http://www.counterpunch.org/gibson06052004.htmlThe Grenada 17
The Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
By RICH GIBSON
On June 28, 2004, the Organization of Eastern Carribean States High
Court
will hear a Grenadian government appeal seeking to set aside a lower
court
ruling in favor of the Grenada 17. The lower court ruling would, in
essence,
overturn the convictions of the Grenada 17 on murder and manslaughter
counts, stemming from unjust trials nearly twenty years ago. The
Grenadian
government, staggering from a series of corruption charges that have
roiled the
little island nation off the coast of Venezuela, is vigorously
pursuing a
legal strategy that would keep the prisoners in jail_well beyond the
length of
their initial sentences-on the grounds that the judiciary should not
be able
to negate the executive branch. The lower court has declared the
convictions, "null and void."
The invasion of Grenada, more than 20 years ago, presaged many of the
events that blowback on the US today: unilateral warfare, official
deceit about
the motives for war, a massive military moving against an imagined
foe,
stifling the press, leaders proclaiming their guidance from God,
denials of
human and civil rights, systematic torture and subsequent
cover-ups-and a hero
who refused to go along. Many of the players in the Bush
administration who
promise perpetual war today cut their teeth on the invasion of
Grenada. It
is more than worthwhile to review the events that lead to the
upcoming
trial.
On March 13, 1979 a revolution took place in Grenada, the first in an
African_Caribbean country, the first in the English_speaking world.
The people
who made up the revolutionary cadre were young, average age around
27. The
uppermost leadership was predominantly middle class, educated abroad.
They
called themselves the New Jewel Movement (NJM). The revolution, or
coup as
some called it, was popular, replacing a mad dictator named Eric
Gairy who
spent much of the tiny country's (pop 100,000) resources
investigating the
reason Grenada was a favorite landing point for flying saucers. When
I
interviewed Gairy in 1996, he told me he was immortal, God. He died in
1997.
Gairy had modeled his rule on a mix of Haitian Papa Doc Duvalier's
thuggery, populist appeals to peasant- workers and
small_land_holders, and claims to
mystical-sexual powers, a powerful constituency in Grenada. Gairy had
been
a teacher and union leader, was instrumental in winning Grenada's
independence from Great Britain. Gairy was entrancing but he brooked no
opposition and
shared with few. His Mongoose gang was implicated in several murders,
served as
the stick to Gairy's charm. The educated classes, and many others, were
restive. The NJM "revo" of 1979 took 24 hours, the culmination of
years of
unarmed struggle. It was no mistake that but two people were killed
in the
revolution. Grenada's size means that everyone knows nearly everyone.
Each death is
a personal and collective tragedy. The NJM leadership never fit the
bloodthirsty caricature later stamped on them by U.S. officials.
At the time of the uprising, Eric Gairy was in the US visiting with
Nazi
war criminal (and United Nations Secretary General ) Kurt Waldheim.
Gairy
simply didn't return. Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft, Bernard and
Phyllis
Coard, were among the key New Jewel leaders. Bishop and Coard had
been
childhood friends.
The NJM leadership were socialists, though their socialism was
eclectic__hardly the doctrinaire image the U.S. later created. They
borrowed judiciously
and won investments from any government they could, from the British
to the
USSR to Iraq and Cuba (which provided mostly doctors, construction
specialists, nurses, and educators). The exacting Brandeis-educated
Bernard Coard,
leading the financial sector, was recognized throughout the Caribbean
as a
rare, honest, economist.
They began a mass literacy project (led by Paulo Freire), quickly
improved
medical care, began to set up processing plants for fish and spices,
and
started building a jet_port. The country had a tiny landing strip
only able
to land prop planes, a problem for an economy tied up with tourist
interests.
The plan, in general, was to magnify national economic development by
expanding existing forms of production (agriculture, small
industries, tourism,
etc.) and by creating a new class of technologically competent
workers who
might use their skills to create a role for Grenada in the
information_economy
as well. The far-sighted educational programs had a critical role
in that
project.
To claim that the NJM rule was a model of egalitarian democracy, as
much of
the chic left did at the time, would be off_point. It wasn't. While
international tourist-socialists danced during carnival in the
beautiful houses
allotted to revo leaders, democracy and equality went on the back
burner in
favor of national economic development. The party leadership became
privileged in terms of decision_making power and the distribution of
goods: the
shipwreck of most socialist movements. Women cadre were often doing the
work (as
well as the home work). Some men issued orders and took advantage of
prestige.
