Last of the Grenada 17 finally walk free

Last of the Grenada 17 finally walk free

Sunday 06 September 2009
by Tom Mellen

SEVEN men convicted of killing Grenada's leader in a 1983 coup that the US used to justify a widely condemned invasion were finally freed on Saturday.

Dozens of relatives cheered and clapped as former deputy PM Bernard Coard and six other men - the last of the 17 who had been sentenced for the crime - emerged from the crumbling prison where they served nearly 26 years, some in solitary confinement.

The former members of Maurice Bishop's short-lived People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) have always maintained their innocence and human rights groups describe the Grenada 17 as political prisoners.

The 17 have consistently stated that, if they had been allowed a free and fair trial, they would have cleared their names and been freed years ago.

Minutes after being released, Mr Coard said: "I will continue to make my contribution to Grenada as long as it is entirely in a non-political, non-partisan way, for obvious reasons."

A 1986 trial that Amnesty described at the time as "unfair and inherently unreliable" determined that the 17, members of a PRG faction led by Mr Coard, dragged left-wing PM Mr Bishop, four cabinet ministers and six supporters before a firing squad and shot them dead on October 19 1983.

Six days later, thousands of US troops poured into the island on the orders of then president Ronald Reagan, ostensibly to protect US medical students and to sever Grenada's growing ties with socialist Cuba.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/world/Last-of-the-Grenada-17-finally-walk-free

As Billy Crystal would say: "marvelous!"

the Grenada invasion served to take people's minds off the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon!
And then Reagan started supporting the Islamic fundies in earnest through Iran-Contra.

*********
Those were very bad years. Unfortunately, the country has never recovered.

it has a chapter on the Grenada invasion that gibes exactly with what I heard on As It Happens (the Canadian counterpart to All Thing Considered), which was broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio.

To put it bluntly, the version of events that the American media (including NPR) fed us was complete bullshit.

you think these buthchers are worthy of admiration?



In 1983 disputes at the top level of the party leadership occurred. A group within the party attempted to get Bishop to either step down or agree to a power-sharing agreement with Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. Bishop rejected these proposals and was eventually deposed and placed under house arrest during the first week of October 1983 by Coard. Large public demonstrations demanding the restoration of Bishop afterward occurred in various parts of the island. In the course of one of these demonstrations Bishop was freed from house arrest by the crowd. In unclear circumstances, Bishop made his way to the army headquarters at Fort Rupert (known today as Fort George). After he arrived, a military force was dispatched from another location to Fort Rupert. Fighting broke out later at Fort Rupert with many civilians being killed. Bishop and seven others including cabinet ministers were captured. Later in the day they were executed by an army firing squad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Bishop

it has been infested with rightwing revisionism for a long time.

BTW, the US would have assassinated Maurice Bishop if he had returned to power. Spare me the faux outrage!

Just because they then became victims of US imperialism doesn't make them innocent. You are the Marxist, yet you defend Maurice Bishop's murderers? And they killed a lot more people than MB.

I am the one saying that America would have murdered Maurice Bishop had he regained power.

The war crimes were the ones committed by US when it invaded Grenada.

So yes, that is a form of defending those murderers.

Go play with someone else, or with yourself.

You posted some crap you found on a website - the ridiculous Khameni defending Morning Star - without, I think, even realizing what you were promoting.

the movement split; Bishop was assassinated -- and less than a week later, there was a full-blown US invasion, justified by a well-rehearsed medley of lies

nt

campaign to justify it, less than a week after Bishop's murder

We're unlikely to know the full details, but clearly more than a week's planning lay behind that invasion: some post-invasion activities had clearly been thought through, and the cover propaganda was tailored accordingly

The notable example was the civilian airport: it had been under construction for decades, and the US had rebuffed Grenada's effort to obtain aid to complete it; the Reagan claim was that Cuban military advisors were planning to turn that airport into a Soviet base, and Bishop's death was portrayed as the first step in a Soviet take-over of Grenada, which supposedly included an immediate shutdown of the airport, trapping of US medical students who were begging to be rescued. It was widely known at the time that none of these claims were true: the airport had remained open and the students were in no danger -- and they knew it

Somewhat after the invasion, the airport was brought up to military standards -- by the US forces there. The false airport narratives associated with the the invasion thus conveniently served to defuse the effect of subsequent US militarization of the island -- which is obviously non-accidental: it in fact indicates elaborate US planning

were used as a pretext too. There was no justification for the the US invasion. On that we can agree. Now whether or not Reagan would have invaded without the coup as an excuse I don't know. And actually the bungled nature of the invasion points away from elaborate US planning. I have a friend who was in the Airborn and took part. He said they thought it was another drill, hadn't done any practice for it and found out their destination while in the air and on the way.

I'm just offended by the tone of the article which seems to portray the people who killed Bishop as the victims of some grave injustice. They murdered a very popular (yes marxist) leader and possibly gave Reagan the last excuse he needed to invade. Like I said, being the victim of US imperialism does not itself make one noble. Sometimes bad people do bad things to other bad people - and there are no good guys.

... Those imprisoned have subsequently come to be known as the Grenada 17. The Grenada 17 are Bernard Coard, Phyllis Coard, Hudson Austin, Ewart Layne, Selwyn Strachan, Liam James, Leon Cornwall, Dave Bartholomew, John Ventour, Colville McBarnette, Christopher Stroude, Lester Redhead, Calistus Bernard, Cecil Prime, Andy Mitchell, Vincent Joseph, and Cosmos Richardson. The Grenada 17 have maintained their innocence with respect to the charges brought against them

Amnesty International classifies the Grenada 17 as political prisoners and as such called for them to be granted a prompt, fair and impartial trial. The organization has monitored their incarceration and legal processing since it has been practicably possible to do so. Observers were sent to pre-trial hearings and the trial itself. An Amnesty International delegation also carried out an inspection of the prison in which the 17 were incarcerated. Numerous representations outlining Amnesty International’s concerns around the treatment of the 17 have been made to the Grenadian authorities over the interceding years ...

AI Index: AMR 32/001/2003 Amnesty International October 2003

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR32/001/2003/en/12064604-d6d2-11dd-ab95-a13b602c0642/amr320012003en.html

nt

is frequently regarded as a trial run for the Grenada invasion.

who had to cut short a date to the movies, rush back to base, load up, take off and THEN be shown a map of Granada for the first time en route to the invasion. The invasion itself was a cluster fuck that doesn't betray many trial runs.

Personally I think Rayguns put it together at the last minute to detract from Lebanon.

what the common service member should expect