Reagan’s
Legacy In The Caribbean
25/06/2004
HOUSE OF LABOUR: In Friday
June 15th edition of the Bahama Journal, Godfrey Eneas of the Eneas File fame
touched on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Black Americans. I was particularly
interested in his approach to the subject and he did say some things that
needed to be said. I was, however, disappointed that Eneas sought to examine
Reagan’s legacy for black Americans, but neglected to mention Reagan’s legacy
in the Caribbean; particularly, in reference to progressive individuals and
movements in the Caribbean.
Indeed, President Reagan the 40th President of the
United States was a polarizing figure not only for Black Americans but all
third world peoples particularly, in the Caribbean and Latin America.
During Reagan’s presidency, reaction to the Caribbean
Basin Initiative (CBI) had been much like the FTAA is seen today, as mostly
benefiting Americans not the Caribbean. More importantly, for Inside Labour is
the fact that Reagan fired 13,000 U.S. air traffic controllers in 1981 after
they staged a work stoppage. He used the U.S. National Labour Relations Board
to crack down on trade unions. In line with this we saw many of our Caribbean
leaders attempt similar “union busting” tactics that lingered on and ended with
the busting of our own air traffic controllers union being put under “heavy
manners” by the FNM government of Hubert Ingraham.
Reagan’s crowning glory of his legacy in the
Caribbean was the U.S. invasion of Grenada. An examination of this opprobrious
event and its impact may prove useful in putting his legacy in the Caribbean in
proper perspective. Reagan’s 1983 invasion of Grenada was not universally
applauded and indeed the full week coverage by CNN, NBC, FOX NEWS, ABC, CBS
that attempted to deify this man, who demonized progressives the world over and
setback the progressive forces of the world fifty years.
At that time progressive Bahamians and Caribbean
people deplored in the strongest terms, the act of naked aggression and
imperialism that was carried out in October 1981, when the United States of
America (USA), the world’s richest and one of its largest states, invaded tiny
Grenada (pop. 110,000).
The people of the Caribbean and all over the third world
have suffered for centuries the racism, economic deprivation and political
inequality of British and other colonialisms. We also know that thousands of
our exploited brothers and sisters have endured the harshest punishments in the
attempt to escape from this status by becoming independent nations with the
right to plot their own destinies.
When the U.S. imperialists under Reagan armed with
phrases like “restoring democracy,” “eradicating Marxism,” “eliminating a
source of subversion,” “preventing terrorism,” etc. destroy a sovereign nation
like Grenada, it brought back to all of us the bitter memories of colonialism.
We were reminded that they were offering then a better life by enslaving us in
the same ways the Japanese and German imperialists of World War II tried to
convince the world that their systems of domination were “co-prosperity
spheres”.
It should be noted that the vast majority of the
world’s nations condemned the American action, including Britain, Canada and
France, the then USSR and our own government of the Bahamas. Such condemnation
was proof enough of the unpopularity of this policy, and Reagan realized that
his imperialism fooled no one. The vote in the United Nations General Assembly
on November 3 1981 (108-9 with abstentions), which demanded that the USA
withdraw from Grenada, was further proof of the world’s opprobrium for that
nation’s Caribbean adventure. In many respects, this was the beginning in
modern times of the United States becoming an international outlaw.
The major reasons given by the USA under Reagan for
the intervention in Grenada were as follows: First the death of Maurice Bishop,
ex- Prime Minister of Grenada, created much instability in that society, which
instability threatened the safety of 1,000 Americans who were there. The
numbers included hundreds of students at St. George’s Medical School, a U.S.
owned medical facility on the island. Secondly, Grenada was exporting
revolutions to other parts of the Caribbean. Thirdly, Grenada was a Cuba-
Soviet military base in the U.S.A's “backyard” or in its “sphere of influence.”
All progressive people in the Caribbean and elsewhere
deplored the senseless arguments among the then Grenadian leadership that
resulted in the death of Prime Minister Bishop and some of his ministers.
However, if assassination of leaders was a valid reason for intervening in a
country, the United States should have been invaded a long time ago. For
example in the last century America’s greatest President Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy was killed, and President
Reagan in his time was shot. We also recall that distinguished Americans like
Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed. It is
common knowledge that when Dr. King died riots took place in large numbers of
America’s cities. Yet in spite of the instability, no nation “intervened” in
the USA.
In Grenada after Bishop’s death there were no
uprisings, the Americans on the island insisted that they were safe. A US and
Canadian diplomat visited the country a couple of days before the invasion and
found their people safe, and General Hudson Austin had agreed to open the
airport to allow foreign nationals to leave. In this same context, President
Fidel Castro of Cuba, a close friend of Grenada, who had nearly 800 of his
nationals working on projects in the island like the then new airport,
volunteered to act as a go-between to insure the safety of the Americans.
