Photo credit: Government of Grenada
As Former Press Secretary to Maurice Bishop, Don Rojas witnessed the triumphs and eventual ousting of Grenada’s socialist experiment by US invasion.
In 1979 a socialist revolution under the leadership of the New Jewel Movement took power in Grenada. For the next four years, the Caribbean island nation engaged in a daring experiment of popular sovereignty and democracy, tackling questions of education, inequality, and hunger head-on. But the revolution didn’t last. Weakened by infighting and eventually deposed by a US military invasion, the Grenadian Revolution met its end in 1983. Some 40 years later, former Press Secretary Don Rojas speaks with The Real News Board Member Bill Fletcher on the course of the Grenadian Revolution—its triumphs, challenges, and eventual fall.
Studio Production: Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Welcome to The Real News. I’m your host, Bill Fletcher. We have a great program in store for you today. In March 1979, an uprising on the Caribbean island of Grenada overthrew the tyrannical regime of Eric Gairy. The uprising led by the New JEWEL Movement had broad popular support. Beginning almost immediately, efforts were undertaken that reshaped Grenada away from being a neocolonial appendage of Britain and the United States, and instead into the direction of a sovereign, progressive state.
Though there was a collective leadership, internationally known leader and prime minister was the charismatic, Maurice Bishop. Along with his colleagues in the New JEWEL Movement, they attempted to move Grenada into the global efforts to achieve popular democracy and nonalignment with the intensifying geopolitical bipolarization of nations during the Cold War.
The New JEWEL Movement developed close ties with the Cuban government, which offered Grenada various levels of practical support in the development process. The New JEWEL Movement also developed significant relationships with progressive forces in the Caribbean and with African Americans in the United States.
By 1983, it became apparent that there were difficulties that the revolution, which people in Grenada called the Revo, that they were facing. Mass organizations were drying up, frustration was building, and the struggle broke out within the leadership of the New JEWEL Movement, a struggle that ultimately led to the murder of Maurice Bishop and several of his comrades followed by an invasion of the island by the United States.
Our guest today, in addition to being a close friend, was there in Grenada. Don Rojas, renowned journalist and media visionary, was the press secretary for Maurice Bishop. He witnessed the rise and decline of the New JEWEL Movement experiment, and he is here to speak with us today about it. 2023 is the 40th anniversary of the destruction of the Grenadian Revolution, and we believe the time had come to explore deeply what happened and why. Don, welcome.
Don Rojas:
Thank you, Brother Bill. Always good to be with you and great to be back in the studios of the Real News Network here in downtown Baltimore. Familiar location.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Indeed, indeed.
Don Rojas:
Yes. For both of us.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
For both of us.
Don Rojas:
Yes.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
It’s good to be doing this. I’ve been looking forward to this exchange. And I mean, as you may remember, I’ve been pushing you for years to write something about this to say more.
Don Rojas:
Memorize are in progress. Memorize are in progress.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Good.
Don Rojas:
We just got them started and it will consume a fair amount of my time in the months ahead, but we think that the time has come for this to be done. It’s necessary given the 40th anniversary of the tragic events of October 1983. But yes, going back to the early days of the revolution, revolution came to power under the leadership of Maurice Bishop and the New JEWEL Movement on March 13th.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
But who was the New JEWEL Movement?
Don Rojas:
Okay. The New JEWEL Movement was a merger essentially of two grassroots social justice organizations that had existed in Grenada for a number of years. One was led by Maurice Bishop. Movement for Assemblies of the People was his organization’s name. And the other led by Unison Whiteman, who had an organization, launched an organization called JEWEL, Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation was the acronym. That’s the JEWEL acronym. And so, the merger of Movement Assemblies of the People and JEWEL brought about the New JEWEL Movement.
Just parenthetically, the brother who Unison Whiteman, who I mentioned, who founded JEWEL, was also one of those martyrs of October 19th, 1983. He was assassinated alongside of Maurice Bishop. At the time, he was a foreign minister, minister of foreign affairs in the people’s revolutionary government of Grenada.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, in March of 1979, there’s an uprising. And in many of the mainstream media sources, they talk about a coup. What exactly was that and why? Why was there an uprising?
Don Rojas:
Yeah, there was an uprising because for years prior to 1979, the New JEWEL Movement was undertaking a struggle, an ongoing struggle against its tyrannical regime led by a man by the name of Gairy, Eric Matthew Gairy, who by the way, back in the 1950s when he first entered politics in Grenada, entered as a fairly progressive trade union leader, who had returned from working in the oil fields of Aruba and Curacao and the Dutch Antilles, returned to Grenada and entered politics.
