1984.02 格林纳达之前和之后

shiyi18

Grenada Before and After
The domestic and international problems of a government trying to carry out the first socialist revolution based on tourism

By Michael Massing
FEBRUARY 1984 ISSUE
SHARE
THREE MONTHS AFTER THE INVASION OF GRENADA, two things can be said for sure: the intervention was supported by the vast majority of Grenadians, and it was applauded by most Americans. Beyond that, however, not much is clear. Neither the United States government nor American news organizations did much to help us understand what was going on.

To some extent, the quality of the reporting reflected the U.S. government’s determination to keep reporters off the island in the crucial first days of the invasion. Most news organizations were uncomfortably dependent on information handed them by the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House. The overall effect of the coverage, then, was to reinforce President Reagan’s assertions that Grenada was “a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion,” and that “we got there just in time.”


So much attention was focused on the Cubans and the Soviets, in fact, that we learned little about Grenada itself. With Maurice Bishop, one of the region’s great orators, fallen mute, many came forward to make claims on his behalf. Even the U.S. government seemed eager to portray Bishop as a “moderate” whose peace overtures to Washington had run afoul of the “hard-line Marxist” Bernard Coard and had ultimately caused Bishop’s demise.

Magazine Cover image
View This Story as a PDF
See this story as it appeared in the pages of The Atlantic magazine.

Open
Who was Maurice Bishop? What was his revolution like? How did the United States treat his regime? And why did his government meet the end it did? Only after we have answered these questions can we understand the U.S. invasion and the ramifications it is likely to have.

I visited Grenada for two weeks last March and returned there shortly after the invasion. On my first trip, I found a gentle, overgrown island whose beauty was made all the more stunning by the Grenadians’ own pleasure in it. Tucked away at the end of the Windward Islands chain, Grenada was a languid, unassuming place, without much sense of the outside world. The foreigners I encountered were a mixed lot, come to witness Grenada’s experiment in Caribbean socialism: gee-whizzing members of solidarity groups from Canada and Western Europe; curious American leftists, old and new; a coterie of West German radicals, who had arrived after reading a glowing account of the revolution in a left-wing weekly; Jamaicans trying to recover from Michael Manley’s defeat; and Guyanese fleeing the paranoid politics of Forbes Burnham.


By November, Grenada had become a carnival, providing plenty of amusement—and lots of native black help— for the many whites who came after the shooting had stopped. The Grenadians, euphoric about the arrival of the Marines, had not realized that the troops would be followed by a second invasion—of Agency for International Development officials, diplomats, economic advisers, disaster-relief experts, and journalists. The journalists could be seen everywhere, lining up to interview innkeepers, clerks, schoolchildren, and fishmongers, all of whom obliged with unfailing courtesy. The Americans took over three of the island’s best hotels, installed a psychological-operations team at the radio station, and converted the local university center into a press office. There was talk of naming the new airport after Ronald Reagan.

RECOMMENDED READING

How the Dutch Do Sex Ed
BONNIE J. ROUGH
Illustration: Stained glass window with shattered confederate flag and dates 1861 and 1865
Why Confederate Lies Live On
CLINT SMITH

What It Takes to Be a Trial Lawyer If You’re Not a Man
LARA BAZELON
In an effort to make some sense of the events that had engulfed Grenada, I dropped in on a few of the people I’d met during my first visit. One was Richard Gray, owner of the Cinnamon Hill and Beach Club, a tier of plush cottages in the hills off the Grand Anse beach. Gray, a native of Britain who moved to Grenada more than a decade ago and is a prominent member of the Chamber of Commerce, had spent a leisurely afternoon with me last March sipping drinks and describing cooperative efforts between the government and businessmen to promote local investment.

In post-invasion Grenada, however, the Chamber had become an important power broker, and Gray’s time was given over to endless meetings. I caught him as he was about to go talk with the governor general, and joined him for the ride. “I know where the government was going— over to the Russians,” Gray told me. “Bernard Coard was a hard-line radical. He wished to establish a Marxist-Leninist state. Bishop had to sign agreements with the Russians or hand over power. He didn’t, and paid for it with his life.” Gray expressed relief that the country had rid itself of socialism and could now get down to business.

I received a totally different account from Lyden Ramdhanny, the minister of tourism and deputy finance minister under Bishop. To reach him, I took a taxi across the island to Grenville, the second largest town, and up into the surrounding hills, where Ramdhanny lives in a luxurious house overlooking the sea. One of two businessmen to serve in Bishop’s cabinet, Ramdhanny had gone underground for a week after the October 19 upheaval to escape being killed. He explained that the conflict between Bishop and Coard had been primarily a power struggle. “There was no question of ideology,” he said. “It was simply a grab for power.” He dismissed as nonsense claims about a Cuban takeover.


I was curious how he, an ardent Bishop supporter, regarded the invasion. “I recognize the majority of Grenadians are happy at being rescued,” he said. “For the first time in our history, we had a military dictatorship. After the mass killing, the people wanted any way out, so the invasion was quite acceptable to them. And I like to be guided by what the people want.”

Magazine Cover image
Explore the February 1984 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

View More
The invasion, then, appeared to be a liberation—but for diverse reasons. For some, it was a liberation from socialist “slavery,” as one man put it; for others, it was a liberation from the madmen who killed socialism when they killed Bishop. True to the way I remembered it, the island was full of contradictions.

UNDER MAURICE BISHOP, GRENADA CONSISTENTLY defied the stereotypes of revolution. While I was taking a bus back to town last March, after attending an impassioned government rally held to denounce U.S. imperialism, I overheard a group of young boys heatedly debating the Scriptures, particularly whether it is possible to see the Creator. On another occasion, I watched the army parade on a field in St. George’s, the capital; no sooner had it finished than the grounds were taken over by students from the St. George’s medical school, who started an impromptu softball game.

I attended a rally at the tiny headquarters of the national telephone company. Eighty or so workers gathered with members of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) to commemorate the opening of a new telephone exchange for the capital—the first part of a new system being installed by East Germany. The featured speaker was Bernard Coard, who praised the telephone workers for their role in the March, 1979, revolution. “With workers like you,” he said, “no force can turn back the Grenadian revolution.” He and the other notables adjourned to the second floor, where the cables and wires of the new exchange hung in coils. As Grenada’s archdeacon prepared to give the benediction, Coard and his colleagues reverently bowed their heads. “Unless God blesses all we do,” the archdeacon intoned, “it is worth nothing. We thank God for the new building and our new exchange.” He concluded with the Lord’s Prayer and sprinkled holy water on the East German circuitry. Coard cut the ribbon, a bottle of champagne was popped open, and everyone excitedly began inspecting the island’s new, sanctified phone exchange.


For Grenada’s tourists, this Cuban-Soviet bastion was just another sun-drenched island in the Caribbean. One day last March, as a Cuban ship unloaded cement intended for the airport, a mammoth Cunard liner pulled into harbor and disgorged hundreds of Americans into the streets of St. George’s. Nearby, a military band struck up “Capitalism Gone Mad,” a calypso hit song by The Mighty Sparrow. Before long, in a scene common throughout the Caribbean, the tourists were haggling with young black children peddling trinkets and spice containers.


The PRG sought to carry out the first socialist revolution based on tourism. Initially, the government had displayed considerable hostility toward tourism, and in its first months angry armed soldiers had patrolled the beaches. Before long, however, the government faced the reality that, like most small Third World countries, Grenada has few resources. The island, which is overwhelmingly rural, depends on nutmeg, cocoa beans, and a few other primary crops. When the bottom drops out of the world market for one of these, as happened recently with nutmeg, the country’s export earnings take a dive. Farming techniques are not much removed from those employed in the seventeenth century, and productivity is very low. Industrialization is nonexistent, save for some token production of furniture, garments, and processed foods.

On the other hand, Grenada’s rugged, volcanic terrain abounds with mangoes, bananas, tamarinds, breadfruit, and spices. Verdant mountains descend to the sea, producing a dramatic coastline of coves, cliffs, and beaches. The mile-and-a-half-long Grand Anse must rank among the world’s great beaches. St. George’s itself, a hilly port with clusters of quaint, bright-roofed buildings, has been likened to the Italian seacoast resort of Portofino.

So the government decided to embrace tourism. To counter the unflattering coverage appearing in the U.S. press (a PRG survey in 1981 turned up 169 negative articles about Grenada in one month alone), the government hired a public-relations firm in New York and, in 1982, paid for forty travel writers to come down and look around. It also did away with tedious customs checks that had antagonized tourists in the first months of the revolution.

Such pragmatism characterized the socialist government’s economic program as a whole. Its architect was Bernard Coard, who, as finance minister, introduced comprehensive economic planning to the island. The PRG set out to upgrade roads, water supplies, the power system, and other components of the country’s infrastructure, and advertised its efforts on billboards throughout the island. (An example: “This Is Where Your Tax Money Goes. Project: Port Expansion. Cost: $6,000,000.00.”) In August of last year, Coard succeeded in obtaining a $14 million loan from the International Monetary Fund, which was approved despite objections from the United States.

The PRG was committed to a mixed economy, and the private sector retained control of some two thirds of all economic activity. Although businessmen were wary of the government’s intentions, the PRG’s relations with the business community were relatively cordial. Richard Menezes, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, told me during my first visit that the “name-calling” had stopped. “I haven’t heard one unkind word against us in the longest while,” he said. He pointed to the government’s new investment law offering incentives that had been worked out with the Chamber.

What struck me was the gap between this sober economic approach and the level of rhetoric and ideology I encountered. Political discourse in Grenada was swollen with the vocabulary of revolution. Agriculture was the “main pillar” of the economy. The people were the “masses,” and workers were in the “vanguard.” Work was “struggle,” actions were “decisive,” and reality was always “concrete.” Men were “comrades,” women “sisters.” All speeches ended with a recitation of the PRG’s motto, “Forward Ever, Backward Never.”



Nineteen eighty-three was the “year of political and academic education,” and employees in many enterprises were required to attend “worker-education” classes in ideology. By the time of the coup, people were threatened with losing their jobs if they failed to show up. For many Grenadians, accustomed to an easygoing way of life, the classes were an unacceptable burden.

