The Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened?: Volume 1

This is the review I wrote for the Morning Star newspaper that was published on July 31. The headline on this review isn't mine. In fact, it contradicts my review. I have asked Amazon to change it but no dice yet. Hey ho, why not just read the review and make up your own headline.Grenada made history in 1979 with the first revolution in the English-speaking Caribbean, but, as one of the Revo’s leaders Bernard Coard tells in his new book, it ended in disaster, writes JOHN HAYLETTThe Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened by Bernard Coard (McDermott Publishing, $18.50)Grenada’s dictator Eric Gairy was off the island in March 1979 when the revolution broke out and his armed forces surrendered at the first volleys of shots fired into the air, unleashing massive celebrations among Grenada’s population of just 100,000 people.A people’s revolutionary government (PRG) was proclaimed, headed by prime minister Maurice Bishop, a popular lawyer. His father Rupert had been murdered by Gairy’s thugs, known as the Mongoose Gang.Apart from a small number of business people and just two villages on the entire island, Grenadians enthusiastically welcomed what they called the Revo and were ready to defend it.A modest shipment of arms and military advisers arrived from Guyana but its president Forbes Burnham told the New Jewel Movement (NJM) revolutionaries that there were limits to his country’s capacity and that they should “tap the Cubans.”Within weeks, more substantial means of defence, together with trainers who had fought to defend Angola’s independence against imperialist machinations, were flown in.There is little doubt that, at the time, had the NJM leadership chosen to hold elections, its candidates would have romped home. But the party was committed to a new form of society, turning its back on the Westminster model bequeathed to former possessions by British colonialism.Rather than agitating for elections, Grenadians welcomed PRG laws that offered idle lands to idle hands to set up agricultural co-operatives, public ownership of banking, telecoms and other monopolies and free comprehensive education.Local communities gathered to repair housing with materials donated by the PRG and to engage in joint endeavours to tackle health hazards such as mosquito breeding areas.Expatriate Grenadians in north America and Britain competed to help the Revo in various ways, from collecting bedding for the general hospital to organising collection of investment funds for a new international airport capable of receiving tourist flights.Fearing revolutionary contagion, some regional governments were wary of what was happening in Grenada from the outset.But Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley — whose government was close to Cuba at that time — led a cultural delegation that included reggae artist Peter Tosh and the Theatre Group for National Liberation on the first anniversary of the Revo.Aware that the US had a track record of destabilising and invading regimes of which it disapproved, Grenada’s youth signed up to join the People’s Revolutionary Army or the People’s Militia, both equipped by Cuba.US president Jimmy Carter was mulling over a potential naval blockade of Grenada within days of Gairy’s overthrow and, following his replacement by Ronald Reagan in 1981, hostility was ratcheted up with wild allegations that were lapped up by the British and US mass media.The new airport was unnecessary for tourism and was really a Cuban military base was one fake news item, the Soviet Union was building a secret submarine base under the island was another.The US and regional propaganda barrage was accompanied by a number of terrorist acts on the island, such as the bombing of the June 19 Heroes Day anniversary rally in Queens Park in 1980 that killed three young women and wounded 100 others.Reagan demanded that Grenada hold immediate “free” elections, break its links with Cuba and release all detainees, emboldening Washington’s allies on the island, a so-called Committee of 26, to publish their anti-Revo Grenadian Voice newspaper in 1981.Bishop had told the Queens Park rally that the Committee of 26 equated to the CIA and “those who want to link up with the CIA to overthrow the revolution, they are going to understand that counter-revolutionary activity will be met by revolutionary action, counter-revolutionary violence by revolutionary manners.“All counter-revolutionary plots, plans and schemes will be crushed with revolutionary firmness, revolutionary manners.“If you play with fire, fire will burn you, if you touch the revolution, power is going to break your backs. Don’t touch the Revo. It is too strong. It is too powerful.”Bishop told Reagan that Grenada would not bow the knee. It would not release the Mongoose Gang bully boys or sanction any return to a bourgeois model of society. It would remain friends with Cuba.That may have been when Washington decided to invade Grenada, going on to hold war games, initially Ocean Venture 81, and the next year a seaborne invasion operation in Puerto Rico dubbed Amber and the Amberines in a clear reference to Grenada and the Grenadines.But, by the time US troops landed in Grenada on October 25 1983, the Revo was in tatters. Grenadians had taken up arms against each other, Bishop was dead and a narrative, given credence by Washington and Havana, was already current that his deputy Bernard Coard had overthrown him in a power struggle.Coard, Bishop’s friend since they were 12, has consistently denied this account.He was sentenced to hang by a USfinanced and driven court of convenience in Grenada before his sentence was commuted, first to life and then 40 years, of which he served 26.His book is the first of a five-volume endeavour looking at the roots of the revolution, its achievements, its internal degeneration, the role of the US and the prison education programme that Coard led during his incarceration.While Bishop was the public face of the revolution, never happier than addressing rallies or mingling with the people, Coard was more bookish, responsible for the economy and inner-party political education.His attention to detail and recourse to recorded evidence shine through his self-critical account of the problems and disagreements that afflicted the revolution, which was carried through by small numbers of young and inexperienced comrades.Coard’s conclusions may be disputed, but they cannot be cast aside as fanciful. Chapter and verse merit engagement and evaluation.Some internal differences during the process were suspected during the revolutionary period, such as between the “Maximum Leader” principle favoured by the Cuban revolutionary leadership and collective responsibility preferred by the NJM central committee.But Coard brings to light conflicts on other issues where the NJM voiced disagreements but had to abide by Cuban leadership decisions.Possibly the most disturbing is over the kind of invasion that Grenada might expect and prepare for — a full-blooded intervention by US armed forces or something akin to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba or the Contra war against the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, where exiles and mercenaries were deployed.Coard reports that the Cuban leadership believed that direct US involvement was unlikely. Grenadians thought otherwise and sought supplies of heavy weaponry from Moscow, only for supplies to be held up in Cuba rather than being forwarded.Had they reached Grenada, resistance to the US invasion might have exacted a higher price, but Washington would still have prevailed despite the brave efforts of the Cuban internationalists and Grenadian armed forces, particularly in light of the revolution’s implosion, the consequent divisions between the NJM and the mass of the people and Havana’s refusal to intervene militarily.Whatever his complaints about the Cuban leadership, Coard does not hide the reality of Grenadian responsibility for what took place.It was Grenadians who elevated to principle status acceptance or rejection of so-called “joint leadership” within the NJM, though not government functions.Grenadians alone, from opposing sides of the controversy, chose to put Bishop under house arrest, to release him by force of numbers and take over Fort Rupert rather than hold a rally in the capital St Georges as planned, to open fire on army units sent to restore order and to execute Bishop and seven of his supporters by firing squad.Coard’s denial of criminal guilt for the deaths on October 19 1983 has always been accompanied by acceptance of “moral and political responsibility” for what happened.“Because of my seniority in the party, I blame myself most of all of those alive today. I should’ve seen where things were heading much earlier, should have taken vigorous steps to avert the crisis and then, when it began, to end it speedily. I did not see things ending the way they did. I should have. I will have to live with this realisation for the remainder of my life,” he writes.The searing honesty of his account, frankness in acknowledging errors and shortcomings and desire to assist future generations to learn from the positives and failings of Grenada’s Revo make this book a must-read.May his subsequent four volumes prove as compelling and enlightening.

