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Today's
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June
5, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
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Rafah Today
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
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A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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The
Erosion of the American Dream
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Impeach
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Weekend
Edition
June 5 / 6, 2004
The
Grenada 17
The
Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
By
RICH GIBSON
On June 28, 2004, the Organization of
Eastern Carribean States High Court will hear a Grenadian government
appeal seeking to set aside a lower court ruling in favor of
the Grenada 17. The lower court ruling would, in essence, overturn
the convictions of the Grenada 17 on murder and manslaughter
counts, stemming from unjust trials nearly twenty years ago.
The Grenadian government, staggering from a series of corruption
charges that have roiled the little island nation off the coast
of Venezuela, is vigorously pursuing a legal strategy that would
keep the prisoners in jail_well beyond the length of their initial
sentences-on the grounds that the judiciary should not be able
to negate the executive branch. The lower court has declared
the convictions, "null and void."
The invasion of Grenada, more
than 20 years ago, presaged many of the events that blowback
on the US today: unilateral warfare, official deceit about the
motives for war, a massive military moving against an imagined
foe, stifling the press, leaders proclaiming their guidance from
God, denials of human and civil rights, systematic torture and
subsequent cover-ups-and a hero who refused to go along. Many
of the players in the Bush administration who promise perpetual
war today cut their teeth on the invasion of Grenada. It is more
than worthwhile to review the events that lead to the upcoming
trial.
On March 13, 1979 a revolution
took place in Grenada, the first in an African_Caribbean country,
the first in the English_speaking world. The people who made
up the revolutionary cadre were young, average age around 27.
The uppermost leadership was predominantly middle class, educated
abroad. They called themselves the New Jewel Movement (NJM).
The revolution, or coup as some called it, was popular, replacing
a mad dictator named Eric Gairy who spent much of the tiny country's
(pop 100,000) resources investigating the reason Grenada was
a favorite landing point for flying saucers. When I interviewed
Gairy in 1996, he told me he was immortal, God. He died in 1997.
Gairy had modeled his rule
on a mix of Haitian Papa Doc Duvalier's thuggery, populist appeals
to peasant- workers and small_land_holders, and claims to mystical-sexual
powers, a powerful constituency in Grenada. Gairy had been a
teacher and union leader, was instrumental in winning Grenada's
independence from Great Britain. Gairy was entrancing but he
brooked no opposition and shared with few. His Mongoose gang
was implicated in several murders, served as the stick to Gairy's
charm. The educated classes, and many others, were restive. The
NJM "revo" of 1979 took 24 hours, the culmination of
years of unarmed struggle. It was no mistake that but two people
were killed in the revolution. Grenada's size means that everyone
knows nearly everyone. Each death is a personal and collective
tragedy. The NJM leadership never fit the bloodthirsty caricature
later stamped on them by U.S. officials.
At the time of the uprising,
Eric Gairy was in the US visiting with Nazi war criminal (and
United Nations Secretary General ) Kurt Waldheim. Gairy simply
didn't return. Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft, Bernard and
Phyllis Coard, were among the key New Jewel leaders. Bishop and
Coard had been childhood friends.
The NJM leadership were socialists,
though their socialism was eclectic__hardly the doctrinaire image
the U.S. later created. They borrowed judiciously and won investments
from any government they could, from the British to the USSR
to Iraq and Cuba (which provided mostly doctors, construction
specialists, nurses, and educators). The exacting Brandeis-educated
Bernard Coard, leading the financial sector, was recognized throughout
the Caribbean as a rare, honest, economist.
They began a mass literacy
project (led by Paulo Freire), quickly improved medical care,
began to set up processing plants for fish and spices, and started
building a jet_port. The country had a tiny landing strip only
able to land prop planes, a problem for an economy tied up with
tourist interests. The plan, in general, was to magnify national
economic development by expanding existing forms of production
(agriculture, small industries, tourism, etc.) and by creating
a new class of technologically competent workers who might use
their skills to create a role for Grenada in the information_economy
as well. The far-sighted educational programs had a critical
role in that project.