Even more disturbing to them were the government’s tight political controls. Contrary to the often lurid reports reaching the United States, Grenada was not a police state. Unlike the governments in Chile, Haiti, or El Salvador, the Grenadian government did not kill people or make them disappear. Armed men were not a conspicuous presence, except when the militia was called into the streets.

But dissent was not tolerated. The government closed down three newspapers, including one, the Grenadian Voice, that in its first issue had declared itself loyal to but critical of the revolution; that was the only issue ever to come out. Furthermore, the PRG held a large number of political prisoners. An exact total was hard to come by, since no lists were published, but at times it was probably on the order of 100, or about one in every thousand Grenadians. Few of these prisoners were charged with crimes, and even fewer tried. The Richmond Hill prison, perched on a bluff overlooking St. George’s and visible throughout the capital, stood as a squat reminder of where loose lips could land you.

Then there was the question of elections. “Elections are not an issue in Grenada,” I was told in March by Kenrick Radix, the minister of industrial development. “We had elections from 1951 on, and during that time a man’s vote could be bought with rum and corned beef. People now see a lot of changes—roads being built, buses on the road, the airport, free education. Whenever the masses want elections, they’ll get them. Don’t take my word for it. Ask people in the street.”

I did, frequently. Radix was partly right. People were pleased with the social improvements brought about by the revolution. Secondary education was provided free, a literacy campaign was under way, and the number of university scholarships had greatly increased. Medical care, too, was free, and health clinics had been opened in the countryside (thanks largely to the Cubans). Free milk and other foodstuffs were being distributed to the public, as were materials for home improvement. Cultural and sports programs had been set up for young people.


Yet, to a majority of the Grenadians I talked with, these gains did not make up for the lack of elections and the restrictions on free expression. A typical comment came from the manager of a small spice company, who told me, “We’re celebrating four years of revolution. Everyone sighed for relief when there was a change. But now there’s a lot of dissatisfaction. I, for one, don’t want to live in a country where you rule my life. You can take care of me, provide me with a job, education, housing. But I don’t have the freedom to use my imagination and initiative to do things on my own.”

Despite an unhappy experience with parliamentary democracy during its colonial days, Grenada, like the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean, is imbued with the political traditions left by the British. Moreover, Grenadians have long been pro-American and anti-communist. It is estimated that more of them live in the U.S. than on the island itself, the result of a historical migration in search of jobs. Even Radix, in the course of criticizing U.S. foreign policy, boasted to me that he had twenty cousins living in the United States. Thus the Bishop government’s close ties with Cuba did not go down well. Rumors swirled about the Cubans on the island—they had stolen Grenadians’ girlfriends, had gotten into fights with the locals, had even engaged in unnatural acts with animals.

Overall, I found that Bishop was perceived as a patriot working selflessly for the national good and that he was immensely popular among Grenadians of all ages; his government was not. Support for the PRG was concentrated among the young, and even there it was flagging. According to minutes of party meetings discovered after the invasion, Bishop’s New Jewel Movement was on the verge of dissolution because of popular hostility. “The revolution now faces the greatest danger since 1979,” the minutes state, owing to the “great dispiritiveness and dissatisfaction among the people.” The unhappiness was having a serious effect on the economy: though the government claimed that the GNP grew by 5.5 percent in 1982, it is clear that by the time of the coup economic growth had come to a halt. Bishop evidently hoped that his appointment of a commission to draw up a constitution, thereby paving the way for elections, would help regain some of the revolution’s lost credit.

How had the People’s Revolutionary Government reached such a pass? The answer requires a brief look at the rise of the New Jewel Movement and the early history of the revolution.

LIKE ITS NEIGHBORS, GRENADA WAS ONCE A SUGARproducing slave colony, first under France and then under Britain. But that experience left fewer scars on Grenada than it did on most other islands. Emancipation, declared in 1838, vitiated the plantation system as newly freed slaves obtained their own plots and became small farmers. The old plantocracy slowly died out, and land became fairly evenly distributed; so did income. People in Grenada are very poor, but because the land and the sea are so bountiful, few of them go hungry, and other signs of severe poverty, such as shantytowms, are scarce. The country’s population is homogeneous—predominantly black and Roman Catholic.

For all its comparative advantages, Grenada in its recent history had to contend with one unique burden: Eric Gairy. The frequent claims that the U.S. invasion sought to “restore democracy” betray unfamiliarity with this man, who from 1951 to 1979 (excepting a five-year gap) headed a ruthless dictatorship in the mold of “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s, in Haiti. For Sir Eric, politics was an exercise in self-aggrandizement, and he amassed an impressive collection of hotels, nightclubs, restaurants, and mansions. He demanded commissions on business deals and forced women to provide sexual favors. He was obsessed with witchcraft and astral projection, which he claimed was proof of his divinity. He often left the island to attend UFO conventions, and he addressed the UN General Assembly on the need for funding “psychic research” on UFOs.

Elections during Gairy’s regime were a sham; votes were brazenly bought and electoral lists doctored. To further cement his power, Gairy created paramilitary squads (one was called the “Mongoose Gang”) which were used to intimidate the opposition. These failed, however, to stem the growth of left-wing groups on the island. The most important was the New Jewel Movement, founded in 1973 by Maurice Bishop and Unison Whiteman (who later became foreign minister). On the one hand, the NJM took inspiration from the tradition of Caribbean populism, which stressed social justice, nationalism, and grass-roots participation. On the other, it drew on the Black Power movement then sweeping the United States. This particularly influenced Bishop, who had just returned from studying law in England, where he had seen firsthand the oppression of West Indian blacks.

At the same time, a second group, the Organization for Revolutionary Education and Liberation, developed around Bernard Coard, who had studied economics at Brandeis and Sussex universities. OREL was rooted in another doctrine with a traditional, if somewhat rarefied, place in Caribbean politics—Marxism. OREL was not a political party: it served primarily as a study group, and through it Coard instructed his students in the teachings of Marx and in how they might be applied to a small, underdeveloped country like Grenada.

Gairy unleashed his repressive apparatus on the growing opposition. On November 18, 1973—“Bloody Sunday”—Bishop and five other NJM leaders were badly beaten and thrown into prison. Two months later, on “Bloody Monday,” Gairy’s police shot and killed Rupert Bishop, Maurice’s father, during street demonstrations.

The thuggery only helped strengthen the NJM, which in 1976 decided to contest the national elections. Despite widespread fraud by Gairy supporters, an NJM-led alliance took 48 percent of the vote and six of the fifteen seats in parliament. Enraged by this challenge to his authority, Gairy cracked down harder and, to help bolster his regime, forged close ties with the Chilean government of Augusto Pinochet. In 1978, Grenadian dissidents began to disappear. The NJM developed a clandestine structure that penetrated the ranks of the army, the police, and trade unions.

On March 13, 1979, when Gairy was out of the country, the party struck. Forty armed men seized a key army barracks and the island’s only radio station, where they began broadcasting appeals to the citizenry to rise up. Thousands did, descending on police stations with crude weapons. Within twelve hours, Gairy’s regime had been routed. Only three people were killed in the takeover.

Speaking to the nation over the radio that day, Maurice Bishop said, “Let me assure the people of Grenada that all democratic freedoms, including freedom of elections, religion, and public opinion, will be fully restored to the people.” He added that “this revolution is for work, for food, for decent housing and health services, and for a bright future for our children and great-grandchildren.”

THE PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT brought together the populist nationalism of Bishop, who became prime minister, and the Marxism of Coard, his deputy. It pledged adherence to a mixed economy and named representatives of the private sector to the cabinet. Popular support for the new regime was overwhelming. When, a week after the takeover, Gairy officially announced his resignation, 20,000 Grenadians turned out at a rally and sang, “Freedom come, Gairy go, Gairy gone with UFO.”

The new government faced two urgent problems. One was getting the country going again. Gairy’s rule had brought about high unemployment, flagging production, substandard services, and a decaying infrastructure. Even more pressing, however, was a threat from Gairy, who issued calls for a countercoup from his base in San Diego.

Bishop approached a number of countries for assistance, including the United States and Cuba. Cuba responded at once, sending small amounts of economic aid. This did not sit well with Washington. When Frank Ortiz, the U.S. ambassador to Barbados—who had responsibility for the eastern Caribbean, including Grenada—visited the island in early April of 1979, he got straight to the point. The United States, he warned Bishop, would not look with favor on any effort by Grenada to develop closer ties with Cuba. If the government persisted, Ortiz said, it might discover a lessening in the flow of American tourists to the island. The Grenadians took this as a threat. They were further provoked by what they reported to be Ortiz’s offer of all of $5,000 in assistance.

To the young government, eager to demonstrate its independence, Ortiz’s lecture seemed to confirm suspicions about the American colossus. Ortiz “attempted to call the shots,” says Lyden Ramdhanny, who was a cabinet member at the time. “We said we’d like to have relations with everybody, left-leaning and right-leaning; he said he saw difficulty in that.” His offer of $5,000 was “a slap in the face,” Ramdhanny says. “Then the war of words began.”

In a speech delivered three days after the meeting with Ortiz, Bishop said:

We have always striven to have and develop the closest and friendliest relations with the United States, as well as Canada, Britain, and all our Caribbean neighbors. . . . But no one must misunderstand our friendliness as an excuse for rudeness and meddling in our affairs, and no one, no matter how mighty and powerful they are, will be permitted to dictate to the government and people of Grenada who we can have friendly relations with and what kind of relations we must have with other countries. We are not in anybody’s back yard.

Within days, the first arms from Cuba arrived, and the PRG quickly strengthened its ties with the socialist bloc. Its growing alignment with the East was apparent in its UN vote against condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At home, the government, citing counter-revolutionary threats, moved leftward. The Torchlight, a rightwing paper that had harshly attacked the link with Cuba, was shut down; the promise of elections began to fade; more people were thrown into jail. The government’s fears seemed to be confirmed in June of 1980, when a bomb went off at a large government rally in St. George’s, killing three young women and injuring close to a hundred other people.

