Grenada P.M. killed—radio

Press, 21 October 1983, Page 1

Grenada P.M. killed—radio

NZPABridgetown, Barbados

Grenada’s Prime Minister, Mr Maurice Bishop, and several of his former Government Ministers have been killed and the Army has taken control of the Caribbean island, according to a report on Radio Free Grenada.

Mr Bishop’s People’s Revolutionary Government has been dissolved and the country was now run by a military council, an Army spokesman said on the radio yesterday. The spokesman said a round-the-clock curfew, effective immediately, would remain in force until 6 a.m. (local time) on Monday. Anyone who stepped on to the street would “be shot on sight,” he added. The spokesman said the military had sought to negotiate with Mr Bishop after he was freed from house arrest on Wednesday by thousands of cheering supporters.

Mr Bishop had said there would be “no compromise, no negotiations,” according to the military spokesman, and declared he intended to arrest all members of the Central Committee of his ruling New Jewel Movement and officers of the “revolutionary armed forces.”

The spokesman said that after Mr Bishop was swept into the Army headquarters at Fort Rupert in the centre of St George’s, the capital of the tiny island, he and some of his followers disarmed officers and soldiers.

The Bishop group began to arm themselves, the spokesman said. A company of troops was sent to try to re-establish contact. The spokesman said Mr Bishop and his group

fired on the soldiers who were forced to return fire.

The spokesman named the dead in addition to Mr Bishop as the former Foreign Minister, Mr Unison Whiteman; the former Housing Minister, Mr Norris Bain; the former Education Minister, Ms Jacqueline Creft; and several others whose names were not distinguishable in the bad quality of the radio broadcast as monitored in Bridgetown. The spokesman said Mr Bishop and his allies had intended to make a common cause with “counter-revolu-tionaries” and wipe out the leadership of the entire people and Army. The People’s Revolutionary Army was totally united in their determination to protect the country against any form of aggression, the spokesman said. Mr Bishop’s death climaxed a week-long power struggle within the Marxist New Jewel Movement between Mr Bishop and a hardline faction led

by a former Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Bernard Coard.

Mr Coard’s whereabouts were not immediately known.

The New Jewel Movement seized power in a bloodless coup against Premier Eric Gairy, a Rightist, in March, 1979, and soon came into conflict with the United States over the close relations it established with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Diplomatic sources monitoring the situation from nearby Barbados reported earlier that Mr Bishop, hands above his head, was escorted into Fort Rupert, the Army headquarters, after soldiers opened fire on a crowd that had just freed him from house arrest. He had been confined to his home for six days on the orders of the hardline faction, which accused him of defying the “collective will” of the party and trying to run a “one-man show.” A crowd of 3000 stormed the house where he was being detained, defied warning shots from guards, broke down the gates, and ecally lifted him to om, Mr Bishop’s press secretary, Mr Don Rojas, had said in a telephone call to Barbados. An earlier broadcast said two persons killed yesterday were the president of the Bank and General Workers’ Union, Mr Vincent Noel, and the president of the Agricultural and General Workers’ Union, Mr Fitzroy Bain.

Mr Bishop’s downfall, Page 6