t4Dominica ' Martinique (FR) fSt...
...After Michael Manley's opposition PNP decided to boycott the poll, Seaga won all 60 seats in parliament...
...in strategic terms, it was a function of U.S...
...The members of the mass organizations were, by all accounts, either too demoralized by the collapse or too frightened of the U.S./CPF troops to reemerge as an open political force...
...The Washington Post, December 7, 1983...
...Yet for all the transparent falsehoods and illegality, there is another side to the story...
...Vincent's Union Island on August 26, attended by U.S...
...The NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 23RA L ovely Piece of Al Estate A Lovely Piece of Real Estate NJM was talking of elections in 1985 and the release of detainees...
...For the island itself, the invasion marked the culmination of a bitter, if long-suppressed, conflict within the ruling New Jewel Movement (NJM...
...Friends who care about where we've gone in 1984 will appreciate the thought throughout 1985...
...Leaving aside Barbados and Trinidad, the Eastern Caribbean islands between them account for just 600,000 people...
...Lucia, managed to agree on a tripartite front called the New National Party...
...Adams was joined in October 1980 by the newly elected right-wing leader of Jamaica, Edward Seaga...
...This was to send in an overwhelming force of U.S...
...Yet the catastrophe provoked no clear or united explanation...
...One of CARICOM's main functions has been to negotiate on behalf of all its members with the European Economic Community, through the mechanisms of the Lome Convention...
...In part, this lay with the decision to push the figure of Eugenia Charles-the "iron lady" of Dominica--to center stage in Washington, reinforcing the notion of the United States coming in behind a Caribbean initiative...
...Even its opponents freely admitted that under the charismatic leadership of Bishop, the regime enjoyed the support of the large majority of Grenadians...
...Colin Henfrey, "Between Populism and Leninism: The Grenadian Experience," Latin American Perspectives, (Summer 1984), p. 1 5 . 31...
...4. Interview with Eugenia Charles, in Momma, CBS' 60 Minutes, program transcript Vol.XVII, no.5, October 14, 1984...
...On plans for "CARICOM-II," see Payne et al., Grenada, p.210...
...U.S...
...Carter's new Caribbean Task Force headquarters in Key West, Florida in 1979 had been the start...
...10011 8. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1% or more of the total amount of bonds, mortgages and other securities: None 9. The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for Federal Income tax have not changed during the last 12 months...
...The future held the bright prospect of increasing revenue from tourism, once the major capital investment of the Point Salines airport had been completed, with investment funds becoming more readily available for other development projects...
...But even Trinidad has been badly hit since 1981 by a decline in its oil prices and production levels...
...There is no clear strategy to deal with the corrupt and impoverished condition of the Eastern Caribbean, which was the underlying cause of the NJM's seizure of power...
...There has been no great economic boom, no mas- sive infusion of U.S...
...9. Details on the U.S...
...Concerned...
...within a year, the Pentagon had drawn up plans for a restricted press pool in future conflicts...
...plan was to withdraw all forces at some point in 1985, leaving security in the hands of a combined Grenadian and CPF force...
...The frequently cited paragraph eight of the OECS charter allowed for military action only if member states were unanimous--evidently not the case, since Grenada itself is an OECS member...
...His rule was backed by relatively modest direct U.S...
...In Jamaica, Seaga could not confront the country's economic woes...
...Latin America Regional Report: Caribbean, August 24, 1984...
...The willing participation of six other nations as passengers in the invasion, the enthusiastic response in Grenada and the subsequent reaction in the Caribbean all point to underlying peculiarities in the political geography of the region...
...British aid was still encouraged by Washington-but for training police, something U.S...
...Scoon, for all his nominal loyalty to the Queen of England, showed an obliging mixture of discretion and submission in dealing with the representatives of the United States...
...copies single issue published nearest to filing date 11,150 2,395 7,370 9.765 519 10,284 450 416 11,150 11...
...buildup in the Eastern Caribbean are given in Latin America Regional Report: Caribbean, August 24,.1984...
...troops left the island, tentatively in March 1985...
...PBS' McNeill-Lehrer Report, October 25, 1984...
...Jamaica had promoted a "CARICOM Mark II," de- signed to exclude ideologically dissident members such as Guyana and bring in certain non-English speaking countries, notably the Dominican Repub- lic, which had useful democratic credentials and might provide new markets for Jamaican goods...
...We've given you the best outside writers: Allan Nairn, Dan Hallin, Anne Nelson, John Dinges...
...OR WERE THE OECS STATES UNITED IN the wake of Grenada...
...The islands' third weakness is an idiosyncratic political structure and an accompanying culture notable for its low level of anti-colonial sentiment...
...Even Sparrow, the legendary Grenadian calypso singer long resident in Trinidad, came up with a song blaming the Cubans for not arresting Coard and Austin...
...On Grenada since the invasion, see Payne et al., Grenada, chapter 9; also "Grenada: Report of a British Labour Movement Delegation," available from 4 Grays Inn Buildings, Roseberry Avenue, London ECIR...
