Bishop: The power struggle loser

Press, 21 October 1983, Page 6

Bishop: The power struggle loser

NZPA-Reuter Bridgetown Maurice Bishop, Grenada’s Prime Minister shot dead in an Army take-over, wanted to turn his Caribbean spice island into the first English-speaking Communist State. But he lost in a Marxist power struggle after his hardline opponents accused him of trying to run a one-man show.

Mr Bishop, who became Prime Minister through a coup which toppled the Right-wing leader, Sir Eric Gairy, in 1979, was put under house arrest last Friday by his own ruling party for refusing to accept its principle of collective leadership.

The Army Commander, Hudson Austin, told the 115,000 islanders in a radio broadcast that Mr Bishop had deeply resented this principle of the New Jewel

Movement, which he helped to found, and had “taken the position that no action can be taken to which he is opposed.” He said that Mr Bishop, aged 39, had also spread a false rumour that the Marxist Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Bernard Coard, had planned to kill him. This, he added, was a disgrace to the party and the revolution and party members had agreed to expel the flamboyant Britisheducated lawyer. Mr Bishop toppled Sir Eric five years after Grenada became independent from Britain. His father was killed by a policeman in 1974 during an anti-Gairy demonstration.

Born Maurice Rupert Bishop on May 29, 1944, he graduated as a lawyer in London where he was an active member of the Cam-

paign Against Racial Discrimination.

He returned to Grenada in 1970 and became a founder of the N.J.M. movement.

Imprisoned several times for opposing the Government, he won a seat in Parliament in 1976 and emerged as leader of the Opposition.

Three years later he led 200 armed men in a predawn attack on the Army barracks and a radio station and forced Sir Eric into exile in the United States.

Mr Bishop accused Sir Eric of repression, corruption and ridiculing Grenada by persistent appeals to the United Nations to investigate flying saucers. Under Mr Bishop, a friend of Fidel Castro, Grenada became a close ally of Cuba and the Soviet Union and a

thorn in the side of the West — especially the United States.

He cracked down on political opponents, set up Cu-ban-style mass organisations, and received several million dollars worth of agricultural and transport equipment from Moscow — which opened an embassy on the island shortly after his coup. Mr Bishop signed a substantial economic agreement during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1982, saying it would reduce the island’s dependence on the West. Under the accord the Soviets are to study building a sea port and a satellite earth station on Grenada.

Only a few days before he was toppled, Mr Bishop returned from a tour of Hungary and Czechoslovakia where he was promised aid. Mr Bishop’s Leftist views

and style of government ensured him enemies both at home and abroad.

The Reagan Administration was particularly alarmed at a new airport being built with Cuban help on the south-western tip of Grenada. The Americans saw it as a possible base for Cuban operations to export Marxism to strife-torn Central America. Mr Bishop said it was needed to boost tourism.

In 1980, Mr Bishop escaped unhurt from a bomb attack at a public rally. Two people were killed and about 20 injured.

A suspect was killed in a subsequent gun battle with security forces and Mr Bishop blamed the incident on the United States, which rejected the charge. In 1981, he accused the

United States of backing mercenaries planning to invade Grenada and overthrow him. Later the same year he set up a militia, saying that the island could not afford a large standing army.

At home, Mr Bishop claimed he had cut unemployment, increased agricultural production and improved social welfare. But he resisted pressure from the United States and Caribbean countries — also worried by his ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union — to hold elections.

Instead he appointed a commission to study plans for a socialist constitution.

Mr Bishop, who was married with two children, also held the portfolios of external affairs, information, culture, security and the interior during his Administration.