A Grenada Potpourri
P R 181802Z MAR 80
SUBJECT: A Grenada Potpourri
REF: (A) BRIDGETOWN 1297; (B) BRIDGETOWN 1294
RELEASED IN FULL
- Grenada’s Festival of the Revolution, commemorating the first anniversary of the March 13, 1979 New Jewel coup, prompted widespread press coverage regionally. Embassy’s representative to celebrations reported separately (Ref A) and USICA has transmitted some press comment (Ref B). Following are other items we have collected.
- Jamaica. Prime Minister Maurice Bishop told a press conference toward the end of the celebrations that Jamaican PM Michael Manley was “in the throes of a vicious destabilization plot.” Manley’s presence as chief guest at the Grenada celebrations at this time was “an act of the most fundamental solidarity” with the Grenada people and their revolution, Bishop added.
The New Jewel Newsletter, organ of the ruling party, went farther and reportedly accused the CIA, imperialism, and business interests in Jamaica of collaborating to topple the Manley government. Their tactics, the newsletter said, included the hoarding of foodstuffs, issuing propaganda that branded Manley a communist, and blocking economic improvement. The newsletter charged that “reactionary elements” had organized political violence in Jamaica in which four persons were killed recently.
- Detainees. There had been speculation that there would be a release of political prisoners to commemorate the first anniversary. There was no such dramatic gesture. When Bishop was questioned on the subject at a press conference, he said that the Preventive Detention Tribunal had recommended the release of a “number of prisoners” who would be given their freedom shortly. There are currently 79 persons being held under preventive detention in Grenada.
- Attendance at the celebrations. We have not seen a complete list of attendees. The press has cited, besides US, Britain, Canada (two parliamentarians besides the High Commissioner who stayed the entire week), Barbados, Jamaica, Cuba, and Nicaragua, representatives from the following countries: Algeria, North Korea, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Embassy’s DCM also encountered representatives from France, Romania, South Yemen, the Seychelles, Guyana, Brazil, and St. Lucia (George Odlum).
Again, according to the press, the following Caribbean politicians were invited individually: Cheddi Jagan and Clive Thomas (Guyana), Tim Hector (Antigua), Raffique Shah, George Weekes, Basdeo Panday, James Millette, and Clive Nunez (Trinidad), Rosie Douglas and Athie Martin (Dominica), and Bobby Clarke and Ricky Parris (Barbados).
- Diplomatic relations. The PRG used the occasion to release the names of the countries with whom Grenada has established diplomatic relations in the past year. The list is a revealing one: Algeria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, German Democratic Republic, People’s Revolutionary Council of Kampuchea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Republic of Suriname, USSR, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, Republic of Zambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Benin, Syrian Arab Republic, and Laos.
- Assistance. The PRG released the following list of countries and international agencies providing development assistance (all amounts are East Caribbean dollars; 2.7 E.C. dollars equal one US dollar):
Cuba. One hundred pieces of heavy equipment worth DOLS 25 million for construction of new international airport; 250 technicians to work on airport project and train Grenadians; 13 doctors and dentists; fishing trawlers; university scholarships.
Algeria, Libya, Syria. DOLS 27 million in combined assistance for construction of the international airport and for rehabilitation of roads, bridges, and agricultural areas destroyed by heavy rains.
Iraq. DOLS 5.4 million toward the construction of the airport.
Venezuela. Technical assistance in airport project; construction of energy storage facilities; supply of diesel oil, gasoline, and asphalt; DOLS 3 million line of credit; tourism development.
Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya. University scholarships.
OAS. Assistance to rebuild rain-damaged areas of the economy and aid for a variety of educational projects.
European Development Fund. DOLS 12.5 million to finance a wide variety of development schemes in Grenada, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique and to rebuild the eastern main road from Grenville to St. George’s.
IMF. DOLS 2.1 million for rejuvenation of the sugar industry.
Caribbean Development Bank. Assistance to repair roads destroyed by heavy rains; financing the construction of new agricultural feeder roads.
- Trinidad. PM Bishop and Deputy PM Coard both told the press of their hopes for improved relations with Trinidad and complained of Trinidad’s lack of response. Bishop cited family and friendship ties between Grenada and Trinidad, and said Grenada had proposed cooperation in various areas, including petroleum and the movement of individuals between the nations.
“We have been almost bending over backwards in our attempts to develop official lines of communications with the government of Trinidad and Tobago,” Bishop said, adding that the government’s reactions reflect “a very deep attitude of narrow nationalism and isolationism which is part of the tradition of colonialism which we would hope that elements in the Trinidad government would be against.”
- Manley’s speech. Chief guest Michael Manley told the March 13 public rally that Grenada would have Jamaica’s continuing friendship, but that each country must build its own road forward — “you yours, we ours.” He praised the “feeling of unity, feeling of seriousness, feeling of purpose, feeling of determination that is coming from this crowd here. Guard that determination.” Manley told the crowd it would be impertinent for another country to tell Grenada in which direction it should go and what it should do.
- Barbados opposition leader comment. Errol Barrow, former Prime Minister of Barbados, visited Grenada on private business in early March but gave an interview to Radio Free Grenada that was reported in Barbados at the time of the climax of the anniversary celebrations. Barrow, according to the CANA report, told the radio interviewer that he has no evidence of violations of human rights in Grenada at present, but that there were violations under Sir Eric Gairy.
“The people who are now crying out about so-called violations didn’t feel it was proper to voice protests about the abuses under Gairy,” Barrow reportedly said. Criticizing unnamed Caribbean politicians, he said that “it is deplorable that in the closing years of the twentieth century in the Caribbean, instead of looking forward, there is this tendency to ape the most disgusting politicians the US has ever produced — Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy. To accuse Grenada of being communist is to return to McCarthyism.” Barrow also said that “even the people who are not socialistic-minded like myself welcomed the takeover by the PRG.”
On the question of elections, he reportedly said that there was “nothing sacrosanct” about the holding of elections within a particular time period, adding that “people should have jobs rather than go rushing into elections.”
SHELTON
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UNCLASSIFIED
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META DATA
UNCLAS
SECTION 1 OF 2
BRIDGETOWN 1348
E.O. 12065: NA
TAGS: PINT, GJ, PDIP, EAID
UNCLASSIFIED
U.S. Department of State
Case No. F-2014-03929
Doc No. C05591696
Date: 07/31/2014
PAGE 01 BRIDGE 01348 01 OF 02 191143Z
ACTION: ARA-15
INFO: OCT-01 ADS-00 CIAE-00 DODE-00 PM-05 H-02 INR-10 L-03 NSAE-00 NSC-05 PA-02 SP-02 SS-15 ICA-15 TRSE-00 AID-07 EB-08 /090 W
037217 191152Z /10
FM: AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN
TO: SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1991
INFO: AMCONSUL ANTIGUA, AMEMBASSY CARACAS, USINT HAVANA, AMEMBASSY KINGSTON, AMEMBASSY PORT OF SPAIN