Clearly there was little “instability” in Grenada, and there was no threat to
American lives at any time before the invasion.
Anthony Lewis in the New York Times October 3, 1983,
in an article entitled: “What was Reagan hiding?” questioned the Reagan
Administration’s tale that the Americans were in danger and that the Grenadian
government was attempting to hold them there. Lewis wrote: “Now we know that
Grenada and Cuba both sent messages to the United States saying that our
citizens, in particular the large numbers of medical students were safe. We
know that the airport was open and Americans flew out the day before the
invasion, encountering no problems at the airport and seeing not even an armed
guard.” Lewis went on to conclude: “The Reagan Administration was in fact not
interested in exploring peaceful evacuation of Americans who wanted to leave.
It did not look into chartering ships or planes. It did not respond to the
Grenadian or Cuban messages until after the invasion was underway. It was
determined to make a show of force.” In retrospect Inside Labour is convinced
also; that Reagan was not interested in peace.
At the time The Reagan Administration and the right
–wing in America and the Caribbean, constantly stated that Grenada and Cuba
were bases for “exporting revolution”. An argument that made no sense. If a different
worldview, for example, has no relevance to the lives of a people in a
particular society, then the masses will reject it. If capitalism is irrelevant
to the needs and aspirations of a society, they will reject it also.
Ideologies- in other words are world outlooks that are either accepted or
rejected by the masses; they cannot be exported.
On the other hand, if what Reagan and the right –wing
meant by “exporting revolution,” the subversion of a country by the illegal use
of force and violence, Grenada could not in any way be accused of this. Indeed,
none of the Caribbean countries involved in the invasion produced a scintilla
of evidence to prove that the then Grenadian Government illegally conspired to
overthrow them.
Philosophers warn us that it is a mistake to confuse
analogies with identities, for while an analogy is a call to clarify the
specific; it is not the specific itself. The United States frequently depicts
the Caribbean as being in its “backyard” and as a mental construct to illustrate
its proximity to the region; such a depiction is permissible. However, America
seems to see its “Caribbean backyard” not in terms of a close neighbor, but in
terms of a region of the earth that they have manifest destiny to own, control
and push around. Such confusion turns an analogy into a principle of ownership.
Progressives the world over insists that the
Caribbean consists of sovereign nations which have a right to plot their own
destiny. Much like in the recent case of Haiti. The Caribbean nations are not
parts of the USA like Hawaii; we are in nobody’s backyard. Grenada in 1981
posed no military threat or “subversive threat” to any nation in this
hemisphere, so Reagan had no right to obliterate that nation’s sovereignty,
just like President Bush had no right to obliterate the sovereignty of Iraq. In
the meantime what is fearful is that the United States feels that is has
natural rights to make every nation in the world her puppet.
Reagan’s legacy in the Caribbean proved that the
United States violated all the rules in international law in its invasion of
Grenada, and of making a mockery of the concept of national sovereignty. It
broke the elementary rules of international law regarding the recognition of
states; it broke the U.N. charter of the Organization of American States (OAS),
of which it is one of the founding members. The Charters of the OAS states
explicitly: “The territory of a state is inviolable, it may not be the object,
even temporarily of military occupation or other measures of force taken by
another state, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever.” Some
international lawyers argued that even when the U.S unjustly invaded the
Dominican Republic in 1965, it at least procured “legal cover.” At that time it
claimed that it was called by the military government of the Dominican Republic
to “restore order”. A claim, which it rammed through the OAS after the fact. In
Grenada, on the other hand, the United States destroyed the legitimate
government.
Finally, the Reagan administration in trying to
secure some legal legacy for its actions argued that the Organization of
Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) provided a legal basis for the invasion. But as
Time Magazine stated: “Grenada is one of the seven members of the OECS, the
charter of which says that any decision to take military action must be
unanimous. Grenada certainly did not agree to invade itself. Nor was it clear
that the OECS formed in 1981, had any provision, or any right to authorize
military intervention in one of its member states!” Without a doubt Reagan’s
legacy in the Caribbean was cemented by this lawless adventure based on the
principle that might is right! When the definitive chapter on this event is
written Reagan will be seen for what he was “a little man” not the colossus
that the spin-doctors of Washington would have us believe.
Charles Fawkes is President of the National Consumer
Association, Consumer columnist for the Nassau Guardian and organizer for the
Commonwealth Group of Unions, Editor of the Headline News, The Consumer guard
and The Worker’s Vanguard. He can be contacted at his office in the House of
Labour at: [1-242]-326-6620. His e-mail address is fawkesmore@mail1.coralwave.com