The island was rife with rumors about the dissolute behavior of some
party
leaders, especially charismatic Maurice Bishop, though in some ways his
populist
reputation was enhanced. The NJM arrested people and held them
without
charge. A few citizens were killed under circumstances which were at
best
questionable.
But New Jewel under terrific pressure. The US quickly moved to crush
the
revo, made tourism nearly impossible for U.S. citizens. It is fairly
clear
that the CIA made several attempts to murder key leaders.
Pressed externally, NJM grew more isolated from the people. Eager
volunteers at early literacy classes later found themselves ordered
to attend by
youths with small arms. Rather than reach out to expand its initial
popularity,
the party turned inward. The leadership tried to rely on a correct
analysis and precise orders rather than to build a popular base. With
a dwindling
activist base, the party's leaders, especially women, doubled their
own work
time, exhausting themselves. Even though there was no question that
Bishop
would win elections, the NJM leaders refused to hold them. The NJM
top
central committee remained a very exclusive bunch. In 1982 and 1983,
sharp
disagreements began to emerge within the entire organization. Within
four years, by
1983, the NJM was in real trouble.
The central committee passed motions blaming the people for the
crises in
the economy. In 1983, the whole party voted overwhelmingly to reduce
Bishop's
role and elevate Coard to an equal spot, though the entire party,
and
Coard, knew he would never be as popular as the charismatic Bishop,
and could
never rule without him. There were many reasons for the move, one of
the more
important being Bishop's lack of personal discipline, called
"waffling".
The shift to shared leadership was made in the context of a
revolution already
in crisis. Bishop agreed to the plan, but expressed concern that
his work
was being repudiated, that this might be a vote of no confidence. A
veritable parade of party members, in a 15_hour meeting, assured him
sincerely that
this was not true.
Bishop accepted the joint command. He left Grenada for Eastern Europe
with
a small group of cadres. On his return trip, Bishop held an
unscheduled
meeting in Cuba with Fidel Castro, who considered the young leader as
"a son."
On October 12, 1983, the day after his return, Bishop initiated a
rumor to
be circulated by his bodyguard that Coard was planning to kill him.
In
Grenada such a rumor can circulate throughout the country in less
than a
day-and can be deadly. A similar rumor, that Eric Gairy intended to
kill Bishop
and others, preceded the initial NJM revolution in 1979.
Bishop denied he started the 1983 rumor.
This set in motion a series of events that finished off the revo. The
assembled NJM party witnessed a meeting in which Bishop was exposed
as having
caused the rumor. Even so, the party members also all knew that
Bishop was
the key to whatever credibility the party still had among the people.
They
also knew the U.S. was openly threatening the government. The US had
staged
widely publicized invasion exercises, "Amber and the Ambergines,"
making its
intentions clear. By a wide majority party vote, Bishop and Coard
were both
ordered to their homes, Bishop under arrest. Negotiations began to
overhaul
the way the party was functioning.
On 19 October 1983, a mob of thousands led by people who had traveled
to
Cuba with Bishop marched past armed personnel carriers (APC's) lined
up in
front of his home, freed "We Leader" Bishop, and (under curious
banners like
"We Love the US") began to move to the town square. No one in the
APC's
moved to stop the crowd.
As the crowd moved to Bishop's house, a Cuban military outfit arrived
at
the downtown Fort Rupert (now Ft George). They had not reported in
days and
were turned away by the commander on duty from the NJM. In the town
square,
where rallies were traditionally held, microphones were set up for
Bishop to
speak to the people. Bishop could have easily mobilized nearly the
entire
population of the island to come to the square to support him-and
that
probably would have been that.
But now led by Bishop and his friends, the crowd turned and marched
on a
nearby fort where arms and TNT were stored. Bishop demanded that the
commander
of the fort turn over his weapons. He did, and was locked in a
cell.
At this point, things become murky. An award winning Grenadian
journalist,
Alastair Hughes, famous in the region for his resistance to the NJM
and his
courage, saw the crowd move to the fort and bolted home, rather than
cover
the news. Bishop moved his cadre to seize the radio and telephone
centers,
as had the NJM in overturning Gairy a few years earlier. From another
fort
on a mountain about two miles away, Peoples Revolutionary Army APC's
were
ordered to quiet the mob.