The Carter Administration reacted strongly against the government’s actions. The National Security Council considered a blockade of the island (but ultimately decided against it). The State Department barred Sally Shelton, Frank Ortiz’s successor in Barbados, from visiting the island; not long after, it refused to accept the credentials of Dessima Williams, Bishop’s designated envoy to Washington.

The tactics of the United States became more aggressive after the election of Ronald Reagan. The Republican Administration worked to deny Grenada loans from the IMF (unsuccessfully) and from the World Bank (successfully). It told the Caribbean Development Bank, a regional institution based in Barbados, that it would contribute $4 million toward a “basic human needs” program—but only if Grenada was excluded. The demand outraged the bank’s directors, who turned down the contribution rather than submit to pressure. Some State Department officials now look back on the episode as a critical blunder that succeeded only in pushing Grenada further away from the United States. Finally, in August of 1981, the United States began staging large naval maneuvers in the Caribbean. Among the exercises in “Ocean Venture ‘81” was a mock invasion mock invasion of an island off Puerto Rico fictitiously named “Amber and the Amberdines,” said to be “our enemy in the eastern Caribbean.”

The PRG saw the operation as a warm-up for a possible invasion and began stepping up its military activities. It also turned up the volume on its rhetoric, as in this excerpt from a speech Bishop gave in November of 1981:

Today the assumption of power by a fascist clique in the U.S. and the failure of imperialism’s attempt to destroy our process has brought our revolution face to face with the ugliest side of imperialism—naked military aggression. . . . But it is not only here in our Caribbean that the enemies of peace have been rattling their sabers. These neutron warmongers have been seeking military confrontation on several continents.

With U.S. coffers sealed, Grenada looked elsewhere for help. Venezuela donated school supplies, housing materials, and 10,000 barrels of fuel. East Germans came to install the new telephone system, and North Koreans to set up an irrigation system. Canada developed a program to revive the island’s cocoa industry, laid low by plant disease. In 1982, according to government estimates, major donors to the island included the Common Market (30 percent), Canada (15 percent), the Middle East (15 percent), Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (15 percent), and Cuba (20 percent).

Cuba’s presence was by far the most visible. Cuban teachers, doctors, and dentists could be seen throughout the island. Cuba provided technical assistance in transportation, agriculture, fishing, culture, and sports. It even supplied two magicians, who turned up regularly at social events, to the evident delight of Grenadian audiences. Cuba also began secretly shipping more arms to the island. One night in 1982, for instance, a Cuban ship pulled into harbor, St. George’s suddenly went dark, and weapons were carried by trucks to hidden depots around the island.

THE CUBANS WERE MOST EVIDENT, OF COURSE, AT the new airport at Point Salines. In his “Star Wars” speech last March, President Reagan singled out the airport as a threat to Americans: “The Cubans, with Soviet financing and backing, are in the process of building an airfield with a 10,000-foot runway. Grenada doesn’t even have an air force. Who is it intended for?" Clearly, he said, the airport was part of the “Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada. ...” Most reporters described the airport in similar terms during the invasion. In fact it was immensely popular with Grenadians, who looked forward to the many tourists it would bring. “One project that’s had unanimous support is the airport,” Richard Menezes, of the Chamber of Commerce, made a point of telling me, in November. “Not many people outside Grenada know the extent to which Grenadians have put their money and sweat into this.” Many citizens bought bonds to support construction of the airport.

Newsmen traveling to Grenada to cover the invasion flew into Point Salines on C-130 transports. Had they arrived at the old airport, at Pearls, they might have seen why the facility under construction was so popular. Pearls’s 5,300-foot runway, chiseled out of the mountains, can accommodate only small prop planes; tourists must first fly to Barbados and change planes there. And, because Pearls cannot be used at night, Grenada-bound visitors who arrive in Barbados late in the day must often spend the night there.

Point Salines, with its 9,000-foot runway, would accommodate wide-bodied jets, making the stop in Barbados unnecessary. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, in Montreal, which sets standards for airports around the world, a 9,000-foot runway is short for an airport intended to service jumbo jets. Indeed, the airport at Barbados, whose intended use Reagan never questioned, boasts an 11,000-foot runway; so does the one in the Bahamas. Martinique’s runway is 10,800 feet, and Guadeloupe’s, 11,500 feet.

The case of St. Lucia shows what a new airport can do for an island in the Caribbean. In the early 1970s, when St. Lucia had a small airport, it received about the same number of tourists per year as Grenada—roughly 25,000. St. Lucia built a new airport with a 9,000-foot runway, and within three years the number of tourist arrivals almost tripled. The number in Grenada remained steady. The PRG projected an increase in arrivals to 40,000 in the first year after opening Point Salines.

The Bishop government first approached the United States, Britain, and Canada for funds to build the new airport. The United States refused, and persuaded the others to follow suit. Later, in 1981, when Grenada scheduled a conference in Brussels to seek loans, the United States pressured its European allies to stay away. Most did. Cuba was walling to pick up much of the slack, with help from the Common Market (which gives aid independent of its individual members), Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, and Venezuela. A U.S. firm, Layne Dredging, of Miami, dredged the inlet across which the runway extends, and Plessey, a British company, was contracted to install navigation and communications systems.

Soon after the invasion, Plessey issued a statement denying that Point Salines could have been used as a military base, citing the absence of eleven facilities, such as radar and underground fuel tanks, that it said a base would require. The State Department claimed nonetheless that the airfield had posed a serious strategic threat, saying that it would provide Cuban planes with a refueling stop on their way to Angola and would enable Soviet-bloc planes to control the sea-lanes through which much U.S. oil passes. But the Cubans have been reaching Angola for eight years without Grenada; for a number of years they refueled in Barbados. As for the threat to oil tankers, the countries that should logically have felt most threatened are neighboring Venezuela and Trinidad, both oil producers. Venezuela was the only non-socialist country to maintain an embassy in Grenada, and it even contributed to the airport; Trinidad opposed the U.S. invasion. (After armsladen Libyan planes headed for Nicaragua were intercepted in Brazil last year, the State Department added the “trans-shipment of arms”‘to the list of dangers it claimed the airport presented.)

Even within the State Department, I found considerable skepticism about U.S. opposition to the airport. On my way to Grenada last March, I talked with a well-placed official who said of the facility, “I confess to not being terribly worried.” He added, “I never put much stress on the strategic importance of this whole region, much less Grenada.” Another State Department official said he thought that moves by the United States to block the airport’s construction had served to “push Bishop further to the left.”

DURING MY VISIT IN MARCH, I WITNESSED A striking example of the contrast between the policies of the United States and Cuba toward the island. It occurred during celebrations commemorating the fourth anniversary of the March 13 revolution. In previous years, the date had been marked by mass rallies; this time, the People’s Revolutionary Government scheduled a series of modest ceremonies to inaugurate new public projects— a road, a spice-grinding facility, a livestock center. The government hoped to shore up its popularity by impressing Grenadians with the revolution’s material progress.

But the tone of the planned events soon changed. The Washington Post revealed on February 27 that the CIA had proposed a plan to destabilize Grenada (it later backed off because of Senate opposition). Then the United States and its NATO allies began holding joint maneuvers off Puerto Rico, involving two aircraft carriers and thirty-four U.S. warships. Finally, on March 10, President Reagan denounced Grenada in a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers. “It is not nutmeg that is at stake in the Caribbean and Central America,” he said in a now-famous remark. “It is the United States’ national security.”

The PRG took those remarks as a direct threat and, accordingly, urged people to turn out in force at a rally scheduled for March 12 to thank Cuba for a cement-block factory it had constructed. The plant, named after Augusto Sandino, the Nicaraguan revolutionary, was intended both to produce materials for the airport and to manufacture prefabricated housing units. The Grenadian and Cuban flags fluttered over the grounds of the plant, where about a thousand people had gathered, including a hundred or so Cuban construction workers. A series of speakers, including a member of the Cuban Communist Party, praised the new plant as a monument to “internationalism” and Cuban-Grenadian friendship.


Then, as it grew dark, the time came for the keynote address. With Bishop out of the country, attending a summit of nonaligned nations in New Delhi, Deputy Prime Minister Coard took his place. The speech lasted forty-five minutes, and it was masterly, the tone alternately indignant, hurt, angry, and ironic. “If we are to believe certain madmen,” railed Coard, who was flanked by bodyguards, “this tiny island of Grenada, with a hundred thousand people, twenty-one by twelve miles, is a superpower. We must be a superpower, because the U.S., the mightiest power on earth, is trembling at us.”

In the context of the threats from the United States, the Sandino plant had “tremendous significance,” Coard declared.

In a country with only twenty thousand families, a housing plant that can produce five hundred homes a year is a giant step forward. In a fairly short space of time, this country will be able to wipe out its housing problem. And for this we must thank the government and people of Cuba.

What Reagan and his cowboys really fear Cuba for is not their military aid but their economic assistance. They are frightened by twenty-five doctors training in Cuba. They are afraid the masses of English-speaking Caribbean society will ask, If Grenada could build five hundred housing units a year, why can’t we? . . . They are afraid that Grenada is being held up as a model for the developing world.

Coard ended with a surprise announcement: Prime Minister Bishop had just touched down at Pearls on his return from New Delhi and would soon arrive at the rally. “Long live Maurice,” he shouted.

Ten minutes later, horns began honking and the glare of headlights appeared. The crowd parted. A string of shiny cars pulled onto the grounds of the plant and rolled up to the speakers’ platform. Bishop emerged from one of the cars and hopped up onto the dais, where he, Coard, and other members of the government joined hands and listened to the cheers of the crowd. Though visibly exhausted from his long trip, the Prime Minister moved to the microphone and launched into a twenty-minute denunciation of U.S. imperialism. “This latest threat from Ronald Reagan,” he said,

means a throwing down of the gauntlet to our revolution. He is clearly signaling that they are getting ready for an all-out assault against our revolutionary process. . . . They are now sitting down and planning the final stages of armed attack against our revolution. But we are not going to be threatened or intimidated. They can drop a bomb and wipe our country off the face of the earth, but if they come to try and invade, when they land, they will discover the fighting will of the Grenadian people. We will never give up.


