Reply #7: Here is a link to an excellent website: The Grenada Revolution Online

[CottonBear]

http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/


edit: As of Sept. 5, 2009, the last of the Grenada 17 political prisoners were released after 23 years in prison at Richmond Hill Prison, St. Georges, Grenada.

IMHO, the arrest, detention, torture unlawful trial (organized by the US Govt.), convictions and death sentences (later commuted after international outcry) of the Grenada 17 were precursors to the Bush era Iraqi, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo actions.

An excellent political essay by Rich Gibson: The Last Prisoners of the Cold War Are Black
http://richgibson.com/grenNYTIMES.htm

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Shortly afterward, US troops were killed in their barracks in Lebanon. 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. Actually tourists were frequently taken there, US medical students jogged 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 menaced, said that the NJM was a threat to all regional security. He got other Caribbean nations to back him, and invaded a country the size of Kalamazoo with a massive military force under a precedent- setting news blackout. Though the medical students radioed out that they were in no danger, US rangers "saved" them. Remarkably, it appears that Castro was forewarned of the invasion. The Cubans at the airport, the key landing spot for the invasion, having informed the Grenadian Army that Cuba would defend the runway, allowed U.S. paratroops to land untouched. The invasion of Grenada (popular among most of the people sickened by the long collapse of the NJM) was complete in a week.

Seventeen NJM leaders were charged with the murder of Bishop and the others, though it is clear that most of them were nowhere near the incident, or could not have participated. According to affidavits filed by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, the NJM leaders were denied a fair trial. Judges were hand-picked and paid by the U.S. NJM lawyers, threatened with death, fled Grenada. Key defense witnesses were denied the right to testify. Fourteen of the NJM members were sentenced to death.

In prison, they were tortured for eight years. Torture was especially horrible for the lone woman, Phyllis Coard, who was held in isolation for years. In 1991, after their children had been introduced to the fellow who was to hang them from a prison courtyard gallows, the sentences were commuted to life. The 17 New Jewel leaders are still serving time in a prison built in the late 1700's. The last prisoners of the cold war are black. It is great political irony and moral wrong.

On October 2, 1998, Federal Judge Denise Hood, ordered that documents possessed by U.S. intelligence agencies denied the initial defense be released to me within thirty days

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