I interviewed people who were on the APC's and many people who
watched what
followed. The soldiers on the APC's were, for the most part, hardly
crack
troops. They were mainly youths who had enlisted to get the money to
buy
shoes for their families. One had deserted out of loneliness and been
brought
back the previous day. They rode on top of the carriers, in full
view. As
they approached the fort, fire came from the mob. The commander of
the first
APC, one of the few experienced soldiers in the group and a highly
respected
officer, was killed. Discipline appears to have evaporated on all
sides.
Fire was returned.
No one knows exactly how many people were killed and wounded. No firm
count
was ever made. There are films of people leaping over a wall at the
fort
(why a film-maker was so poised with such a powerful camera is an
interesting question).
In any case, Bishop and other top leaders of NJM, including his
pregnant
companion Jackie Creft, were killed- after they had surely
surrendered. The
remaining leadership of NJM imposed a curfew on the island. In part
because
important documents taken from Grenada during the invasion remain
classified
in the U.S., no thorough-going investigation of this day's events has
been
possible.
Shortly afterward, on October 23 1983, 241 US troops were killed,
blown up
in their barracks in Lebanon by a truck bomb.
US President Ronald Reagan took to the TV, announcing he had
discovered,
through satellite photos, that the Cubans were building a secret
Soviet_Cuban
military airstrip in Grenada-a direct threat to US security.
Actually tourists were frequently taken to the construction site at
the
airport-a widely publicized symbol of Grenadian pride. US students
from St.
George's Medical school jogged by Cuban and Grenadian construction
workers each
day on the airstrip. The main financial support for the airport
came not
from the <U.S.S.R>. nor from Cuba, but from Margaret Thatcher's
Britain.
Reagan declared the US medical students to be in grave danger from
the
crisis in Grenada, said that the NJM was a threat to all regional
security. He
got the organization of Caribbean nations to back him_with a big
payoff to
those who went along-- and invaded a country the size of Kalamazoo
with a
massive military force, under a precedent_ setting news blackout. The
US had
practiced the invasion of Grenada as early as 1981.
Though the medical students were radioing out that they were in no
danger-except from the possibility of an invasion-- US rangers
"saved" them, after
U.S. jets bombed a mental hospital.
Remarkably, it is clear that Fidel Castro was forewarned of the
invasion
and that Cuban troops tasked to stop the US landing at the new
airport never
fired their weapons at the Rangers making parachute drops on the
runway_until
the Rangers attacked them. The Cubans had told the Grenadian
military
that they would defend the airport area.
The invasion of Grenada (popular among most Grenadian people sickened
by
the long collapse of the NJM) was complete in a week. It was,
however,
denounced as illegal by the U.N. Security Council, by Margaret
Thatcher and the
British government, and by a myriad of US congress_people.
The international press, including US reporters, was cordoned off
from
Grenada during the invasion. US ships intercepted reporters who
rented boats
trying to get to the island, arresting them and detaining them until
after
the invasion was complete.
The US, however, quickly recaptured its post-Lebanon image as a
military
super-power.
Seventeen NJM leaders were charged with the murder of Bishop,
Jacqueline
Creft, and others, though most of them were nowhere near the
incident, could
not have participated, like the commander of the fort who was locked
in a
basement Fort Rupert cell.
The NJM leaders were tortured and signed transparently bogus
confessions.
According to affidavits filed by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey
Clark,
and Amnesty International, the NJM leaders were denied attorneys.
They were
tried by jurors who chanted "guilty" at them during jury selection,
in
trails led by judges hand_picked and paid by the U.S. They were
unable to make a
defense in the kangaroo atmosphere. Their lawyers were subjected to
death
threats and some fled. Key witnesses, like a bodyguard who was
present when
Bishop created and ordered the death threat rumor, were denied the
right to
testify. Fourteen of the NJM members were sentenced to death. In
1991,
after an international outcry, the sentences were commuted to life.
Typically in
the Caribbean, a life sentence amounts to around 15 years.
The three remaining prisoners, low-ranking soldiers, were sentenced
on
several counts of manslaughter. On appeal, their sentences were
reduced to
fifteen years. With their time now served, the Grenadian government
still refuses
to release them, the prime minister saying that the judiciary has
no
right to override the government-or a possible vote of the people.
