| Monday, March 12, 2007 |
| The U.S., Grenada and the perils of revolution |
13 March 1979,
Radio Free Grenada,
Maurice Bishop,
Address to the Nation
Brothers and Sisters,
This is Maurice Bishop speaking.
At 4.15 am this morning, the People's Revolutionary Army seized control of the army barracks at True Blue.
The barracks were burned to the ground. After half-an-hour struggle, the forces of Gairy's army were completely defeated, and surrendered.
Every single soldier surrendered, and not a single member of the revolutionary forces was injured.
At the same time, the radio station was captured without a shot being fired. Shortly after this, several cabinet ministers were captured in their beds by units of the revolutionary army.
A number of senior police officers, including Superintendent Adonis Francis, were also taken into protective custody.
At this moment, several police stations have already put up the white flag of surrender.
Revolutionary forces have been dispatched to mop up any possible source of resistance or disloyalty to the new government.
I am now calling upon the working people, the youths, workers, farmers, fishermen, middle-class people, and women to join our armed revolutionary forces at central positions in your communities and to give them any assistance which they call for.
Virtually all stations have surrendered. I repeat. We restress, resistance will be futile. don't be misled by Bogo DeSouze or Cosmos Raymond into believing that there are any prospects of saving the dictator Gairy. ... [From The Grenada Revolution Online
So began the revolution in Grenada, on March 13, 1979. It preceded much like leftist revolutions everywhere -- beginning with wild-eyed idealism, as the "autocratic" capitalists were dethroned, and the "people's revolutionary government (PRG)" promised shared wealth, equality and brotherhood. And of course, it wound up with the revolutionaries, in this case, the NJM or New Jewel Movement, soon turning autocratic, paranoid, increasingly brutal, and worst of all, permanent.
The leader of the NJM, Maurice Bishop, was installed as the new prime minister, but his deputy, Bernard Coard, quickly subsumed him and seized power, as his faction of the revolutionaries demanded strict obediance to the revolution, while Bishop waivered, on the increasing placement of Soviet bases on the Spice Isle, on the driving away of investors and business partners like the Royal Bank of Canada (which abandoned Grenada and was then taken over at the selling price of $1 by the revolutionary council) and of the increasingly close ties with Cuba, which was sending advisors to the island. Bishop was under pressure from the U.S. and other quarters to ban the Cuban ambassador from attending cabinet meetings. When he relented, he lost favor with the Cubans, the Soviets, and the hard-line revolutionaries of the People's Revolutionary Movement under his deputy, Mr. Coard.
On October 13, 1983, Coard pulled a coup of his own, accusing Bishop of not being a "true revolutionary" and placing him and his cabinet under house arrest. Weary of the increasing oppression by Coard's faction, including curfews, shop closures and strict limits on free expression, and clearly preferring the seemingly well meaning Bishop over the harsh Coard, some 25,000 Grenadians took to the streets, overpowering the guards and freeing Bishop and his cabinet, only to have government troops in armored personnel carriers arrive and blitz the crowd with gunfire (forcing many to jump to their deaths from the high prison walls) and execute Bishop and the others against a wall on which the phrase "TOWARDS GREATER DISCIPLINE IN THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY ARMY" was written (source: WTPS news reporter and longtime Grenadian radio personality Edward Frederick.)
My colleague at the station, Eddie Frederick (above) has written extensively on this subject, providing chilling details of what led up to the counter-revoltuion and invasion by the Reagan administration, and a coalition of Caribbean states, which were so outraged by the executions and draconian actions of the Coard faction that they banished Grenada from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and led to several Caribbean nations, including Jamaica and Barbados, breaking off diplomatic ties.
The U.S. used the chaos, and the rather paltry excuse of some 700 American students "stranded" in Grenada, as a pretext to invasion (as it turns out, against the advice and wishes of Ms. Thatcher's England). Ronald Reagan at the time was dealing with twin crises, in the Western hemisphere and also in the east -- where U.S. Marines were battened down in Lebanon and revolution was also continuing to vex the U.S. in the Persian empire of Iran (the Shah, Reza Pahlevi, having been overthrown by the Ayatollists in 1979).
The U.S. invasion, alongside Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, commenced on October 25, 1983. It lasted just a few days, and resulted in 19 U.S. and 45 Grenadian military deaths, two dozen civilian deaths, and 116 U.S. and more than 350 Grenadian wounded. Cuba, which was caught somewhat flat footed by the U.S. invasion, lost 25 of its soldiers, had 59 wounded and more than 640 taken prisoner. Much of the world condemned the U.S. action, but many Grenadians were grateful to the U.S. for freeing them from Coard's despotism.
That's the nuts and bolts of the story. It's a tale of the dangers of "revolution" -- which rarely winds up having much to do with the people, and everything to do with a mad scramble for power.
I rather disliked Ronald Reagan, but looking back, I can sort of see the case for the Grenada invasion (though there was no pressing U.S. national interest. At that time, during the Cold War, Grenada looked like another domino the U.S. had to keep from falling into Castro, and thus Soviet, hands. Perhaps it was a show of force as against our relative weakness in the Middle East, or an attempt to cool the fires of populist revolution throughout the world.
Whatever the reason, the invasion of Grenada allowed the U.S. to flex its military might for what would be the next to last time. After that, victories in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and the Balkans during the Clinton years would be undone by the complete castration of U.S. Middle East policy and military hegemony by one George W. Bush, who failed to learned the Reaganite lesson: if you're going to use the United States military on a weak, small country, you'd damned better beat them. The U.S. sent 7,000 troops to fight 1,500 Grenadian regulars and 600 Cuban engineers. And they spared nothing in winningthe war quickly, decisively, and overwhelmingly. Big difference.
We'll be talking about Grenada tomorrow on the show, including with Eddie. Worth tuning in, if I do say so myself.
Update, Tuesday, March 15: I was talking with Ed this morning and he added yet another wrinkle. It seems there remains some doubt in Grenada as to the real truth about Mr. Coard's alleged wrongdoing, and whether he and his cohorts in fact ordered the executions of the wildly popular Mr. Bishop and his cabinet. There is some conspiracy theorizing on the island, even today, as to whether Mr. Coard was, in a sense, the subject of a superpower frame up. Coard and his cohorts remain in prison today.
Labels: American history, Grenada, Ronald Reagan, war |
posted by JReid @ 10:01 PM   |
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