The climax did not come until the following day, the anniversary, when the government staged a military parade. For about half an hour, a few hundred soldiers, accompanied by heavy trucks, personnel carriers, and anti-aircraft guns, marched around a field in St. George’s. The soldiers then jumped into vehicles and, with Bishop in the lead, set off on a motorcade around the island, intended to mobilize the citizenry against the threat from the United States. The procession returned to the capital by nightfall and gathered on the waterfront for yet another rally. Hundreds of militia members, their Russian AK-47 rifles on their shoulders, stood at the ready as their leaders urged national vigilance.

These events came to mind on my second visit to Grenada when I stopped by the warehouses of arms that had been discovered by the U.S. forces. The Reagan Administration claimed that the volume of weapons far exceeded the defensive needs of the island, and thus could only have been intended for aggressive purposes. But then the State Department released copies of Grenada’s arms pacts with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea, and they contained little evidence to back up the claim. An equally plausible explanation was that Grenada’s government, feeling beleaguered, was seeking to bolster its puny military. “We have never hidden the fact that we had arms, more arms than other Caribbean countries,” Lyden Ramdhanny said in November. “These arms were brought in to defend the country. We were under the threat of external aggression.” Ramdhanny added that the PRG had actually anticipated an attack not by the Marines but by bands of invaders similar to those working to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

However justified the arms buildup might have seemed to the PRG, the militarization of the island proved to be a tragic miscalculation. The Grenadian people had little notion of how to use guns and even less desire to learn. As the secret arsenal grew, it became a destabilizing force in itself, serving finally not to defend the revolution but to undo it.

THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE BLOODBATH OF October 19 have been described in great detail: the demand by the Coard faction for joint leadership; the house arrest of Maurice Bishop, his liberation by a crowd, and the march on Fort Rupert; the shootings there that took the lives of Bishop and scores of others; the creation of Genera] Hudson Austin’s repressive military junta. News reports were in general agreement on the significance of the events: Time, for example, reported that after Bishop traveled to Washington, last June, seeking a dialogue with the United States, “Cuba encouraged the harder-line deputy, Coard, to push Bishop out.”

Bishop and Fidel Castro in reality had had a deep personal friendship. Immediately after Bishop’s death, Cuba condemned the executions, demanded punishment of those responsible, and declared a three-day period of mourning. Castro turned down a request from Austin for arms to defend against an expected invasion. Three days before the invasion, Cuba sent the State Department a communique asking to negotiate so as to avoid a resort to force. (It received a response only after the invasion had begun.)

As to the struggle between Bishop and Coard, it seemed to fit a classic pattern: the moderate, threatening to betray the revolution, is liquidated by the extremists. Much in the party’s minutes seems to bear out this interpretation. According to one NJM account, the party had to choose between two options: the “petty-bourgeois route,” attributed to Bishop, which would lead to the “deterioration of the party into a Social Democratic party and hence the degeneration of the revolution”; and the “communist route,” championed by Coard, which was based on “Leninist standards.” The document concludes that “the party must be put on a Leninist footing.”

But the language used by government and party officials, such as references to “right opportunism,” “economism,” and “class struggle,” was often drained of meaning. Those involved in the dispute between Bishop and Coard (who after the invasion remained silent in Richmond Hill prison) seem to agree that it was not a matter of right against left, moderate against extreme; in fact, they say, the rift didn’t have much to do with policy. Rather, it was primarily personal. The Coard group simply “wanted to seize power for themselves, to use the revolution for their own purposes,” says George Louison, the minister of agriculture under Bishop and one of his closest associates. Although Coard’s rhetoric was “ultraleft,” Louison says, his programs “would have been very similar to Bishop’s” had he acceded to power. Such matters as the mixed economy and relations with the United States seem hardly to have been mentioned during central-committee discussions.

“There were differences in the approaches to implementing certain policies, differences in method and style,” Don Rojas, Bishop’s press secretary, said in a press conference soon after the invasion. “Maurice Bishop was more flexible, more understanding of the need to make tactical moves. Bernard Coard saw things in more clear-cut terms. On fundamental ideological issues, there were no major differences.” Both, then, were committed Marxists, but the traditions from which they came—Bishop’s nationalistic populism and Coard’s ideological dogmatism—proved irreconcilable. Once Bishop was removed, the revolution lost its chief claim to legitimacy. Why the rupture took such a violent turn remains a mystery.

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF-IMMOLATION OF Grenada’s socialist revolution requires a look at the international context in which it unfolded. Many officials at the State Department believe that Grenada was headed into the socialist bloc from the very start. Sally Shelton, the ambassador in Barbados from 1979 to 1981, says, “We went the extra mile to be accommodating. They clearly were not interested. I question whether Bishop was a moderate and wanted good relations. I’m tired of people blaming us.” Still, Shelton concedes that U.S. policy was not all it could have been. “I’m one of those who urged that we should have had a more forthcoming policy,” she says. The United States “should have tried longer” to improve relations. She says that it was a mistake to break off ambassadorial contacts in 1980, because doing so made dialogue impossible.

During my first stay in Grenada, I found almost unanimous agreement on the subject of U.S. policy. Even leading critics of the PRG were appalled by America’s behavior. One such critic was Alister Hughes, the island’s bestknown journalist and a constant thorn in the side of the Bishop government. Later, he would praise the U.S. invasion, which probably saved his life—he was jailed after the October 19 killings. In March, however, he had said, “I have no faith that Ronald Reagan will allow this revolution to prosper without taking steps against it. I believe the Americans have very conveniently opened the door for this government to turn toward Cuba. Frank Ortiz made some very stupid statements here. You don’t tell an independent country whether it can have relations with Cuba.”

Ortiz’s performance is recalled bitterly by many in the State Department, who believe that, had he been more adept in dealing with the Grenadian government, the course of relations between the two countries could have been smoother. But such a view misses the point. Whatever Ortiz’s skills as a diplomat, he did deliver the message the State Department had entrusted to him: if Grenada wanted U.S. assistance, it had to forgo its relations with Cuba.

The reasoning behind this approach, seemingly so counterproductive, became clear to me in the course of a long discussion in March with the same State Department official who had candidly dismissed Grenada’s strategic importance. I pressed him to explain why he supported the government’s policy of isolating the island. His answer was predictable: “We think they’ve been committed to a close association with Cuba from day one.” But, I asked, why should ties with Cuba preclude relations with the United States? “Think of the precedent it would set,” he replied, and mentioned potential instability in other eastern Caribbean islands such as St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Antigua. “Throughout the region, there are little-bitty leftist groups with power ambitions. If we improved relations with Grenada at no cost to the [pro-Cuban] government, imagine what it would say to other putative authorities in the eastern Caribbean. They would say, ‘We can pull off a coup and then, after three or four years of a little trouble with Uncle Sam, he’ll come around.’ ” The official concluded, “We obviously don’t like being put in the position of the heavy. We want to act like a mature, responsible world power. But here’s a little country saying insolent things, and we’re forced to reply.”


Leave aside the 9,000-foot runway, the arms caches, the documents, the reports of terrorist training camps and exportation of Marxism. Also leave aside the failure to call elections, the holding of political prisoners, the closing of newspapers. The real sticking point for the United States seems to have been that this tiny island, so close to the United States, insisted on its right to conduct an independent foreign policy, and proclaimed that right repeatedly and insistently. The United States could not tolerate such a challenge in its immediate sphere of influence. Seen in this light, the rapprochement seemingly promised by the meeting last June between Bishop and William Clark was a mirage. The U.S. was not interested in kind words and friendly overtures. It wanted one thing from Bishop—for him to kick out the Cubans. And that he could not do.


Was Bishop in Castro’s pocket? Certainly, Grenada depended on Cuba for a great deal of economic and military aid. But a simplistic “pawn of Cuba” analysis represents a serious misreading of left-wing politics in the Caribbean and even in the Third World. It overlooks the fact that, in terms of political experiences, Bishop had a lot more in common with Fidel Castro than he had with, say, the current U.S. ambassador in Barbados, Milan Bish, a former Nebraska highway commissioner.

More important, Grenada’s links with Havana and its estrangement from Washington reflect the island’s history as a slave colony, its centuries of poverty and underdevelopment, and its suffering under Eric Gairy, whose repressive policies raised no protests from the United States. There is also the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America. The PRG, like other revolutionary governments, often invoked Nicaragua in the 1920s, Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Chile in 1973, Central America in the 1980s. In the future, Grenada in 1983 will probably be on the list—making it all the more difficult for the United States to work with other Maurice Bishops who might emerge.

As Grenada drew closer and closer to the socialist world, that world exercised a gravitational pull on the revolution that wrenched it from Grenadian reality. To prove its revolutionary mettle, the PRG adopted an increasingly radical world view, stressing ideological purity, the primary role of the party, and the advanced consciousness of the workers. Such strict doctrine was incongruous on an out-of-the-way tropical island. Grenada was not like Nicaragua and Jamaica, countries characterized by deep social divisions and extremes of wealth, in which radical political philosophies might address a real need. One of the tragedies of Grenada’s revolution is that its leaders felt compelled to stir up class antagonism in a society in which sharply defined classes do not exist.


When the “masses” (itself an incongruous term on an island of 110,000 people) did not respond, the party lost its way. As it began to disintegrate, Coard and his former students, who believed that the party and the revolution were synonymous, made a last, insane effort to salvage both. Their desperation is summed up in a communique issued by the Revolutionary Military Council after Bishop’s death which proclaimed, “Long live the Grenada Revolution! Forward Ever! Backward Never! Socialism or Death!”

Now that Grenada has been removed from the socialist orbit, the United States will no doubt seek to make the island a model for the rest of the eastern Caribbean. The State Department will likely adapt its blueprint for Jamaica, providing large doses of assistance—more than $30 million in economic and military aid was offered within a month of the invasion—in exchange for Grenada’s establishing the private sector as the motor of development. In addition, the United States will probably encourage centrist, pro-capitalist parties. That means preventing the return of Eric Gairy, which would be a major embarrassment for the United States, or the resurrection of the New Jewel Movement, which would be even worse. The remaining traces of the NJM are already being eradicated. The United States may be portraying Maurice Bishop as a martyr, but it is doing its best to lay his political movement to rest.


