Grenada chooses democracy

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 14

Grenada chooses democracy

When American troops landed in Grenada on October 25, 1983, the action was widely criticised round the world. Yet the invasion received vigorous support from Grenada’s tiny island neighbours in the eastern Caribbean and, as quickly became evident, from the majority of people in Grenada. Legal justification for the invasion was thin. American help had been sought by the Organisation of East Caribbean States. After the event, the Governor-General of Grenada applied for American help. The Americans could argue that they acted to remove a military dictatorship that 10 days before had overthrown Grenada’s Government — a Government that was itself installed by an armed coup years before — but no treaty required the American action. Some reasons for the invasion were evident enough. Grenada was becoming increasingly hostile to the United States. With Cuban help it was becoming an armed outpost of Soviet penetration in a region of strategic importance to the United States. President Reagan and his advisers decided, with a good deal of justification, that the risks of widespread international criticism were less than the risks of allowing Cuba and the Soviet Union to consolidate their position in another corner of the Caribbean. Less readily accepted by critics, but perhaps equally important in Washington, was a determination to restore democratic rule in a country that had been under armed dictatorships since 1979. Other small States in the region, most incapable of defending themselves, had a demonstration that the United States was prepared to act to prevent extensions of Cuban and Soviet power. The real benefits of the American action were enjoyed by Grenada’s 100,000 people. If the invasion has a justification, it was evident this month when elections in Grenada demonstrated how little popular support the island’s Left-wing rulers

had enjoyed. A middle-of-the-road party, the New National Party, won 59 per cent of the votes and took 14 of the 15 seats in the new assembly, after a high turn-out of voters. The United Labour Party, a Right-wing group in spite of its name, took 36 per cent of the votes. The New Jewel Movement, of unhappy memory, renamed itself the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement; but, without its armed thugs, it could draw only 5 per cent of the votes. The United States’ presence has been reduced to about 300 paramilitary police. Other Caribbean islands are providing a further 400 police and soldiers while Grenada’s own neglected police force of 300 is being retrained by Britain. All the Americans are expected to leave by April. Grenada’s rapid return to democracy, and to a more stable way of life in which votes, and not guns, determine policies, should not go overlooked. Little more than a year passed between the American invasion and the General Election. The people have shown they had no wish to live under a dictatorship, however much it might claim to be acting in the name of “the people.” The United States, by rapidly running down its forces there, has demonstrated the benevolence of its intentions.

Instead of being forced into the American orbit, the Grenadans have had an early opportunity to regain sovereignty under a Government of their choice. Those who saw dark American designs in the invasion, and forecast an end to Grenada’s independence, might care to reflect on the comparison with Afghanistan. There, five years after the Soviet invasion on December 26, 1979, 100,000 Soviet troops have not been able to secure a proSoviet regime in office in Kabul; nor have they been able to extend Soviet rule effectively over most of the country. Today, Afghanistan will enter its sixth year of civil war and Soviet military occupation.