To claim that the NJM rule
was a model of egalitarian democracy, as much of the chic left
did at the time, would be off_point. It wasn't. While international
tourist-socialists danced during carnival in the beautiful houses
allotted to revo leaders, democracy and equality went on the
back burner in favor of national economic development. The party
leadership became privileged in terms of decision_making power
and the distribution of goods: the shipwreck of most socialist
movements. Women cadre were often doing the work (as well as
the home work). Some men issued orders and took advantage of
prestige. The island was rife with rumors about the dissolute
behavior of some party leaders, especially charismatic Maurice
Bishop, though in some ways his populist reputation was enhanced.
The NJM arrested people and held them without charge. A few citizens
were killed under circumstances which were at best questionable.
But New Jewel under terrific
pressure. The US quickly moved to crush the revo, made tourism
nearly impossible for U.S. citizens. It is fairly clear that
the CIA made several attempts to murder key leaders.
Pressed externally, NJM grew
more isolated from the people. Eager volunteers at early literacy
classes later found themselves ordered to attend by youths with
small arms. Rather than reach out to expand its initial popularity,
the party turned inward. The leadership tried to rely on a correct
analysis and precise orders rather than to build a popular base.
With a dwindling activist base, the party's leaders, especially
women, doubled their own work time, exhausting themselves. Even
though there was no question that Bishop would win elections,
the NJM leaders refused to hold them. The NJM top central committee
remained a very exclusive bunch. In 1982 and 1983, sharp disagreements
began to emerge within the entire organization. Within four years,
by 1983, the NJM was in real trouble.
The central committee passed
motions blaming the people for the crises in the economy. In
1983, the whole party voted overwhelmingly to reduce Bishop's
role and elevate Coard to an equal spot, though the entire party,
and Coard, knew he would never be as popular as the charismatic
Bishop, and could never rule without him. There were many reasons
for the move, one of the more important being Bishop's lack of
personal discipline, called "waffling". The shift to
shared leadership was made in the context of a revolution already
in crisis. Bishop agreed to the plan, but expressed concern that
his work was being repudiated, that this might be a vote of no
confidence. A veritable parade of party members, in a 15_hour
meeting, assured him sincerely that this was not true.
Bishop accepted the joint command.
He left Grenada for Eastern Europe with a small group of cadres.
On his return trip, Bishop held an unscheduled meeting in Cuba
with Fidel Castro, who considered the young leader as "a
son."
On October 12, 1983, the day
after his return, Bishop initiated a rumor to be circulated by
his bodyguard that Coard was planning to kill him. In Grenada
such a rumor can circulate throughout the country in less than
a day-and can be deadly. A similar rumor, that Eric Gairy intended
to kill Bishop and others, preceded the initial NJM revolution
in 1979.
Bishop denied he started the
1983 rumor.
This set in motion a series
of events that finished off the revo. The assembled NJM party
witnessed a meeting in which Bishop was exposed as having caused
the rumor. Even so, the party members also all knew that Bishop
was the key to whatever credibility the party still had among
the people. They also knew the U.S. was openly threatening the
government. The US had staged widely publicized invasion exercises,
"Amber and the Ambergines," making its intentions clear.
By a wide majority party vote, Bishop and Coard were both ordered
to their homes, Bishop under arrest. Negotiations began to overhaul
the way the party was functioning.
On 19 October 1983, a mob of
thousands led by people who had traveled to Cuba with Bishop
marched past armed personnel carriers (APC's) lined up in front
of his home, freed "We Leader" Bishop, and (under curious
banners like "We Love the US") began to move to the
town square. No one in the APC's moved to stop the crowd.
As the crowd moved to Bishop's
house, a Cuban military outfit arrived at the downtown Fort Rupert
(now Ft George). They had not reported in days and were turned
away by the commander on duty from the NJM. In the town square,
where rallies were traditionally held, microphones were set up
for Bishop to speak to the people. Bishop could have easily mobilized
nearly the entire population of the island to come to the square
to support him-and that probably would have been that.
But now led by Bishop and his
friends, the crowd turned and marched on a nearby fort where
arms and TNT were stored. Bishop demanded that the commander
of the fort turn over his weapons. He did, and was locked in
a cell.
At this point, things become
murky. An award winning Grenadian journalist, Alastair Hughes,
famous in the region for his resistance to the NJM and his courage,
saw the crowd move to the fort and bolted home, rather than cover
the news. Bishop moved his cadre to seize the radio and telephone
centers, as had the NJM in overturning Gairy a few years earlier.
From another fort on a mountain about two miles away, Peoples
Revolutionary Army APC's were ordered to quiet the mob.