...2 5 Two groups have, however, attempted to estab- lish a reference point for those who favored the NJM but opposed the Coard faction...
...the smaller Eastern Caribbean states on tourism and agricultural exports to Europe...
...diplomacy, from menace to overture and back again, played shrewdly upon political divisions within the regime...
...But the premier of Antigua, Vere Bird, began to criticize local businessmen for investing their profits in the United States and Canada...
...Queen Elizabeth II inspects Jamaican troops: Shared traditions ' . REPORT ON THE AMERICAS I d bil l id d i i l l d 26An election date was finally set for December 3, 1984.15 At one level, this system worked without major difficulties...
...and CPF forces had fragmented and demoralized the NJM...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 25A Lovely Piece of A l Estate A Lovely Piece of Real Estate ritory was a further reason for shying away from the invasion...
...military officer on the island and the U.S...
...According to Latin America Regional Report: Caribbean, December 9, 1983, a U.S...
...charge d'affaires as virtual pro-consul on the island and Scoon as his associate...
...At the same time, the growth in state services had brought substantial increases in social welfare provisions...
...While the Grenadian revolution certainly faced economic difficulties, these were trivcompared to the problems that other revolutions have faced...
...Com- munists Never...
...And most important, the year since the invasion has done little to resolve, or even mask, the deep political and economic tensions in the Eastern Caribbean-those very same tensions to which the rise of the NJM and its radical program of reform were a response...
...Vincent and Barbados-signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the formation of a regional defense force...
...Within weeks of the invasion, U.S...
...foreign policy in the post-Vietnam era has been amply rewarded with enthusiastic public support inside the United States...
...military personnel remained on the island...
...The period leading up to the October 1983 crisis had seen strains on the state's finances and this had been a contributing factor to the inner-party conflict that erupted...
...Thus Ronald Reagan on the anniversary of the invasion of Grenada in October 1983...
...Guyana opposed the invasion in line with its alliance with Cuba and the generally anti-im- perialist tone of its foreign policy...
...intervention was also sadly evident in the social sphere...
...7 T HE GRENADA CRISIS OF OCTOBER 1983 found the English-speaking Caribbean subject to conflicting trends...
...Most crucially, U.S...
...Parts of South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines were recaptured from communist forces during wars, but Grenada was the first occasion on which the United States was able to oust a revolutionary regime and set about establishing a pliant successor...
...forces-particularly the minutes of Central Committee meetings-- revealed that the NJM had been a compact party...
...In the Dominican Republic and-to a lesser extent-in Haiti, riots have erupted over economic conditions and government austerity programs...
...Louison, a member of the NJM Central Committee, had been Minister of Agriculture...
...Caribbean Insight, August 1984...
...Bernard acted as public spokes- man for the imprisoned nine...
...bayonets...
...3685) 1. Title of Publication: Nacla Report on the Americas 1[b...
...HE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE invasion, contrary to the expectations of many Grenadians, were negative in the extreme...
...Only Trinidad has enjoyed some years of sustained prosperity, thanks to oil, with its per capita income rising in 1981 to $3,400, well above the Caribbean NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 21A Lovely Piece of Real Estate A Lovely Piece of Real Estate U1f -g...
...The invading U.S...
...They were accompanied by another thousand or so members of the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force, who increasingly assumed the functions of police and political control...
...With the crisis, the NJM ceased to exist as an or- ganized party with a mass following or membership...
...The October 1983 action was widely condemned by Latin American and other Third World states, by European countries--even Margaret Thatcher's Britain-and by Cuba and its socialist bloc allies...
...One group set up a Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement on the island to act as the nucleus of a new political organization...
...To compound the problem, there were four CARICOM nations that had opposed the operation from the outset-Guyana, Belize, the Bahamas and Trinidad...
...With just 70 full members, the NJM was run by a Central Committee of 15, which operated with extremely tight discipline...
...Vincent and Dominica...
...embassy in Buenos Aires to organize the campaign to discredit Bishop...
...Lucia and St...
...PBS' McNeill-Lehrer Report, October 25, 1984...
...Without a doubt, though, the greatest victim of the crisis was the Left in the Caribbean, for whom the self-destruction of the NJM was an enormous setback...
...8. Payne et al., Grenada, chapter 5, and Tony Thorndike, "The Eastern Caribbean States and the Grenada Crisis," paper presented to Conference on the Political and Economic Crisis in the Caribbean Basin, Goldsmith's College, London, September 21, 1984...
...28 T HE IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT HAPPENED in Grenada, of course, go much deeper than the outcome of the December 1984 elections...
...Just as there was mass support in Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe and Curacao for continued colonial status under U.S., French or Dutch dominion, so too was there attachment to colonial rule in the Englishspeaking islands...
...But once Bishop was dead, the OECS went along with a U.S.-led invasion instead...
...As if this sad resurgence of inter-island and interethnic tensions were not enough, there were many others in the English-speaking islands--exemplified by such groups as the Workers Party of Jamaicawho sought to defend Coard and his followers...
...Meanwhile, Jamaica and Guyana rely heavily on bauxite exports...
Vol. 18 • November 1984 • No. 6