It so happens that Maurice Bishop’s father, Rupert Bishop, like Gairy also works for a number of years in the oil industry in Aruba. And Bishop was actually born in Aruba, went back to Grenada when Bishop was a little boy. And so, he grew up in Grenada. And his father became owner of a small commercial enterprise in St. George’s, but also became involved in the anti-Gairy politics in the mid-1970s.
And in fact was part of a demonstration against the Gairy regime’s rush to independence from the British colonial powers at the time without any full consultation with the Grenada people and certainly without a new constitution. The idea was that he was going to move towards independence as a way of consolidating his own political power in Grenada.
Just prior to him leaving the country the day before the 13th of March 1979, he left orders with his police forces, and in particular his paramilitary forces. Gairy had put together a kind of a group of thugs, very similar to the Tontons Macoutes on Duvalier’s regime in Haiti. This was a sort of a paramilitary gang that took orders directly from Gairy himself. And they had carried out campaigns of terror for years prior to this, against the New JEWEL Movement and against the Bishop family in particular.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Was this the Mongoose squad or something like that?
Don Rojas:
The Mongoose Gang, yes, yes, the Mongoose Gang, so-called. And in one of these demonstrations in 1975, Bishop’s father who was participating in that demonstration actually was killed by the Mongoose Gang, shot in the back while he was protecting young school children and youth who were participating in that demonstration. So, even before the revolution came to power, Bishop’s father had already sacrificed his life for the struggle for true independence in Grenada.
So, anyway, Gairy was on his way out of the country the day before and left specific instructions with his Mongoose Gang to ratchet up the campaign of terror against Bishop and the New JEWEL Movement. Word got out to the young members of the New JEWEL Movement that they faced very, very serious consequences, including threats to their own lives with Gairy out of the country. He had left orders for them to be literally arrested and charged with sedition.
So, it was decided to move quickly to remove Gairy from power while he was out of the country. And so, a group of young men, poorly armed on the morning of March 13th, 1979, took power in a surprise attack against the military, Gairy’s military. They took over the radio station and key government facilities and announced on air that the Gairy dictatorship had been overthrown and that a new government had come to power and call on the people of Grenada to show their support for the new government, which they did.
Thousands of people flowed into the streets of every town and village across the country, indicating that this was a very popular overthrow of not just a dictatorship, but Gairy had become erratic. And as he grew older, he became enchanted with things like flying saucers and all kinds of crazy phenomenon like that. And so, patently unprepared to continue to govern an independent country.
So, the revolution was very quick. And there was minimum loss of life. I think only one or two people actually lost their lives. So, it came to power in March of 1979 with popular support from the Grenadian people, and indeed also support from the masses of Caribbean working people across the region, who had been looking, observing from a distance the political developments in Grenada in the 1970s, and in the post-independence period, post-1976, Grenada did receive its independence in Britain in 1976, in February.
Next year, actually we’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of their independence. But the revolution then proceeded under Bishop’s leadership and the leadership of the New JEWEL Movement, which declared-
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Let me just stop you there.
Don Rojas:
Yes.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, they come into power and what kind of political system, political and economic system did they seek to introduce? How would you describe it?
Don Rojas:
Sought to introduce a political economic system along the lines of progressive social democracy, one might say, with heavy emphasis on empowering the working people, particularly workers, farmers and fishermen, and empowering other mass organizations and organizing them into mass groupings of youth and women and workers, et cetera.
The idea was to suspend the colonial constitution or the neocolonial constitution that had been imposed in 1976 to suspend that constitution, put the country on a new course that would involve the energies and the creativities of working people, and particularly those who were the creators of wealth, the wealth of the country, more and more empower them to participate in the day-to-day governance of the revolution.
That was an experiment in popular democracy, participatory democracy that had begun in the early days of the revolution and continued throughout the four and a half years of its existence.
I think that perhaps more than anything else differentiated or distinguished the Grenada social experiment in the context of Caribbean history, in context of the broader Caribbean-Latin American region. And that process also was very much welcomed by the progressive forces across the world.
And so, the active involvement of the people’s revolutionary government in international forests, such as the nonaligned movement, the address that Bishop made to the United Nations General Assembly in October of 1979, just a few months after the revolution came to power, kind of laid out a blueprint for Grenada’s role in international affairs.