Nonalignment is likely to remain as elusive as ever for Grenada. Chamber of Commerce president Richard Menezes told me that although he welcomed U.S. assistance, he didn’t want Grenada to become “some offshore enclave.” He said, “ I don’t want to have to completely give up our national interests as a result of liberation. The U.S. must recognize the pitfalls of our becoming overly aligned in one direction.”

“It’s sad,” a former official in the Bishop government said wearily. “The majority of Grenadians never intended to become this bone of contention between East and West.”But the Grenadians do not have much choice. In a world divided into competing blocs and dominated by superpowers, there is little place for small nations seeking to chart a middle course.

Michael Massing is a writer who lives in New York.




格林纳达之前和之后
一个试图在旅游业基础上进行第一次社会主义革命的政府的国内和国际问题

作者：迈克尔-马辛
1984年2月号
分享
入侵格林纳达三个月后，有两件事可以确定：干预行动得到了绝大多数格林纳达人的支持，并得到了大多数美国人的赞扬。然而，除此之外，没有什么是清楚的。美国政府和美国新闻机构都没有做什么来帮助我们了解发生了什么。

在某种程度上，报道的质量反映了美国政府在入侵的关键头几天不让记者上岛的决心。大多数新闻机构都不自觉地依赖五角大楼、国务院和白宫提供的信息。因此，报道的总体效果是加强了里根总统的断言，即格林纳达是 "一个苏联-古巴的殖民地，正在准备成为一个主要的军事堡垒"，以及 "我们及时赶到那里"。


事实上，如此多的注意力都集中在古巴人和苏联人身上，以至于我们对格林纳达本身了解甚少。由于该地区最伟大的演说家之一莫里斯-毕晓普（Maurice Bishop）已经哑火，许多人站出来为他辩护。甚至美国政府似乎也急于把毕晓普描绘成一个 "温和派"，他对华盛顿的和平姿态触犯了 "强硬的马克思主义者 "伯纳德-科尔德，最终导致毕晓普的死亡。

杂志封面图片
以PDF格式查看本故事
请看这个故事在《大西洋》杂志的页面上出现。

打开
莫里斯-毕晓普是谁？他的革命是什么样的？美国是如何对待他的政权的？以及他的政府为什么会有这样的结局？只有在我们回答了这些问题之后，我们才能理解美国的入侵和它可能产生的影响。

去年3月，我访问了格林纳达两个星期，并在入侵后不久返回那里。在我的第一次旅行中，我发现一个温和的、杂草丛生的岛屿，其美丽因格林纳达人自己的乐趣而更加令人惊叹。格林纳达隐藏在向风群岛链的末端，是一个慵懒的、不起眼的地方，对外面的世界没有什么感觉。我遇到的外国人是一个混合体，他们来见证格林纳达在加勒比海社会主义方面的实验：来自加拿大和西欧的团结团体的成员；好奇的美国左派人士，无论新旧；一个小圈子的西德激进分子，他们是在阅读了一份左翼周刊对革命的精彩描述后到达的；牙买加人试图从迈克尔-曼利的失败中恢复过来；以及圭亚那人在逃离福布斯-伯纳姆的妄想政治。


到了11月，格林纳达已经成为一个狂欢节，为枪声停止后前来的许多白人提供了大量的娱乐活动和大量的本地黑人帮助。格林纳达人对海军陆战队的到来感到欣喜，但他们没有意识到，军队之后会有第二次入侵--国际开发署的官员、外交官、经济顾问、救灾专家和记者。记者们随处可见，他们排队采访旅店老板、店员、学童和鱼贩，所有这些人都以不变应万变的礼节。美国人接管了岛上最好的三家酒店，在广播电台设立了一个心理行动小组，并将当地的大学中心改为新闻办公室。有人说要用罗纳德-里根的名字来命名新机场。

推荐阅读

荷兰人如何进行性教育
邦尼-J-罗布
插图。彩色玻璃窗上有碎裂的邦联旗帜和1861年和1865年的日期
为什么邦联的谎言不绝于耳
CLINT SMITH

如果你不是一个男人，成为一名审判律师需要什么？
拉拉-巴泽隆
为了对吞噬格林纳达的事件做出一些解释，我顺便拜访了我在第一次访问时遇到的几个人。其中一位是理查德-格雷，肉桂山和海滩俱乐部的老板，这是位于大安斯海滩附近山上的一排豪华别墅。格雷是英国人，十多年前移居格林纳达，是商会的重要成员，去年三月，他与我度过了一个悠闲的下午，喝着饮料，描述政府和商人之间的合作努力，以促进当地投资。

然而，在入侵后的格林纳达，商会已成为一个重要的权力经纪人，格雷的时间被交给了无尽的会议。在他准备去和总督谈话时，我抓住了他，并和他一起去了一趟。"我知道政府要去哪里--去找俄国人，"格雷告诉我。"伯纳德-科尔德是个强硬的激进分子。他希望建立一个马克思主义-列宁主义国家。毕晓普必须与俄国人签署协议，否则就要交出权力。他没有这样做，并为此付出了生命的代价。" 格雷表示，国家已经摆脱了社会主义，现在可以踏踏实实地做生意了。

我从毕晓普手下的旅游部长和副财政部长莱登-拉姆丹尼那里得到了完全不同的说法。为了与他取得联系，我乘出租车穿过该岛，来到第二大镇格林维尔，并登上周围的山丘，拉姆丹尼住在俯瞰大海的一座豪华房子里。拉姆丹尼是在毕晓普内阁任职的两名商人之一，在10月19日的动乱之后，拉姆丹尼躲在地下一个星期，以逃避被杀。他解释说，毕晓普和科尔德之间的冲突主要是一场权力斗争。"他说："不存在意识形态的问题。"这只是对权力的争夺。" 他驳斥了关于古巴人接管的说法是无稽之谈。


我很好奇他这个热心的毕晓普支持者是如何看待这次入侵的。"他说："我承认大多数格林纳达人对获救感到高兴。"在我们的历史上，我们第一次有了一个军事独裁政权。在大规模杀戮之后，人民希望有任何出路，所以入侵对他们来说是相当可以接受的。而我喜欢以人民的愿望为指导。"

杂志封面图片
探索1984年2月号
查看本期的更多内容，并寻找你的下一个故事来阅读。

查看更多
当时，入侵似乎是一种解放--但原因各异。对一些人来说，这是从社会主义的 "奴役 "中解放出来的，正如一个人所说的那样；对另一些人来说，这是从杀死主教时杀死社会主义的那些疯子那里解放出来的。与我记忆中的情况一样，这个岛屿充满了矛盾。

在毛里斯-比绍普的领导下，格林纳达一直在挑战革命的陈规陋习。去年3月，在参加完政府为谴责美帝国主义而举行的慷慨激昂的集会后，我坐车回城时，无意中听到一群年轻的男孩在激烈地辩论圣经，特别是是否有可能看到造物主。还有一次，我在首都圣乔治的一块场地上观看了阅兵式；阅兵式刚结束，场地就被圣乔治医学院的学生占领了，他们开始了一场即兴的垒球比赛。

我参加了在国家电话公司的小总部举行的集会。八十多名工人与人民革命政府的成员聚集在一起，纪念首都新电话交换机的启用--这是东德正在安装的新系统的第一部分。主讲人是伯纳德-科尔德，他赞扬了电话工人在1979年3月革命中的作用。他说："有你们这样的工人，"他说，"没有任何力量可以使格林纳达的革命倒退。" 他和其他知名人士来到二楼，在那里，新交换机的电缆和电线盘旋而上。当格林纳达的大执事准备致祝词时，科德和他的同事们虔诚地低下了头。"大执事说："除非上帝保佑我们所做的一切，否则就毫无价值。我们为新建筑和我们的新交易所感谢上帝"。他以主祷文结束，并将圣水洒在东德的电路上。科尔德剪了彩，一瓶香槟被打开，大家兴奋地开始检查岛上新的、神圣的电话交换机。


对于格林纳达的游客来说，这个古巴-苏联的堡垒只是加勒比海上另一个阳光灿烂的岛屿。去年3月的一天，当一艘古巴船卸下准备运往机场的水泥时，一艘巨大的库纳德邮轮驶入港口，将数百名美国人赶到圣乔治的街头。在附近，一个军乐队奏起了 "资本主义疯了"，这是一首由 "强大的麻雀 "创作的卡里普索舞曲。不久，在整个加勒比地区常见的场景中，游客们与兜售小饰品和香料盒的年轻黑人儿童讨价还价。


PRG试图在旅游业的基础上进行第一次社会主义革命。起初，政府对旅游业表现出相当大的敌意，在最初几个月，愤怒的武装士兵在海滩上巡逻。然而，不久之后，政府就面临着这样的现实：像大多数第三世界小国一样，格林纳达的资源很少。该岛绝大多数是农村，依靠肉豆蔻、可可豆和其他一些主要作物。当这些作物中的一种在世界市场上跌落谷底时，就像最近发生的肉豆蔻事件一样，该国的出口收入就会急剧下降。耕作技术与17世纪所使用的技术相差无几，生产率非常低。除了一些象征性的家具、服装和加工食品的生产，工业化是不存在的。

另一方面，格林纳达崎岖的火山地形盛产芒果、香蕉、罗望子、面包果和香料。苍翠的山脉一直延伸到海边，形成了一条由海湾、悬崖和海滩组成的壮观的海岸线。一英里半长的大安斯（Grand Anse）是世界上最伟大的海滩之一。圣乔治本身是一个丘陵港口，有一簇簇古朴的、屋顶明亮的建筑，被比作意大利海岸的度假胜地波托菲诺。

因此，政府决定拥抱旅游业。为了抵制美国媒体中出现的不光彩的报道（1981年的一项PRG调查发现，仅在一个月内就有169篇关于格林纳达的负面报道），政府在纽约聘请了一家公共关系公司，并在1982年支付了40名旅游作家来这里考察。它还取消了繁琐的海关检查，这些检查在革命的头几个月曾使游客感到不满。