I interviewed people who were
on the APC's and many people who watched what followed. The soldiers
on the APC's were, for the most part, hardly crack troops. They
were mainly youths who had enlisted to get the money to buy shoes
for their families. One had deserted out of loneliness and been
brought back the previous day. They rode on top of the carriers,
in full view. As they approached the fort, fire came from the
mob. The commander of the first APC, one of the few experienced
soldiers in the group and a highly respected officer, was killed.
Discipline appears to have evaporated on all sides. Fire was
returned.
No one knows exactly how many
people were killed and wounded. No firm count was ever made.
There are films of people leaping over a wall at the fort (why
a film-maker was so poised with such a powerful camera is an
interesting question).
In any case, Bishop and other
top leaders of NJM, including his pregnant companion Jackie Creft,
were killed- after they had surely surrendered. The remaining
leadership of NJM imposed a curfew on the island. In part because
important documents taken from Grenada during the invasion remain
classified in the U.S., no thorough-going investigation of this
day's events has been possible.
Shortly afterward, on October
23 1983, 241 US troops were killed, blown up in their barracks
in Lebanon by a truck bomb.
US President Ronald Reagan
took to the TV, announcing he had discovered, through satellite
photos, that the Cubans were building a secret Soviet_Cuban military
airstrip in Grenada-a direct threat to US security.
Actually tourists were frequently
taken to the construction site at the airport-a widely publicized
symbol of Grenadian pride. US students from St. George's Medical
school jogged by Cuban and Grenadian construction workers each
day on the airstrip. The main financial support for the airport
came not from the <U.S.S.R>. nor from Cuba, but from Margaret
Thatcher's Britain.
Reagan declared the US medical
students to be in grave danger from the crisis in Grenada, said
that the NJM was a threat to all regional security. He got the
organization of Caribbean nations to back him_with a big payoff
to those who went along-- and invaded a country the size of Kalamazoo
with a massive military force, under a precedent_ setting news
blackout. The US had practiced the invasion of Grenada as early
as 1981.
Though the medical students
were radioing out that they were in no danger-except from the
possibility of an invasion-- US rangers "saved" them,
after U.S. jets bombed a mental hospital.
Remarkably, it is clear that
Fidel Castro was forewarned of the invasion and that Cuban troops
tasked to stop the US landing at the new airport never fired
their weapons at the Rangers making parachute drops on the runway_until
the Rangers attacked them. The Cubans had told the Grenadian
military that they would defend the airport area.
The invasion of Grenada (popular
among most Grenadian people sickened by the long collapse of
the NJM) was complete in a week. It was, however, denounced as
illegal by the U.N. Security Council, by Margaret Thatcher and
the British government, and by a myriad of US congress_people.
The international press, including
US reporters, was cordoned off from Grenada during the invasion.
US ships intercepted reporters who rented boats trying to get
to the island, arresting them and detaining them until after
the invasion was complete.
The US, however, quickly recaptured
its post-Lebanon image as a military super-power.
Seventeen NJM leaders were
charged with the murder of Bishop, Jacqueline Creft, and others,
though most of them were nowhere near the incident, could not
have participated, like the commander of the fort who was locked
in a basement Fort Rupert cell.
The NJM leaders were tortured
and signed transparently bogus confessions. According to affidavits
filed by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and Amnesty
International, the NJM leaders were denied attorneys. They were
tried by jurors who chanted "guilty" at them during
jury selection, in trails led by judges hand_picked and paid
by the U.S. They were unable to make a defense in the kangaroo
atmosphere. Their lawyers were subjected to death threats and
some fled. Key witnesses, like a bodyguard who was present when
Bishop created and ordered the death threat rumor, were denied
the right to testify. Fourteen of the NJM members were sentenced
to death. In 1991, after an international outcry, the sentences
were commuted to life. Typically in the Caribbean, a life sentence
amounts to around 15 years.
The three remaining prisoners,
low-ranking soldiers, were sentenced on several counts of manslaughter.
On appeal, their sentences were reduced to fifteen years. With
their time now served, the Grenadian government still refuses
to release them, the prime minister saying that the judiciary
has no right to override the government-or a possible vote of
the people.