Highly recommended reading, brilliantly and honestly written and is must read for every Grenadian and indeed everyone who is interested in the history of the Caribbean as this book provides us with much recent history. The book also reveals the true facts and impossible position that the Grenada revolution found themselves in, inasmuch as the USA were going to invade Grenada regardless of the events that took place and perhaps points to the USA's direct involvement in the events that led up to the inevitable USA invasion of this tiny island. The fact that the USA took the position of this tiny Caribbean Island and the Grenada Revolution as being a "National Security Risk" for the USA demonstrates the corporate/imperialistic bullying that was always behind the scenes and adds credible weight to the claims that the USA would rather a neighbour who would build economic relations to benefit the USA than build homes and hospitals/schools to benefit their own community/country. Another fine example of imperialism at it's worst and the conflicts within a revolutionary movement that failed to recognise their own power, and ironically, powerlessness, whilst also facing to recognise and fully appreciate the powerful imperialistic machine that would inevitably bring down the Grenadian Revolution. A fascinating and interesting account from Bernard Coard, brilliantly written and a must read..

For those who care about an important part of Grenadian history, 1979 - 1983,this is a vital book to read. It is commendable - honest, factual and well written.

A detailed and riveting account of the Grenada revolution. A real page turner.

left me speechless, full of thought and overflowing with tears

Good book