In prison, the Grenada 17 were systematically abused by guards and
others
for eight years, according to statements made to me be a former
prison warden
and several guards. Abuse was especially horrible for the lone woman,
Phyllis Coard, who was held in near_total isolation for years simply
because
few women are jailed in Grenada. In 1991, after their children had
been
introduced to the fellow who was to hang them from a prison courtyard
gallows, the
Grenada 17 sentences were commuted to life.
Prison Commissioner Winston Courtney was pivotal to halting the
torture.
Courtney had himself been held in Richmond Hill jail, imprisoned by
the
leadership of the NJM without charge for more than a year. During
that period,
Courtney's son was killed under questionable circumstances. He had
reason to
believe that the NJM was involved. During the latter days of the
NJM's term
of power, Courtney was expelled from the island. He returned to be
the
warden of the prison in the early 90's, holding the prisoners who
once held him.
Courtney immediately moved to stop the abuse, to create a disciplined
yet
humane prison that emphasized rehabilitation. He worked 18 hour days
to
overcome the habits of Richmond Hill, eventually sacrificing his health
and
eyesight. When asked why he did this, Courtney said, "I am an ethical
man and if I
do not do this, I am nothing."
The New Jewel leaders are still serving time in a prison built in the
nineteenth century. The last prisoners of the cold war are black.
Their health is
rapidly fading. Despite immense obstacles created by prison officials
over the years, the NJM prisoners are conducting one of the most
successful
literacy campaigns in the country. Less than two in ten of the
program' grads
return to the Richmond Hill jail.
As of October 2004, the NJM prisoners, will have served 21 years.
Phyllis
Coard was released in 2000 to seek cancer treatment abroad, following
an
international campaign on her behalf. She is still expected to return
to the
jail following treatment.
I filed a Freedom of Information suit demanding documents which were
seized
by the US and kept out of the trial. The US military commandeered
tons of
documents in Grenada immediately following the invasion. The
documents were
sifted and some of them later appeared in a book called the "Grenada
Documents," edited by Michael Ledeen, now an Iraq war hawk who calls
for the
invasion of Iran. US intelligence agencies denied my request for more
documents.
I sued.
The suit came to court in Detroit on November 10th, 1997, after
delays of
more than one year. In October, 1998, Judge Hood gave the U.S.
government
thirty days to give me the documents. To date, the US has released a
ream of
blacked_out material, some of it indicating that the US clearly
interfered
in the trial of the Grenada prisoners-and paid the trial judges.
However, the
US insists that the remaining documents were all returned to Grenada.
The
Grenada government denies ever receiving the material.
In October 2003 Amnesty International has issued a detailed report,
demonstrating their conclusion that the Grenada 17 were denied due
process in their
trial: "the trial was manifestly and fundamentally unfair." The
selection
of both judges and the jury were tainted with prejudice. Documents
that
might have contradicted key prosecution evidence were denied the
defendants.
Instead, prison guards forcibly took materials from the prisoners
that they
had prepared for their defense. Defendants were not allowed to present
key
witnesses whose testimony would have undermined the testimony of the
sole
prosecution witness, Cletus St. Paul, one of Bishop's bodyguards, who
claimed he
overheard Coard and others ordering Bishop's liquidation. Errol
George, also
a Bishop bodyguard, was not allowed to say that he was right next to
St.
Paul during the time in question, and heard nothing of the sort.
In 2002 I interviewed Grenada's ambassador to the US, asking him why
his
government is so determined to keep the Grenada 17 in jail. He
replied that
he, and the nation's current leader, Keith Mitchell, believe there
will be
riots if the Grenada 17 are set free. The possibility of serious
civil strife
in Grenada, about anything but the corruption allegations aimed at
the
Mitchell regime, are actually quite negligible, as leaders of the
opposition
party and the country's leading paper, the Voice, tell me.
I spent 1996 in Grenada interviewing many of the jailed NJM leaders.
To say
they are innocent of everything is not the case. To say they are
innocent
of the charges brought against them is. Serious mistakes were made by
the New
Jewel leadership. The prisoners have issued extensive, indeed
insightful,
apologies to that effect, taking responsibility for the crisis of the
revolution, but not for the murders they did not commit. Their
continued
imprisonment is a mysterious yet great wrong that needs to be
righted. The truth of
the Grenada revo, and its destruction, needs to be known.
--------------
Rich Gibson is a professor of Education at San Diego State
University. He
can be reached at: rgibson@pipeline.com
Author
