Another bitter period in the life of Grenada is upon us.
The month of October brings back tragic memories of the worst political killings on the island since Christopher Colombus reportedly visited our shores in 1498 and “discovered” Grenada in his voyage to the so-called “NEW WORLD” that was already existing and inhabited by the indigenous people.
The executions of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, three Cabinet colleagues and several other Grenadians left the souls of Grenadians badly wounded and very much a divided nation.
Today 41 years later, the country cannot reach a common consensus on the manner in which the October 19 anniversary of the army killings should be observed and commemorated.
The National Celebrations Committee (NCC) has labelled October 19 as National Heroes Day without any named Heroes as yet.
Many Grenadians are suspicious of the intention of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and believe that he is trying to lay the groundwork to name the assassinated Maurice Bishop as one of the national heroes of Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique.
The NCC, chaired by the controversial Dr. Wendy Crawford, has taken the bold decision to stage an event in Grenville, St Andrew on Saturday in which some kind of homage will be given to those who lost their lives on Fort George on the day the former Prime Minister was killed.
THE NEW TODAY fully supports the position taken by Dr. Terrence Marryshow and the members of the October 19, 1983 Martyrs Foundation to not abandon ship and should continue to hold their annual event on the Fort for their fallen heroes.
There must be some kind of dialogue between the Committee and the Marryshow group in going forward with activities for October 19 in order to deal with the issue of disunity.
It might be in the best interest of Dr. Crawford to recuse herself from these discussions and allow other members of NCC to do the engagement in order to arrive at some kind of consensus in the national interest.
41 years later, some persons in the Martyrs Foundation have not forgiven her alleged aligning with the side of the Bernard Coard Gang in the internal fight within the New Jewel Movement (NJM) on the issue of Joint Leadership.
The Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and many of his ministers in the current Congress administration are too young to know of several of those who were deeply involved in the bloody political upheavals in NJM and the Grenada Revolution.
It is also suspected that those known Coardites who have managed to gain prominent positions around the current Grenadian leader might be seizing the opportunity to accommodate some of their colleagues to give them a fresh breath of air in the Grenadian landscape.
There will not be closure to the October 1983 tragedy on the fort while the perpetrators of this most heinous crime continue to hold under “lock and key” what actually happened during those six days between October 19-25, 1983 when U.S and Caribbean troops intervened to bring an end to the mayhem on the Spice Isle.
The group known as OREL and its key players like Bernard Coard, Ewart Layne, Leon Cornwall, Liam James and John Ventour have continued to keep the Grenadian people in the dark about the unfolding of certain events that led to the tragic end of the lives of many citizens.
As Fidel Castro said a few days after the brutal killings in Grenada: “Unfortunately, the Grenadian revolutionaries themselves unleashed the events that opened the door to imperialist aggression. Today no one can yet say whether those who used the dagger of divisionism and internal confrontation did so motu proprio [for their own ends] or were inspired and egged on by imperialism.
It is something that could have been done by the CIA – and, if somebody else was responsible, the CIA could not have done it any better. The fact is that allegedly revolutionary arguments were used, invoking the purest principles of Marxism-Leninism and charging Bishop with practicing a cult of personality and with drawing away from the Leninist norms and methods of leadership.
In our view, nothing could be more absurd than to attribute such tendencies to Bishop. It was impossible to imagine anyone more noble, modest, and unselfish. He could never have been guilty of being authoritarian. If he had any defect, it was his excessive tolerance and trust.
Were those who conspired against him within the Grenadian party, army, and security forces by any chance a group of extremists drunk on political theory? Were they simply a group of ambitious, opportunistic individuals, or were they enemy agents who wanted to destroy the Grenadian revolution?
History alone will have the last word, but it would not be the first time that such things occurred in a revolutionary process.”
In our view, Coard’s group objectively destroyed the revolution and opened the door to imperialist aggression. Whatever their intentions, the brutal assassination of Bishop and his most loyal, closest comrades is a fact that can never be justified in that or any other revolution.”
The Bernard Coard Gang of Mass Murderers have seemingly taken an oath among themselves not to give any further information to the Grenadian people and remain silent on some of the most pertinent aspects of the October 19, 1983 events.
The position adopted many years ago still holds in that they will only accept “moral responsibility” but not “criminal responsibility” for the executions on the fort.
This Pol Pot group of mass murderers will be remembered in history as an unfortunate bunch of pseudo-Marxists who fought to help create a revolutionary process and then fought even harder to mash it up through their misguided interpretation of the theory known as Democratic Centralism.