In prison, the Grenada 17 were
systematically abused by guards and others for eight years, according
to statements made to me be a former prison warden and several
guards. Abuse was especially horrible for the lone woman, Phyllis
Coard, who was held in near_total isolation for years simply
because few women are jailed in Grenada. In 1991, after their
children had been introduced to the fellow who was to hang them
from a prison courtyard gallows, the Grenada 17 sentences were
commuted to life.
Prison Commissioner Winston
Courtney was pivotal to halting the torture. Courtney had himself
been held in Richmond Hill jail, imprisoned by the leadership
of the NJM without charge for more than a year. During that period,
Courtney's son was killed under questionable circumstances. He
had reason to believe that the NJM was involved. During the latter
days of the NJM's term of power, Courtney was expelled from the
island. He returned to be the warden of the prison in the early
90's, holding the prisoners who once held him. Courtney immediately
moved to stop the abuse, to create a disciplined yet humane prison
that emphasized rehabilitation. He worked 18 hour days to overcome
the habits of Richmond Hill, eventually sacrificing his health
and eyesight. When asked why he did this, Courtney said, "I
am an ethical man and if I do not do this, I am nothing."
The New Jewel leaders are still
serving time in a prison built in the nineteenth century. The
last prisoners of the cold war are black. Their health is rapidly
fading. Despite immense obstacles created by prison officials
over the years, the NJM prisoners are conducting one of the most
successful literacy campaigns in the country. Less than two in
ten of the program' grads return to the Richmond Hill jail.
As of October 2004, the NJM
prisoners, will have served 21 years. Phyllis Coard was released
in 2000 to seek cancer treatment abroad, following an international
campaign on her behalf. She is still expected to return to the
jail following treatment.
I filed a Freedom of Information
suit demanding documents which were seized by the US and kept
out of the trial. The US military commandeered tons of documents
in Grenada immediately following the invasion. The documents
were sifted and some of them later appeared in a book called
the "Grenada Documents," edited by Michael Ledeen,
now an Iraq war hawk who calls for the invasion of Iran. US intelligence
agencies denied my request for more documents. I sued.
The suit came to court in Detroit
on November 10th, 1997, after delays of more than one year. In
October, 1998, Judge Hood gave the U.S. government thirty days
to give me the documents. To date, the US has released a ream
of blacked_out material, some of it indicating that the US clearly
interfered in the trial of the Grenada prisoners-and paid the
trial judges. However, the US insists that the remaining documents
were all returned to Grenada. The Grenada government denies ever
receiving the material.
In October 2003 Amnesty International
has issued a detailed report, demonstrating their conclusion
that the Grenada 17 were denied due process in their trial: "the
trial was manifestly and fundamentally unfair." The selection
of both judges and the jury were tainted with prejudice. Documents
that might have contradicted key prosecution evidence were denied
the defendants. Instead, prison guards forcibly took materials
from the prisoners that they had prepared for their defense.
Defendants were not allowed to present key witnesses whose testimony
would have undermined the testimony of the sole prosecution witness,
Cletus St. Paul, one of Bishop's bodyguards, who claimed he overheard
Coard and others ordering Bishop's liquidation. Errol George,
also a Bishop bodyguard, was not allowed to say that he was right
next to St. Paul during the time in question, and heard nothing
of the sort.
In 2002 I interviewed Grenada's
ambassador to the US, asking him why his government is so determined
to keep the Grenada 17 in jail. He replied that he, and the nation's
current leader, Keith Mitchell, believe there will be riots if
the Grenada 17 are set free. The possibility of serious civil
strife in Grenada, about anything but the corruption allegations
aimed at the Mitchell regime, are actually quite negligible,
as leaders of the opposition party and the country's leading
paper, the Voice, tell me.
I spent 1996 in Grenada interviewing
many of the jailed NJM leaders. To say they are innocent of everything
is not the case. To say they are innocent of the charges brought
against them is. Serious mistakes were made by the New Jewel
leadership. The prisoners have issued extensive, indeed insightful,
apologies to that effect, taking responsibility for the crisis
of the revolution, but not for the murders they did not commit.
Their continued imprisonment is a mysterious yet great wrong
that needs to be righted. The truth of the Grenada revo, and
its destruction, needs to be known.
Rich Gibson is a professor of Education at San
Diego State University. He can be reached at: rgibson@pipeline.com
Weekend Edition
Features for May 29 / 31, 2004
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
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