It stepped forward in a very bold way and said, “Look, we are going to pursue a development strategy that is independent of any outside pressure, particularly from the United States,” the big imperialist power of the Western Hemisphere, which had ever since the Declaration of the Monroe Doctrine back in the early part of the 19th century, the principles that were used by successive US imperial administrations in terms of foreign policy towards the Caribbean and Latin America, was that ultimately the US had the “right” to determine the general direction and the ideological character of governments throughout the Caribbean.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
But how did a small island like Grenada-
Don Rojas:
Yeah, punching above its weight, so to speak.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Right, right. How did they think … I mean, we see what’s happened, the difficulties with Cuba. We see the way that Haiti has been treated ever since they kicked the French out in 1803, 1804. How did Grenada and the New JEWEL Movement think … What was their theory about how they were going to be able to carry this project out?
Don Rojas:
Yeah, it was indeed a bold experiment in many respects. It had broken with tradition in terms of how foreign policy in particular was shaped and crafted by the neocolonial regimes in the Caribbean that had achieved independence from Britain and other European colonial powers in the 1960s and 1970s.
It was the belief that the time had come in the Western Hemisphere and in the Caribbean region in particular, to stand up to the bully of the Imperial North coming out of Washington. All the various policies coming out of Washington did not respect the national sovereignty of any of the countries in the region.
And so, that by a group of young, talented, committed, and highly politically developed revolutionaries, among them, Maurice Bishop, they viewed this through a very different lens. They viewed the relationship with the United States. They would not accept the notion, and Bishop made it clear many of his speeches that Grenada was in any one’s backyard, certainly not in the backyard of US imperialism.
The other practical consideration that the Grenadian and Bishop in particular, Grenadian revolutionaries were confronted with was that there was in fact an existing successful revolution in the form of the Cuban Revolution that existed in our part of the world
And that there was a lot to learn from the Cuban model of how to move forward with broad socioeconomic development in a Cold War era, in the Cold War era, the need to be aggressive in pursuit of a pluralistic, nonaligned foreign policy that did not rule out developing cooperative relations with European countries, both in the Western Europe and in Eastern Europe, and with other Third World countries in particular, in Africa and in Asia.
So, there was a number of ideas. There were a number of ideas that kind of been kicking around in the minds of these young revolutionary leaders in Grenada that kind of gelled, began to come together in a kind of fusion of perspectives, especially after the first meeting between Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop, which took place a few months after the Grenada Revolution came to power.
In the first conversation with Fidel, Maurice Bishop made a request. “Fidel,” he said, “look, we want to be able to develop ongoing close relations with Cuba, and we are looking to Cuba for assistance in terms of providing us with whatever economic assistance you can offer to build a solid infrastructure, economic infrastructure in Grenada, upon which we can then advance other aspects of the revolutionary agenda.”
And primarily, first and foremost was assistance to build an international airport. Grenada did not have the ability back then to bring in large aircraft that would enable the tourist industry commensurate with its potential and its capacity. And so, number one, very simple thing, but in Grenada’s context, a very large project was put on the table by Bishop in his first meeting with Fidel and Fidel’s cabinet.
And Castro’s response at the time was, “Well, we will see what we can do. We certainly will take that into consideration. We recognize the logic behind the request and behind the need to move in this direction.” But beyond that, after that first meeting, they emerged a chemistry between the two leaders, between Bishop and Fidel’s, to the point where many Cuban colleagues and comrades would say to us privately, Fidel sees Bishop as almost like his younger son or younger brother or a son. And he became very fond of him personally.
And so, within a matter of months, the Cuban government did in fact honor their commitment and provided Grenada with the first of many shiploads of heavy equipment accompanied by trained Cuban engineers, architects, et cetera, who were then sent to Grenada to work alongside Grenadian workers to begin constructing this international airport. It was an enormous project by any standards and certainly by the standards of a small developing country like Grenada.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
I remember this very well. And I remember that there were insinuations that Grenada was building a military base.
Don Rojas:
More than Insinuations, comrade, more than insinuations. When Reagan came to power in 1981, two years after the revolution triumphed, the Reagan administration immediately began a campaign of disinformation, lies, trying to undermine the Grenada Revolution in both domestic and foreign policy.