这种实用主义是社会主义政府的整个经济计划的特点。它的设计师是伯纳德-科尔德（Bernard Coard），作为财政部长，他将全面的经济规划引入了该岛。社会主义政府着手升级道路、供水、电力系统和国家基础设施的其他组成部分，并在全岛的广告牌上宣传其努力。(一个例子。"这是你的税款去处。项目。港口扩建。成本：6,000,000.00美元"）。去年8月，科尔德成功地从国际货币基金组织获得了1400万美元的贷款，尽管美国反对，但还是得到了批准。

PRG致力于混合经济，私营部门保留了对所有经济活动约三分之二的控制权。尽管商人们对政府的意图持谨慎态度，但临时政府与商业界的关系还是比较融洽的。商会主席理查德-梅内塞斯（Richard Menezes）在我第一次访问时告诉我，"辱骂 "已经停止。"他说："我已经很久没有听到针对我们的不友好的话语了。他指出，政府的新投资法提供的激励措施是与商会共同制定的。

让我印象深刻的是这种清醒的经济方法与我遇到的言论和意识形态之间的差距。格林纳达的政治话语充斥着革命的词汇。农业是经济的 "主要支柱"。人民是 "大众"，而工人是 "先锋"。工作是 "斗争"，行动是 "决定性的"，现实永远是 "具体的"。男人是 "同志"，女人是 "姐妹"。所有的演讲都以朗诵PRG的座右铭 "永远向前，永不后退 "结束。



1983年是 "政治和学术教育年"，许多企业的员工被要求参加 "工人教育 "的意识形态课程。到了政变的时候，人们受到威胁，如果他们不来，就会失去他们的工作。对于许多习惯了轻松生活方式的格林纳达人来说，这些课程是一个不可接受的负担。

更让他们不安的是政府严格的政治控制。与传到美国的经常性的淫秽报道相反，格林纳达并不是一个警察国家。与智利、海地或萨尔瓦多的政府不同，格林纳达政府并没有杀人或让他们失踪。武装人员的存在并不显眼，除非民兵被召集到街上。

但不同意见是不能被容忍的。政府关闭了三家报纸，其中一家是 "格林纳达之声"，它在创刊号上宣布自己忠于革命，但对革命持批评态度；那是唯一的一期报纸。此外，PRG还关押了大量的政治犯。由于没有公布名单，准确的总数很难得到，但有时可能是100人左右，或者说每一千名格林纳达人中就有一人。这些囚犯中很少有人被指控犯罪，更少有人被审判。里士满山监狱坐落在俯瞰圣乔治的悬崖上，在整个首都都能看到，它就像一个蹲在地上的提醒，提醒着人们松懈的嘴唇会让你陷入困境。

然后是选举问题。"选举在格林纳达不是一个问题，"工业发展部长Kenrick Radix在3月份告诉我。"我们从1951年开始就有选举，在那个时候，一个人的选票可以用朗姆酒和玉米牛肉来购买。现在人们看到了很多变化--道路正在修建，公共汽车上路，机场，免费教育。只要群众想要选举，他们就会得到选举。不要相信我的话。问问街上的人。"

我做了，经常做。拉迪克斯说得有一部分是对的。人们对革命所带来的社会改善感到高兴。中等教育是免费的，一场扫盲运动正在进行中，大学奖学金的数量也大大增加。医疗服务也是免费的，并且在农村开设了健康诊所（主要归功于古巴人）。免费的牛奶和其他食品正在向公众发放，家庭装修材料也是如此。为年轻人设立了文化和体育项目。


然而，对大多数与我交谈的格林纳达人来说，这些成果并不能弥补缺乏选举和对自由表达的限制。一家小型调味品公司的经理告诉我，"我们正在庆祝革命的四年。当发生变化时，每个人都松了一口气。但现在有很多不满的声音。我，不想生活在一个由你统治我生活的国家。你可以照顾我，为我提供工作、教育、住房。但我没有自由，不能发挥我的想象力和主动性，自己做事情。"

尽管在殖民地时期有过不愉快的议会民主经历，但格林纳达和加勒比海其他英语国家一样，充满了英国人留下的政治传统。此外，格林纳达人长期以来都是亲美和反共的。据估计，他们中更多的人生活在美国，而不是在岛上，这是历史上寻找工作的移民的结果。甚至Radix在批评美国外交政策的过程中，也向我吹嘘说他有20个表兄弟住在美国。因此，主教政府与古巴的密切联系并不顺利。关于岛上的古巴人的流言四起--他们偷了格林纳达人的女朋友，与当地人打架，甚至与动物发生非正常行为。

总的来说，我发现毕晓普被认为是一个为国家利益无私工作的爱国者，他在所有年龄段的格林纳达人中都非常受欢迎；而他的政府则不然。对PRG的支持主要集中在年轻人中，即使在那里也在不断下降。根据入侵后发现的党内会议记录，由于民众的敌意，毕晓普的新宝石运动正处于解散的边缘。"会议记录称："由于 "人民的巨大精神和不满"，革命现在面临着1979年以来的最大危险。这种不愉快对经济产生了严重的影响：尽管政府声称1982年国民生产总值增长了5.5%，但很明显，在政变发生时，经济增长已经停止了。毕晓普显然希望他任命一个委员会来起草宪法，从而为选举铺平道路，这将有助于挽回革命失去的一些荣誉。

人民革命政府是如何走到这一步的？要回答这个问题，需要简单了解一下新犹太运动的崛起和革命的早期历史。

与邻国一样，格林纳达也曾是一个产糖的奴隶殖民地，先是在法国统治下，后来在英国统治下。但这种经历在格林纳达留下的伤痕比在其他大多数岛屿上留下的要少。1838年宣布的解放，使种植园制度受到影响，新解放的奴隶获得了自己的土地，成为小农。旧的种植园制度慢慢消亡，土地变得相当平均分配，收入也是如此。格林纳达的人们非常贫穷，但由于土地和海洋是如此丰富，他们中很少有人挨饿，其他严重贫困的迹象，如棚户区，也很少见。这个国家的人口是同质化的，主要是黑人和罗马天主教徒。

尽管有所有的相对优势，格林纳达在其最近的历史上不得不与一个独特的负担作斗争。埃里克-盖里。人们经常声称美国的入侵是为了 "恢复民主"，这暴露了他们对这个人的不熟悉，从1951年到1979年（除了五年的空白期），他在海地领导了一个无情的独裁政权，其模式与杜瓦利埃的 "爸爸多克 "一样。对埃里克爵士来说，政治是一种自我膨胀的练习，他积累了大量的酒店、夜总会、餐馆和豪宅。他在商业交易中索要佣金，强迫妇女提供性服务。他痴迷于巫术和星体投射，他声称这是他神性的证明。他经常离岛参加UFO大会，并在联合国大会上发言，表示需要资助对UFO的 "精神研究"。

盖里政权期间的选举是一个骗局；选票被公然收买，选举名单被篡改。为了进一步巩固他的权力，盖里建立了准军事小组（其中一个被称为 "蒙哥斯帮"），用来恐吓反对派。然而，这些措施未能阻止岛上左翼团体的发展。最重要的是由莫里斯-毕晓普和尤尼森-惠特曼（后来成为外交部长）于1973年成立的新宝石运动。一方面，新宝石运动从加勒比民粹主义的传统中获得灵感，强调社会正义、民族主义和基层参与。另一方面，它借鉴了当时席卷美国的黑人权力运动。这特别影响了毕晓普，他刚从英国学习法律回来，在那里他亲眼目睹了西印度黑人受到的压迫。

同时，第二个团体，即革命教育和解放组织，在伯纳德-科德周围发展起来，他曾在布兰代斯和苏塞克斯大学学习经济学。OREL植根于另一种学说，在加勒比海的政治中具有传统的、甚至是稀缺的地位--马克思主义。OREL不是一个政党：它主要是作为一个研究小组，通过它，Coard指导他的学生学习马克思的教义，以及如何将它们应用于像格林纳达这样的不发达小国。

盖里对日益壮大的反对派释放了他的镇压机器。1973年11月18日--"血腥的星期天"--主教和其他五名新泽西州议会领导人遭到毒打并被投入监狱。两个月后，在 "血腥星期一"，盖里的警察在街头示威中枪杀了莫里斯的父亲鲁珀特-比绍普。

这种暴行只有助于加强新军运动，该组织在1976年决定参加全国选举。尽管盖里的支持者普遍存在欺诈行为，但新军运动领导的联盟获得了48%的选票和议会15个席位中的6个。盖里被这种对其权威的挑战所激怒，更加严厉地镇压，并且为了帮助支持他的政权，与奥古斯托-皮诺切特的智利政府建立了密切联系。1978年，格林纳达的持不同政见者开始失踪。新日本帝国主义发展了一个秘密结构，渗透到军队、警察和工会的队伍中。

1979年3月13日，当盖里不在国内时，该党发动了攻击。40名武装人员占领了一个重要的军营和岛上唯一的广播电台，他们在那里开始广播，呼吁公民起来。数以千计的人起义了，他们带着粗糙的武器冲向警察局。在12个小时内，盖里的政权被击溃。只有三个人在接管过程中被杀。

当天，莫里斯-毕晓普在广播中对全国人民说："让我向格林纳达人民保证，所有的民主自由，包括选举、宗教和舆论自由，都将完全恢复给人民"。他还说，"这场革命是为了工作，为了食物，为了体面的住房和医疗服务，为了我们的孩子和曾孙的美好未来"。

人民革命政府汇集了成为总理的毕晓普的民粹民族主义和他的副手科尔德的马克思主义。它承诺坚持混合经济，并任命私营部门的代表进入内阁。民众对新政权的支持是压倒性的。当接管一周后，盖里正式宣布辞职时，2万名格林纳达人参加了一个集会，并高唱："自由来了，盖里走了，盖里随飞碟走了"。

