Peter EspeutST. GEORGES:
TWENTY YEARS ago this year, the armed forces of the United States of America invaded this tiny island on a "Rescue Mission". The New Jewel Movement (NJM) of Maurice Bishop, had seized power in a 1979 coup and had created the Marxist-oriented People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), which was receiving active support from Castro's Cuba and Jamaica's communists. A new spirit of progress was in the air - education and health care was improving, new agricultural and fishing technologies were introduced and a new international airport was being built.
It was an experiment which could not be allowed to succeed. The Americans announced that little Grenada (the population in 2003 is still under 100,000) was a threat to their national security, since (they said) the new airport under construction could be used to bomb the USA. When in 1983 there was a split within the NJM between the hard-line communists and the moderates, which led to the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the PRG imploded and there was tremendous national insecurity.
On the pretext of protecting a few US citizens who were medical students at St. George's University, a US Task Force invaded Grenada; but it took their helicopter gunships and battalions eight days to capture this little island from the rag-tag and lightly armed People's Revolutionary Army and a few Cuban construction workers, with inordinate loss of American lives. (As the US military prepare to invade Iraq they need to remember Grenada). In the process, the high-tech US army bombed and destroyed the island's mental hospital, mistaking it, they said, for a military camp (sounds like poor intelligence-gathering or map-work to me).
I have been to Grenada several times since the "military intervention" (the politically correct way to refer to the US invasion), and it is clear to me that Grenadians have not yet recovered from the Revolution and its aftermath. Mention the Revolution and some Grenadians will clam up, and others will burst into tears. After twenty years, they have not yet come to closure, and it is sad.
This week, I spoke with George Brizan, one of the founders (along with Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft and others) of the New Jewel Movement, and who became Prime Minister of Grenada after the "military intervention". With passion, he spoke of the vision they all had of a new Grenada when they formed the NJM to provide an alternative to the corrupt government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy and his "Mongoose Gang". Equally was his disappointment (and that of many Grenadians) at the demise of the popular Revolution which promised so much and indeed delivered much before it fell apart."
Many Grenadians are fundamentally ambivalent about the period between 1979 and 1983; they hurt because their dreams and hopes which seemed within their grasp were dashed; they hurt because of the trauma of the three days of terror when an unknown number of Grenadians were killed by panicking troops; they hurt because the heart of their Revolution, Maurice Bishop, was executed; they hurt because he and others were killed by their own countrymen; they hurt because his body has never been found and
they cannot pay proper homage to his memory; they hurt because their country was invaded by a foreign power hostile to their beloved Revolution; they hurt because post-invasion promises and hopes do not match up with the ones from their Revolution and they hurt because they cannot share their deep inner feelings about this important part of their history because it is still not "politically correct" in this only-one-superpower era. There are big gaps in modern Grenadian history as taught in their schools. It is sad!
Of course, the full story of the events which led to the demise of Maurice Bishop's Revolution has yet to be told. Whether we deserve it or not, Jamaicans are much loved in Grenada, and I believe this also is part of the ambivalence.
Walking through the market in downtown St. George's last Monday, the loud topic of conversation among the hucksters (higglers) and customers was the impending invasion of Iraq by the US-UK military machine. Both my wife and I were struck by the passion in the condemnation of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair; most of what was said is not fit for air-play! And this in Grenada, itself the "beneficiary" of a "liberating" US invasion! It makes you think. For us, it spoke volumes! About ambivalence.
I am told that there are still AK-47s and Kalashnikovs from the days of the Revolution hidden in Grenada.
No, Grenada still has not come to closure about the events of twenty years ago; but then, neither has Jamaica.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is Executive Director of an environment and development NGO.