And one of the lies that was manufactured and pushed heavily was that the so-called international airport was in fact being constructed as a military base for Cuba and the Soviet Union in America’s backyard. It was not the case at all. Absolutely. There was no evidence that that was happening. But unfortunately, that piece of disinformation didn’t in fact have a lot of influence on the minds of a lot of folks in the United States and around the world.
That this campaign of destabilization under the Reagan administration continued unabated for the next couple of years to the point where the US military in fact, began to prepare for a possible military invasion of Grenada as far back as 1981. They carried out a series of military exercises on an island called Vieque, which is-
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Oh, yeah, in Puerto Rico.
Don Rojas:
North of Puerto Rico, exactly, which was sort of a training ground for the US military. And so, there were exercises carried out and rehearsed for a potential invasion of Grenada as far back as ’81. Yeah.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, I want to get to what happens in 1983 in a second, but I want to ask you, in terms of the condition of the people in the period from ’79 to ’83, how would you sum it up?
Don Rojas:
Material conditions improved quite dramatically as a matter of fact. In terms of broad macromeasures, if we take a look at the growth of the economy, gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 5% or more in the period of the revolution, which was the highest growth rate of any Caribbean country at that time.
What that manifested itself in terms of improved the material conditions of the lives of working people, lives of the Grenadian masses, better healthcare and free healthcare services provided by the Cuban doctors and nurses, the brigades of Cuban doctors and nurses that Fidel sent to Grenada to work along with their grenade and counterparts, provided invaluable free health services.
In the area of education, the Center for Popular Education, which was one of the initiatives of the Ministry of Education during the PRG time carried out a mass nationwide program attacking illiteracy, functional illiteracy. And so, the illiteracy rates among the masses fell quite dramatically by 25 to 30% just in that four-year period.
A number of small agro-based industries began to be established so that the agricultural products that were produced … Grenada is a very fertile land. And so, agriculture is extremely productive there and very well known around the world for its production of spice products. Hence, the name the Spice Isle. Grenada is known as the Spice Isle, but also the production of cocoa.
Grenadian cocoa, raw cocoa is among the highest quality cocoa you can find anywhere, grown anywhere in the world. And in fact, much of Grenada’s cocoa ends up in high-end chocolates produced in Switzerland and Belgium and other parts of Europe.
So, Grenada had its economic base was agriculture, and that needed to be expanded, and it was expanded. And of course, on top of that, you add the ability to expand your tourism with the construction of a new airport, would put Grenada on a road to a sustainable economic development path. That was essentially the strategic objective of Grenada’s economic development policies.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Now, in the United States at that time, there was in the left, and particularly the black left, there was a lot of support for the New JEWEL Movement.
Don Rojas:
Yes.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
And an organization you may remember, the National Black United Front, had been very active in that.
Don Rojas:
Yes. I used to work closely with the National Black United Front right up until I left for Grenada. In fact, worked with Reverend Daughtry and others based in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. At the time, I was the editor of the Amsterdam News, New York Amsterdam News. And so, came into very close contact with the leadership of NBUF, and in fact, helped to put together a delegation. NBUF led a delegation to Grenada, a fairly substantial delegation of solidarity activists from the United States, visited Grenada in 1981 and participated in activities there.
So, yes, you are right. There was a base of support among African American civil rights and social justice activists in support of Grenada. They established a US-Grenada friendship society.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
That’s right.
Don Rojas:
Came out of that period. And in fact, people like Angela Davis visited Grenada during the revolution. I had the privilege of being her escort. I was assigned to show Angela around by Maurice Bishop while she was there, and same with Harry Belafonte. Harry came to Grenada as well during the time of the revolution. I had the honor and privilege of escorting him around as well.
So, not only high-profile celebrities from the African American community, but also just activists who have been involved in racial justice work in the US gravitated towards Grenada. They saw this as it was a predominantly African population, descendants of enslaved Africans with a very rich history of anti-slavery resistance, by the way, in Grenada, going all the way back to the days of Julien Fedon, who led a slave rebellion in the 1790s, around the same time that the uprisings were being organized against French slave masters in Haiti.
So, there’s that long tradition that is present in Grenadian political history that kind of prepared the population for this new approach to post independence, political development in the form of the Grenada Revolution.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, how does the editor of the Amsterdam News end up in Grenada?
Don Rojas:
Interesting. Yes. So, I’m in New York at the time that Bishop comes to speak at the general assembly, I mentioned the speech earlier. This was in October, late September, early October of 1979. It so happens that at that same general assembly session, Fidel Castro was there.