新政府面临着两个紧迫的问题。一个是让国家重新运转起来。盖里的统治带来了高失业率、生产停滞不前、不符合标准的服务和腐朽的基础设施。然而，更紧迫的是来自盖里的威胁，他从他在圣地亚哥的基地发出反政变的呼吁。

毕晓普向一些国家寻求援助，包括美国和古巴。古巴立即作出回应，提供了少量的经济援助。这让华盛顿方面很不满意。1979年4月初，美国驻巴巴多斯大使弗兰克-奥尔蒂斯（Frank Ortiz）--他负责东加勒比地区，包括格林纳达--访问了该岛，他直奔主题。他警告毕晓普，美国不会看好格林纳达与古巴发展更紧密关系的任何努力。奥尔蒂斯说，如果政府坚持下去，它可能会发现流向该岛的美国游客会减少。格林纳达人将此视为一种威胁。他们进一步被他们所报告的奥尔蒂斯提供的5000美元的援助所激怒。

对于急于展示其独立性的年轻政府来说，奥尔蒂斯的演讲似乎证实了对美国巨人的怀疑。奥尔蒂斯 "试图发号施令"，当时是内阁成员的莱登-拉姆丹尼说。"我们说我们希望与每个人都有关系，不管是左倾还是右倾；他说他认为这有困难。" 他提出的5000美元的报价是 "一记耳光"，拉姆丹尼说。"然后口水战开始了。"

在与奥尔蒂斯会晤三天后发表的讲话中，主教说。

我们一直努力与美国以及加拿大、英国和所有加勒比海的邻国建立并发展最密切和最友好的关系。. . . 但是，任何人都不能把我们的友好误解为无礼和干涉我们事务的借口，也不允许任何人，无论他们多么强大，都可以对格林纳达政府和人民发号施令，规定我们可以与谁建立友好关系，以及我们必须与其他国家建立什么样的关系。我们不在任何人的后院里。

没过几天，第一批来自古巴的武器就到了，PRG迅速加强了与这个社会主义集团的联系。在联合国投票反对谴责苏联入侵阿富汗的过程中，它与东方的关系日益紧密。在国内，政府以反革命威胁为由，向左转。右翼报纸《火炬之光》（The Torchlight）被关闭，它曾严厉抨击与古巴的联系；选举的承诺开始消退；更多的人被投入监狱。1980年6月，政府的担忧似乎得到了证实，一枚炸弹在圣乔治的一次大型政府集会上爆炸，造成三名年轻妇女死亡，近百人受伤。

卡特政府对政府的行动作出了强烈反应。国家安全委员会考虑对该岛进行封锁（但最终决定不这样做）。国务院禁止弗兰克-奥尔蒂斯在巴巴多斯的继任者萨利-谢尔顿访问该岛；不久之后，国务院拒绝接受主教指定的华盛顿特使德西玛-威廉姆斯的国书。

罗纳德-里根当选后，美国的策略变得更加激进。共和党政府努力拒绝格林纳达从国际货币基金组织（未获成功）和世界银行（成功）获得贷款。它告诉加勒比开发银行，一个设在巴巴多斯的区域机构，它将为一个 "基本人类需求 "项目提供400万美元，但前提是格林纳达被排除在外。这一要求激怒了该银行的董事，他们拒绝了这笔捐款，而不是屈服于压力。一些国务院官员现在回顾这一事件，认为这是一个关键性的失误，只是成功地将格林纳达与美国推得更远。最后，在1981年8月，美国开始在加勒比海地区举行大型海军演习。在 "81年海洋冒险 "的演习中，有一次对波多黎各附近的一个岛屿的模拟入侵，该岛屿被虚构为 "安珀和安珀丁"，据说是 "我们在东加勒比海的敌人"。

PRG认为这次行动是为可能的入侵做热身，并开始加强其军事活动。它还提高了其言论的音量，如毕晓普在1981年11月的演讲中的这段摘录。

今天，美国的法西斯集团掌权，帝国主义破坏我们进程的企图失败，使我们的革命面对帝国主义最丑恶的一面--赤裸裸的军事侵略。. . . 但是，不仅仅是在我们的加勒比海地区，和平的敌人一直在敲打着他们的军刀。这些中子战争贩子一直在几个大陆上寻求军事对抗。

由于美国的国库被封，格林纳达向其他地方寻求帮助。委内瑞拉捐赠了学校用品、住房材料和10,000桶燃料。东德人前来安装新的电话系统，北朝鲜人则建立了一个灌溉系统。加拿大制定了一项计划，以恢复该岛因植物病害而陷入困境的可可业。1982年，根据政府的估计，该岛的主要捐助者包括共同市场（30%），加拿大（15%），中东（15%），东欧和苏联（15%），以及古巴（20%）。

到目前为止，古巴的存在是最明显的。全岛都可以看到古巴的教师、医生和牙医。古巴在交通、农业、渔业、文化和体育方面提供技术援助。它甚至提供了两个魔术师，他们经常出现在社会活动中，让格林纳达的观众明显感到高兴。古巴也开始秘密地将更多的武器运往该岛。例如，1982年的一个晚上，一艘古巴船驶入港口，圣乔治市突然变黑，武器被卡车运往岛上的秘密仓库。

当然，在萨林斯角的新机场，古巴人是最有把握的。在去年三月的 "星球大战 "演讲中，里根总统特别指出该机场是对美国人的威胁。"古巴人在苏联的资助和支持下，正在建造一个拥有10,000英尺跑道的机场。格林纳达甚至没有一支空军。这是为谁准备的？" 他说，很明显，这个机场是 "苏联-古巴对格林纳达的军事化 "的一部分。..." 大多数记者在入侵期间用类似的语言描述了机场。事实上，它受到格林纳达人的极大欢迎，他们期待着它能带来许多游客。"一个得到一致支持的项目是机场，"商会的Richard Menezes在11月特意告诉我。"格林纳达以外的人没有多少人知道格林纳达人在这方面投入了多少金钱和汗水"。许多公民购买了债券来支持机场的建设。

前往格林纳达报道入侵事件的新闻工作者乘坐C-130运输机飞往萨林斯角。如果他们到达的是旧机场，即Pearls机场，他们可能会看到为什么正在建设的设施会如此受欢迎。Pearls的5,300英尺跑道是从山上凿出来的，只能容纳小型螺旋桨飞机；游客必须先飞到巴巴多斯，然后在那里换飞机。而且，由于珍珠岛不能在夜间使用，前往格林纳达的游客如果在晚间抵达巴巴多斯，往往必须在那里过夜。

萨林斯角拥有9000英尺的跑道，可以容纳宽体喷气式飞机，因此没有必要在巴巴多斯停留。根据位于蒙特利尔的国际民用航空组织（该组织为世界各地的机场制定标准），9000英尺的跑道对于打算为巨型喷气式飞机服务的机场来说是很短的。事实上，巴巴多斯的机场拥有一条11,000英尺的跑道，里根从未质疑过它的用途；巴哈马的机场也是如此。马提尼克岛的跑道是10,800英尺，瓜德罗普岛的跑道是11,500英尺。

圣卢西亚的情况表明，一个新的机场可以为加勒比地区的一个岛屿做什么。在20世纪70年代初，当圣卢西亚有一个小机场时，它每年接待的游客数量与格林纳达差不多，大约是25000人。圣卢西亚建造了一个拥有9000英尺跑道的新机场，在三年内，到达的游客数量几乎增加了两倍。格林纳达的人数保持稳定。PRG预计，在萨林斯角开放后的第一年，入境游客将增加到4万人。

毕晓普政府首先与美国、英国和加拿大接洽，以获得建造新机场的资金。美国拒绝了，并劝说其他国家效仿。后来，在1981年，当格林纳达计划在布鲁塞尔召开会议以寻求贷款时，美国向其欧洲盟友施压，要求他们不要参加。大多数国家都这样做了。古巴在共同市场（其提供的援助不受个别成员的影响）、利比亚、阿尔及利亚、叙利亚、伊拉克和委内瑞拉的帮助下，靠墙站了起来，挑起了大部分的重担。一家美国公司，迈阿密的莱恩疏浚公司，疏浚了跑道所跨越的入口，英国公司普莱西（Plessey）被签约安装导航和通信系统。

入侵后不久，普莱西公司发表声明，否认萨林斯角可能被用作军事基地，理由是没有它所说的基地所需的十一个设施，如雷达和地下油箱。然而，国务院声称，该机场已经构成了严重的战略威胁，说它将为古巴飞机在前往安哥拉的途中提供一个加油站，并使苏联集团的飞机能够控制美国大量石油通过的海路。但是，古巴人已经在没有格林纳达的情况下到达安哥拉八年了；若干年来，他们在巴巴多斯进行加油。至于对油轮的威胁，从逻辑上讲，应该感到威胁最大的国家是邻国委内瑞拉和特立尼达，它们都是石油生产国。委内瑞拉是唯一在格林纳达保持大使馆的非社会主义国家，它甚至为机场做出了贡献；特立尼达反对美国的入侵。(去年在巴西拦截了满载武器前往尼加拉瓜的利比亚飞机后，国务院将 "转运武器 "加入到它声称机场带来的危险清单中）。

即使在国务院内部，我也发现美国对该机场的反对意见有相当大的怀疑态度。去年3月，在我去格林纳达的路上，我与一位地位显赫的官员交谈，他谈到该设施时说："我承认我不是很担心"。他补充说，"我从来没有强调过整个地区的战略重要性，更不用说格林纳达了。" 另一位国务院官员说，他认为美国阻止机场建设的行动起到了 "将毕晓普进一步推向左边 "的作用。

在我3月份的访问中，我目睹了美国和古巴对该岛的政策之间的对比的一个突出的例子。它发生在纪念3月13日革命四周年的庆祝活动中。前几年，这一天都是以大规模集会为标志；这一次，人民革命政府安排了一系列温和的仪式，为新的公共项目揭幕--一条公路、一个磨香料的设施、一个畜牧中心。政府希望通过让格林纳达人对革命的物质进步印象深刻来巩固其受欢迎程度。

