Portland Observer. November 2, 1983 Page 5
You
Grenada diary: Roots of the invasion
can help fight school-age
drug and alcohol abuse.
by B ill Bigelow
Orcnada: • little island with Swiss
Family Robinson-like beauty. Icae
than a third the population o f Port
land. a "n aval fleet" o f about ten
fishing trawlers, its major contribu
tion to the world economy— nut-
" I t ’s not safe." my travel agent
warned. " I ’ve read that the Cubans
have taken over, and everyone car
ries guns." I did want to return
from my vacation in one piece. A f
ter all, I had to be back in my class
room in September (1902). But
Grenada's accomplishments— espe
cially in education— had become
world famous; I wanted to see for
myself.
M y plane from M iam i landed in
Barbados. M ore warnings: Grenada
is communist; Grenadians hate A m
ericans; kids carry automatic rifles.
W aiting in line the nest morning
with other Americans, medical stu
dents, I sought assurances.
"N o th in g to worry ab o ut,” guar
anteed my fellow passengers. "Y o u
don’t bother them, they don’t
bother yo u ."
And what about the revolution?
" I wouldn’t kn o w ,” shrugged
one student. " I go to class, 1 go to
the beach, I go to to w n .”
Our plane hugged the hilltops,
made a sudden plunge, and we were
down. "W elcom e to Grenada— Isle
o f Spice.” This was an airport? A
typical Portland block is a longer
"ru n w a y ." But I was here. Now 1
could see for myself what all the
fuss was about.
This "n e w ” Grenada had been
born M arch 13, 1979. when the New
Jewel Movement overthrew then-
Prime Minister Eric O airy. The
economy O airy managed was in
shambles; an estimated 49 percent
o f the population was unemployed.
Held in contempt for his incompe
tent and unjust economic policies,
Gairy was feared and hated for his
“ Mongoose Gang” — a vicious se
cret police force equipped by the
Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.
The M arch revolution— the " R e
v o ," as it was affectionately called
in Grenada— ignited celebrations
throughout the island. The New
Jewel Movement promised a society
fundamentally different from that
o f Gairy or the colonial order o f
some 300 years. But with virtually
no industry, and national revenues
dependent on fluctuations in the in
ternational price o f nutmeg, bana
nas and cocoa, it wasn’t going to be
easy.
Though 1 didn't want to miss out
on Grenada’s spectacular beaches I
was also there to see what Grenada
had accomplished in the previous
three years.
The economy had obviously
turned around. A new agrarian re
form law offered underutilized land
to those forming co-operatives.
W hile waiting in line in a St.
George's restaurant, I met a mem
ber o f the Good Hope Agri Co-op
who invited me out to look around.
As we walked through his land
slurping mangoes and picking up
fallen avocados he told me how he
had formed the co-op with a num
ber o f his unemployed friends. The
New Jewel government quickly o f
fered encouragement by providing
tools, seed, fertilizer and most im
portantly— land. T w o o f their mem
bers had been given scholarships to
study farming methods. Other co
ops I visited were equally successful.
1 also toured food processing
plants which had been built to boost
export earnings and provide still
more jobs. According to outside aid
agencies, in just three years unem
ployment had plummetted from
about h alf the population to 14 per
cent. It sounded like something out
o f Ripley's Be/ieve it or N o t, but it
was true.
As a teacher I was especially cur
ious about education. In 1979, 43
percent o f Orenadians couldn't read
or write. A nationwide literacy cam
paign cut that to less than 10 per
cent. Between 1979 and 1982, uni
versity scholarships had shot from
three up to 220. A new high school
had been built— only the second
with public money in 330 years.
I rented a car and drove around
the island. Instead o f advertising
cigarettes and booze, billboards
pushed education:
"Each One
Teach O ne,” "Education Is Pro
duction T o o ,” " I f You Know,
Teach; I f You D o n ’t. Learn.”
As I spoke with Orenadians. the
was the construction
Agricultural workers in a mili
tant mood in Qouyave. The Agri
cultural and General Workers
Union and these workers won
profit-sharing rights in 1901
(above).
Get involved in
THE CHEMICAL PEOPLE
project.
‘The manoeuvre is the Hardest
Hard'- Carriecou Militia at the
conclusion of National Manoeu
vres of February. 1982 .
(Photo: Free West Indian)
Attend the town meeting in your community
For information call
o f the new international airport.
Hotel managers, taxi drivers, nut
meg farmers and dockworkers all
agreed it was a long overdue boost
for the nagging tourist industry.
W hile the Americans turned down
Grenada's request for help in build
ing the airport, the Cubans said,
"W here do you want it? " — offering
labor, expertise and equipment.
Other international aid was also
forthcoming.
President Reagan subsequently
complained that Grenada had no
use for such an airport, that the
country didn’t even have an air
force. H e claimed that it was a ruse
for "Soviet-Cuban m ilitarization"
o f the island. But if the airport was
a communist plot it had the endorse
ment o f all the capitalists on the is
land. The Chamber o f Commerce,
the Grenada Hotel Association and
the Employers Federation all gave
the project their enthusiastic bless
ings.
Impressive as the airport was,
more significant to me was the new
level o f political involvement G ren
ada had achieved. People’s democ
racy— that’s the phrase I kept hear
ing. W hat it meant to the islanders
was that now they were learning to
participate in decisions they had
never even considered as theirs to
make.