Fidel spoke, as well as Daniel Ortega, who was the leader of the Sandinista movement at the time. Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua in that same year, 1979, July of ’79, a few months after the New JEWEL Movement came to power in Grenada, a few months after the Shah of Iran was overthrown in January of 1979. Later on in 1979, Idi Amin was overthrown in Uganda.
It prompted the Great Calypsonians, the mighty power to write a song about 1979, the memorable historical events of 1979. He spoke about all of those, the Iranian Revolution, Nicaragua, Grenada, et cetera. So, 1979 was indeed a memorable year.
So, anyway, I met with Bishop in New York. I interviewed him for the newspaper. I wrote up the interview. I also, at the time, I hosted a radio program on WLIB, a black-owned station in New York. I had a Sunday morning program. I invited him to be on my show. I interviewed him.
And then we went out after that to have a chitchat and a drink. And he said to me, “Look, we are trying to construct a media infrastructure in Grenada, a revolutionary media infrastructure. Is this something that you may be interested in working with us on?” I said, “Oh, it sounds like a fascinating idea. Let me give it some thought. Let me discuss it with my family, with my wife.”
And then he went back to Grenada and 10 days passed, I got a call from Grenada’s Ambassador to the UN, Brother Kendrick Radix. And he was based in New York at the time. He said, “Look, I just spoke with the Prime Minister and he wanted me to reach out to you and remind you of that conversation that you and him had a couple of weeks ago. And is this still a possibility?
In fact, we need someone like you as quickly as possible. We need to move on resuscitating the Free West Indian newspaper as sort of the newspaper of the Grenada Revolution, the official newspaper of the revolution. It was a weekly newspaper.” He said, “Is there anywhere that you can come and help us get that off the ground?” A matter of days, I was in Grenada.
And so, I undertook my first official duty in the People’s Revolutionary Government was to be the editor-in-chief of Grenada’s national newspapers, known as the Free West Indian. And I edited that paper for two years. And then Bishop invited me to join him in his office, in the prime minister’s office to work as a press secretary to the prime minister. And so, I accepted that offer and moved from my newspaper office to his office and traveled around the world with him as the prime minister’s press secretary.
I had the privilege of seeing him function up close and personal in negotiations with heads of state.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
What was he like?
Don Rojas:
Very confident, very articulate brother, was never overwhelmed or overawed by the prospect of sitting face to face with the leaders of the Soviet Union or East Germany or Libya. We met with Gaddafi and traveled around the world. We even met with Kim Jong-Il in North Korea in Pyongyang.
So, a lot of traveling in that two-year period with him as he moved from capital to capital across Europe, across Africa, and even in Asia, to try to drum up support for the Grenada Revolution. And in so doing, he was very successful. He projected Grenada onto the global political stage far beyond its size or its political significance.
And he was seen by his peers as a rising young star coming out of what was known then as the Third World, the developing world. We call the global south these days. But he was seen by so many of the leaders of Europe and Africa and Asia as this young rising star with charisma, with brilliant ideas and the ability to articulate those ideas clearly.
And so, everywhere we went, we got found support for not just diplomatic support in our ongoing struggle against the disinformation campaign of the Reagan administration, but also concrete economic support, or at least pledges of economic support, even from some of the Northern European social democracies. They offered technical support and some material support for the construction of the international airport, recognized that Cuba alone could not undertake or should not by itself undertake such a massive task.
So, yeah, those visits, to Bishop’s credit, thanks to his leadership really, projected tiny Grenada onto the global geopolitical map.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Was he a good listener?
Don Rojas:
He was a good listener. He had a great sense of humor. He was not drawn in as so many other political leaders tend to be into the realm of being struck by power. Power in and of itself could be a narcotic.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Oh, indeed.
Don Rojas:
Yeah. And I saw how he struggled with that, but was able to overcome it because he tried to keep true to his roots. He was a Caribbean man, middle class Caribbean man, been educated in England as a lawyer. By the way, he had a very successful legal career in England before he returned to Grenada to get involved in local politics there. That’s a whole nother chapter of his life.
And a brother who was, he loved to play with ideas. He had a vision. He was a visionary guy. And his vision, how do you articulate a vision of a popular democracy to a people that had previously never experienced anything quite like it? That was a challenge for him and for me and for others who were close to him, who did in fact work with him on crafting his speeches and talking points at press conferences and things of that nature. That was the role of the press secretary at the time.
But I came to admire this brother for his integrity, his honesty, apart from his skills as a political leader. Just as a human being, I found him to be well-grounded and not infatuated by the trappings of his office.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, let’s jump to 1983. In September of ’83, a very good friend of mine who had been involved in Grenada support and the National Black United Front went to Grenada on her honeymoon. And when she and her husband came back, they were very unsettled. And I think she might’ve gone on that delegation that you described and had been very excited. When she came back in ’83, it was very different. She and her husband were concerned and they-
Don Rojas:
Concerned about?
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
They said, there are problems that are emerging. The mass organizations aren’t functioning very well. They’re losing membership and energy. And people are trying to figure out what to do, what mistakes are being made. I remember actually reading an internal document from the NJM that was captured by the United States, by the troops, and put in this book of documents.
And the last documents were indicating there’s a problem. We’re having a problem in the party. We’re having a problem with our mass organizations. And my friend was concerned. And shortly thereafter, we hear about this coup. So, what was happening? What was happening in ’83 and what led up to this?
Don Rojas:
I think there was a lot of reports of these very serious problems that you refer to. Many of these reports were blown out of proportion, number one. Number two, many of them became tools or weapons in the hands of Bishop’s adversaries as a way to question his leadership.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Such as Bernard Coard?
Don Rojas:
Yes, such as Bernard Coard. Exactly. And those who gravitated around Bernard Coard. The expectation that after four years, four and a half years, that the early days of the enthusiasm for the revolutionary process would live on with such intensity. That was somewhat idealistic in my view, looking back at things now. I mean, revolutionary processes tend to be protracted process.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Oh, indeed.
Don Rojas:
They don’t just wave a magic wand and you produce a magical outcome. They involve a process of organizing the people at various mass levels in terms of continuing to energize the people in that process of popular democracy. These were all challenges that other revolutions had gone through before, including the Cuban Revolution. And it’s still to some degree, after six decades in power.
It was also the pursuit of by Bernard Coard and his followers who were enamored by the Soviet model essentially, the Stalinist model to be more precise. They somehow got all wrapped up in this ultra left ideologies and used the arguments of things slowing down, et cetera, lack of enthusiasm, et cetera. Many, many using them in many cases as pretext to push an idea that the only way forward was to establish a joint leadership kind of arrangement in Grenada, where you’ll have, I don’t know, two co-equal leaders, political leaders running the country.
It was, in my view, a totally irrational idea that had no basis in historical reality or historical fact. There were no presidents certainly in the Caribbean region.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
What do they want to do differently?
Don Rojas:
Yeah, that remains an open question. I think that Coard and his followers felt that somehow that he had the ability to organize and to strategize better than Bishop, and that Bishop’s strength was public speaking, projecting the face of the Grenada Revolution on the global state. All right, even if those two things were true and correct, why can’t a situation be developed where they complement each other rather than separate those attributes and put them under some kind of vertical, new vertical structure of two leaders or core leaders?
I mean, however you try to approach finding a political logic to this idea, you come up short in my opinion.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, what happened?
Don Rojas:
So, what happened was that upon our return to Grenada from a very successful trip to Europe and North Africa and on the way back, we stopped in Cuba for a couple of days for discussions with the Cuban comrades and with Fidel in particular. Upon our return to Grenada, Bishop was put on the house arrest. A hastily called meeting of the party was convened to a resolution calling for the joint leadership was put towards the party.
Bishop expressed his reservations about it. He didn’t think it was practical that it could work. Coard and his supporters immediately rejected Bishop’s reservations and proceeded to call a vote and to manipulate the party leadership into going along with this harebrained scheme.
Bishop was then put under house arrest, and he was literally silenced for the next several days, right up until the morning of October the 19th when the Grenadian people and the masses of Grenadians, who had been sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out what the hell is going on with our popular government, and is this an attempt to overthrow the Bishop government?
They took things into their own hands and decided, “No, this is nonsense. We’re going to put an end to this.” And they gathered in their hundreds and marched up to where Bishop’s home was located and where he was on the house arrest. And they released him from his house arrest and took him to Fort Rupert, which was known at the time it’s now Fort George. Took him there where he was to rest, regroup, and prepare to address a mass rally in the market square in St. George’s in the heart of the city later that day.
And he was joined, of course, in the demonstrations, it took him to Fort Rupert. Those demonstrations were led by Unison Whiteman, Fitzroy Bain, Vincent Noel, some of the same brothers and sisters who perished with Bishop on that very day. So, they took him up to the fort.