In Zonal Council meetings held
regularly throughout the country,
neighborhood residents would meet
to discuss everything from day-care
centers to the national economic
plan: how much to spend on im
ports. what crops to concentrate on,
whether or not to use pesticides.
I met with Phyllis Coard, director
o f the National W omen's O rganiza
tion (N W O ), and w ife o f Deputy
Prime Minister Bernard Coard. In
her musical West Indian accent, Ms.
Coard spoke with an encyclopedic
knowledge o f Orenadian society.
Traditionally
unorganized
and
heavily
discriminated
against,
women in the new Orenada had
joined the N W O in droves. The goal
o f the organization was to empower
women— to teach them to work to
gether and to demand to be heard.
That summer, Coard told me, the
organization was in the midst o f de
bating legalized abortion, whether
to ban Depo Provers as birth con
trol, and what to do about sexual
harassment at work.
Grenada's political objective was
summed up by Prime Minister M a u
rice Bishop: " T o train the people to
become the le a d e n ." Another gov
ernment official added, " W e don't
want to have only a ’ representative
democracy*— which
means
that
once every five yean for five sec
onds you go to the polls and mark
your ’X.’ W e call that ’five-second
democracy.*”
Certainly in four yean the island
had not become the new democratic
utopia. It hadn’t decided what pro
cess would choose national leader
ship, no bill o f rights had been de
veloped. But more Grenadians were
energetically and creatively involved
in decisions affecting their lives than
ever before.
Rather than supporting this em
bryonic democracy, the U.S. threat
ened it. During the Ocean Venture
'81 naval maneuvers in August of
1981, the U .S. staged a mock inva
sion o f Grenada on the island of
Vieques, Puerto Rico. Code named
Amber and the Amberdines, the
supposedly fictitious eastern C arib
bean country o f Amber was accused
o f being a pawn o f Country Red to
"export terrorism to a number of
Caribbean countries." A Ranger
battalion based in Ft. Lewis, Wash
ington, was airlifted from C a lifo rn
ia to Vieques. Paratroopers were
landed in mountainous areas o f the
island and were backed by air at
tacks and the amphibious landing of
a thousand marines.
Amber and the Amberdines—
Grenada and the Grenadines; the
operation was more than "purely
coincidental,” the Orenadian gov
ernment charged at the time. Those
maneuvers now cast considerable
doubt on Reagan's claim that the re
cent invasion was a spontaneous
move to restore order in Grenada.
Planning for the invasion was in the
works long ago. It's little wonder
the Grenadians felt a need to stock
pile arms to defend themselves.
O n a steamy August night I began
to understand why the U .S . chose to
take such a hostile stance towards
Grenada. I and hundreds o f Grena
dians crowded into the auditorium
o f a St. George's high school to
watch performances from a number
o f Caribbean groups. Reggae musi
cians from St. Vincent, a political
theatre troupe from Dominica, a
calypso band from Barbado-.i— each
group closed its act with a short
speech on how inspiring they found
the changes in Grenada. W ith
shouts and smiles they pledged to re
turn to their islands and spread the
word o f the Grenadian "R e v o .”
For me, this West Indian cultural
night symbolized the real "th re a t"
posed by Grenada. It was not the
supposed export o f terrorism nor
the alleged Soviet-Cuban menace
that Reagan feared. Rather, it was
Grenada's example to other im pov
erished Caribbean nations that w or
ried the president— and also fright
ened the elites o f those countries
joining the invasion. W hat would
become o f American influence— not
to mention American investment
opportunities— if other countries
united with Grenada in an effort to
democratically
restructure
their
economies in the interests o f their
own people? U .S. corporate control
o f markets and resources would In
evitably be challenged. Caribbean
nations might decide to embark on a
more independent course in foreign
policy, as had Grenada
1-800-452-6505 or
(503) 229-4847
Grenada was the newest leak (hat
had sprung in the "A m erican lake,”
and it had to be plugged W ith the
recent military coup came the ad
ministration’s long-awaited oppor
tunity to dismantle what remained
o f the revolution and re-organize
Grenadian society— American style.
Then, watch THE CHEMICAL PEOPLE.
Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 8:00PM
Q Q 0 | ) Oregon Public Broadcasting
(Ed. note: Mr. Bigelow, e
teacher et Jefferson
High
School, visited Grenede during
the summer of 1982.)
Street Beat
by L e n ita D u k e a nd R ic h a rd B ro w n
W a lte r C lu te
S ec u rity
I think they should retaliate. I
don’t think it is right what they
did. It is the same with Grena
da. I'm glad the Marines went
there.
¿ I-
With the rubble cleared away from
the troops’ positions in Lebanon the
S treet B eet team asked, "In the af
termath o f the bombing, should U.S.
troops come home or launch some re
taliatory action?”
I think they should come on
home and leave the problems of
another country in their bands.
They should settle their own
problems
M r. P o rtw o o d
H o u s e w ife
I t ’s time to bring them home. It
was tragic what happened hut I
still think they should just come
home.
-
Bub S h e rm a n
Real Estate
r
Wally Hayden
Wine Distributor
I really think they ought to
pull out. They are involved with
other countries and their cul
tures. W e don't know anything
about
them,
therefore
we
should pull out.
I don't think they should
launch any retaliatory action,
but I think they should stay for
their own credibility. I f you
don't have your commitments
taken care o f in one area you
w on’ t have them taken care o f
in another area.
Lu N e al
U n e m p lo y e d
I really don't know, but 1
think (hey should have had
better protection. They knew
how it was over there The truck
should never have gotten that
far.