And while he was gathering himself and preparing, I mean, when I saw Bishop shortly after he was released from his house arrest. He was in a pair of shorts, flipflops. He was gaunt. He had lost weight. He had not been sleeping. You could see in his face that he was a man on the duress.
And so, if he was going to address a mass audience of thousands of people then streaming in from all parts of the country into the capitol, he would need time to regroup himself. And it was in that interim that the military contingent approached the fort and began opening fire indiscriminately on those who had gathered in support of Bishop. They separated out Bishop, Unison Whiteman, Fitzroy Bain and others, mostly leaders of government, separated them out and a few minutes later lined them up against the wall and executed them in cold blood, shut them down like animals.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
What led these soldiers that have been part of this movement to feel like that was the right thing?
Don Rojas:
Well, the soldiers themselves said they were simply carrying out orders from their superiors to sort of retake the fort. The idea was that somehow, Bishop and his supporters had risen up to overtake the fort, and therefore, the fort itself was a military location. And I guess the argument was that you move to retake it.
And in the process of doing that, the executions took place. In addition to that, several other people, in fact, altogether 19 innocent people were killed on that day, innocent Grenadians, the seven led by Bishop and the members of cabinet who were summarily executed. In addition to those, you had another 12 or 13 innocent Grenadians who perished on that day.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
So, following that, a General Austin?
Don Rojas:
Yes, General Austin, who was a general of the Army, went on the local radio station, Radio Free Grenada, and announced that the government, the Army, People’s Revolutionary Army, had placed a 24-hour shoot on site curfew on the Grenadian people, literally locking them up in their homes. The threat of being shot on site if they were left the homes. This was totally unprecedented in the history of Grenada and the entire Caribbean.
What this meant really was that it unleashed a reign of terror on the Grenadian people. I mean, set aside what happened earlier that day in terms of the executions is now a military turning against the Grenadian people itself and threatening them with being shot on site if they were to leave their homes. One could look back and say, “Well, this was probably a panic move on their part.”
Whatever the motivation was, the objective result was that it was a crime of terror against the Grenadian people themselves. And that unleashed a period of trauma and pain that had never been experienced before in Grenada. And that trauma, Brother Bill, that trauma has been existing for the last 40 years, been passed on from one generation to the next until what just happened in Grenada happened.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
We just have a few minutes, so why don’t you tell us?
Don Rojas:
What just happened in Grenada was that the current government, a young, progressive, sort of social democratic government led by Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, took a bold and courageous decision to declare October the 19th a national holiday for the first time in 40 years. There had been successive governments that had run the country from ’83 to today, and not a single one of them had even countenance the idea of memorializing those who had perished, including Bishop and the others on October the 19th, 1983, until this young government came to power.
And so, by establishing this date as a national holiday and as a national hero’s day, and declaring it to be a day of reflection and mourning for the first time in 40 years, I believe has initiated a process of long-term healing on the part of the Grenadian people, a process of reflection, a process of not trying to sweep under the rug historical truths that took place 40 years ago, but to confront them to learn sometimes the very painful lessons that they have presented to us or have left for us to reflect on and to honor in an appropriate way the life and the legacy of those who gave their lives on October the 19th.
So, that’s where we are today. And the government organized a series of activities on the 19th, including a large state-sponsored and organized memorial ecumenical service, followed by a memorial ceremony on the 19th a few weeks ago. And it was a very moving, very successful event. And I think it has begun a process of reconciliation and healing that hopefully will continue in the years ahead.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Don Rojas, I want to thank you very much. I have been so wanting to do this interview. And part of it is also cathartic because I remember very well when the coup happened in the US invasion and the dismay that so many of us felt, not just with the murders, but it’s like what happened to this revolution? I mean, how could Coard, how could Austin, these other people, did they just lose their minds? And so, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this.
Don Rojas:
My pleasure, my brother. I owe it. I owe you this time.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Thank you.
Don Rojas:
And I feel that it is my ongoing responsibility as long as I have the breath of life in me to try to bring to the world the true picture of what happened in Grenada 40 years ago or was attempted to take place in terms of building a new society in the image and likeness of the people of the country itself. So, thank you for this opportunity.
Bill Fletcher Jr.:
Well, thank you very much. And thank you, the viewers and listeners of this program for joining us. I’m Bill Fletcher. This is The Real News Network. And with signing off, have a good one.
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