但计划中的活动的基调很快就改变了。华盛顿邮报》在2月27日披露，中央情报局提出了一个破坏格林纳达稳定的计划（后来由于参议院的反对，它放弃了）。然后，美国及其北约盟国开始在波多黎各附近举行联合演习，涉及两艘航空母舰和34艘美国军舰。最后，3月10日，里根总统在全国制造商协会的一次演讲中谴责了格林纳达。"加勒比海和中美洲的问题不是肉豆蔻，"他在一个现在很有名的言论中说。"它是美国的国家安全。"

PRG认为这些话是一种直接的威胁，因此敦促人们参加定于3月12日举行的集会，感谢古巴建造的水泥砖厂。该工厂以尼加拉瓜革命家奥古斯托-桑迪诺的名字命名，旨在为机场生产材料，并制造预制住房单元。格林纳达和古巴的旗帜在工厂的地面上飘扬，大约有一千人聚集在那里，包括一百多名古巴建筑工人。包括一名古巴共产党员在内的一系列发言者称赞新工厂是 "国际主义 "和古巴-格林纳达友谊的纪念碑。


然后，随着天色渐暗，主旨发言的时间到了。由于毕晓普不在国内，参加在新德里举行的不结盟国家首脑会议，副总理科尔德代替他发言。演讲持续了四十五分钟，非常精彩，语气中交替出现了愤慨、伤害、愤怒和讽刺。"如果我们相信某些疯子的话，"科尔德在保镖的簇拥下抨击道，"这个小小的格林纳达岛，只有十万人口，21乘12英里，是一个超级大国。我们必须是一个超级大国，因为美国，地球上最强大的力量，正在向我们颤抖。"

在来自美国威胁的背景下，桑地诺工厂具有 "巨大的意义"，科尔德宣称。

在一个只有两万个家庭的国家，一个每年可以生产500套住房的工厂是一个巨大的进步。在相当短的时间内，这个国家将能够消除其住房问题。为此，我们必须感谢古巴的政府和人民。

里根和他的牛仔们真正害怕的不是古巴的军事援助，而是他们的经济援助。他们被在古巴培训的25名医生吓到了。他们害怕加勒比海英语社会的大众会问：如果格林纳达可以每年建造五百个住房单元，为什么我们不能？. . . 他们害怕格林纳达被当作发展中世界的典范来看待。

科尔德以一个令人惊讶的消息结束。总理毕晓普刚刚从新德里返回时在Pearls着陆，很快就会到达集会现场。"莫里斯万岁，"他喊道。

十分钟后，喇叭声开始响起，刺眼的车灯出现。人群散开了。一串闪亮的汽车驶入工厂的场地，滚到了演讲台前。毕晓普从其中一辆车中走出来，跳上讲台，他、科尔德和其他政府成员在那里手拉手，听着人群的欢呼声。尽管在长途旅行中明显感到疲惫，总理还是走到麦克风前，开始了长达20分钟的对美帝国主义的谴责。"他说："罗纳德-里根的这一最新威胁。

他说："罗纳德-里根的这一最新威胁意味着向我们的革命抛出了一个难题。他清楚地表明，他们正准备对我们的革命进程进行全面攻击。. . . 他们现在正坐下来，计划对我们的革命进行武装攻击的最后阶段。但我们不会受到威胁或恐吓。他们可以投下一枚炸弹，把我们的国家从地球上抹去，但如果他们来试图入侵，当他们登陆时，他们会发现格林纳达人民的战斗意志。我们永远不会放弃。


高潮直到第二天，即周年纪念日才出现，当时政府举行了一次阅兵式。在大约半个小时的时间里，几百名士兵在重型卡车、运兵车和高射炮的陪同下，在圣乔治的一块场地上游行。然后，士兵们跳上汽车，在毕晓普的带领下，开始了环岛的汽车巡游，目的是动员公民反对来自美国的威胁。游行队伍在夜幕降临前回到了首都，并聚集在海滨举行了又一次集会。数以百计的民兵，肩上扛着俄罗斯AK-47步枪，在他们的领导人敦促全国人民保持警惕的时候，站在那里准备着。

在我第二次访问格林纳达时，当我在美军发现的武器仓库前停留时，我想起了这些事件。里根政府声称，这些武器的数量远远超过了该岛的防御需要，因此只可能是为了侵略的目的。但随后国务院公布了格林纳达与苏联、古巴和朝鲜的武器协议的副本，其中没有什么证据支持这一说法。一个同样合理的解释是，格林纳达政府感到被围困，正在寻求加强其脆弱的军队。"Lyden Ramdhanny在11月说："我们从来没有隐瞒过我们有武器的事实，比其他加勒比国家的武器更多。"这些武器是为了保卫国家而引进的。我们受到了外部侵略的威胁。" 拉姆丹尼补充说，PRG实际上已经预见到了不是由海军陆战队而是由类似于在尼加拉瓜努力推翻桑地诺主义者的侵略者的攻击。

无论在PRG看来军备集结是多么合理，该岛的军事化被证明是一个悲惨的误判。格林纳达人对如何使用枪支没有什么概念，更没有学习的欲望。随着秘密军火库的增加，它本身就成了一种不稳定的力量，最终不是为了保卫革命，而是为了破坏它。

导致10月19日大屠杀的事件已被详细描述：科尔德派要求联合领导；莫里斯-毕晓普被软禁，他被一群人解放，并向鲁珀特堡进军；那里的枪击事件夺去了毕晓普和其他几十人的生命；哈德森-奥斯汀将军的镇压性军政府成立。新闻报道对这些事件的重要性有普遍共识。例如，《时代》杂志报道说，去年6月，在毕晓普前往华盛顿寻求与美国对话之后，"古巴鼓励立场更强硬的副手科尔德将毕晓普赶走"。

毕晓普和菲德尔-卡斯特罗在现实中有着深厚的个人友谊。毕晓普死后，古巴立即谴责了处决，要求惩罚那些负有责任的人，并宣布了为期三天的哀悼期。卡斯特罗拒绝了奥斯汀提出的提供武器以抵御预期入侵的请求。入侵前三天，古巴向国务院发出公报，要求进行谈判，以避免诉诸武力。(它在入侵开始后才收到答复）。

至于毕晓普和科尔德之间的斗争，似乎符合一个典型的模式：威胁要背叛革命的温和派，被极端分子清算。党的会议记录中的许多内容似乎证明了这种解释。根据新泽西州议会的一份文件，该党必须在两种选择中做出选择：归咎于毕晓普的 "小资产阶级路线"，这将导致 "该党恶化为社会民主党，从而导致革命的堕落"；以及由科尔德倡导的 "共产主义路线"，这是以 "列宁主义标准 "为基础的。该文件的结论是："必须把党放在列宁主义的基础上"。

但政府和党的官员使用的语言，如提到 "右倾机会主义"、"经济主义 "和 "阶级斗争"，往往被抽掉了意义。那些参与毕晓普和科尔德（入侵后在里士满山监狱保持沉默）之间争论的人似乎同意，这不是一个右派对左派、温和派对极端派的问题；事实上，他们说，这种裂痕与政策并无太大关系。相反，这主要是个人问题。科尔德集团只是 "想为自己夺取权力，为自己的目的利用革命"，毕晓普手下的农业部长和他最亲密的伙伴之一乔治-路易松说。Louison说，尽管Coard的言论是 "超左 "的，但如果他上台的话，他的方案 "会与毕晓普的非常相似"。在中央委员会的讨论中，诸如混合经济和与美国的关系等问题似乎几乎没有被提及。

"毕晓普的新闻秘书唐-罗哈斯（Don Rojas）在入侵后不久的一次新闻发布会上说："在执行某些政策的方法上存在差异，在方法和风格上存在差异。"莫里斯-毕晓普更加灵活，更加理解采取战术行动的必要性。伯纳德-科尔德看问题的角度更明确。在基本的意识形态问题上，没有重大分歧"。那么，两人都是坚定的马克思主义者，但他们所来自的传统--毕晓普的民族主义民粹主义和科尔德的意识形态教条主义--证明是不可调和的。一旦毕晓普被免职，革命就失去了其主要的合法性要求。为什么破裂会发生如此激烈的转变，这仍然是一个谜。

理解格林纳达社会主义革命的自我解体，需要看看它所处的国际环境。美国国务院的许多官员认为，格林纳达从一开始就走向了社会主义集团。1979年至1981年期间驻巴巴多斯的大使萨利-谢尔顿说："我们采取了额外的方式来进行包容。他们显然不感兴趣。我质疑毕晓普是否是一个温和派，希望有良好的关系。我已经厌倦了人们对我们的指责"。尽管如此，谢尔顿承认，美国的政策并不是它所能做到的。"她说："我是那些敦促我们应该有一个更积极的政策的人之一。美国 "应该尝试更长时间 "来改善关系。她说，在1980年中断大使级接触是一个错误，因为这样做使得对话不可能。

在我第一次逗留格林纳达期间，我发现在美国政策的问题上几乎一致同意。即使是PRG的主要批评者也对美国的行为感到震惊。Alister Hughes就是这样一位批评家，他是岛上最有名的记者，也是毕晓普政府一贯的眼中钉肉中刺。后来，他赞扬了美国的入侵，这可能救了他的命--他在10月19日的杀戮事件后被关进了监狱。然而，在3月，他曾说："我不相信罗纳德-里根会允许这场革命繁荣而不采取反对措施。我相信美国人已经非常方便地打开了这个政府转向古巴的大门。弗兰克-奥尔蒂斯在这里发表了一些非常愚蠢的言论。你不能告诉一个独立国家是否可以与古巴发生关系"。

国务院的许多人痛苦地回忆起奥尔蒂斯的表现，他们认为，如果他更善于与格林纳达政府打交道，两国之间的关系进程可能会更顺利。但这种观点忽略了问题的关键。不管奥尔蒂斯作为外交官的技巧如何，他确实传达了国务院委托给他的信息：如果格林纳达想要美国的援助，就必须放弃与古巴的关系。

这种看似适得其反的做法背后的原因，在3月份与坦率地否定格林纳达战略重要性的同一位国务院官员的长时间讨论中变得清晰起来。我迫使他解释为什么他支持政府孤立该岛的政策。他的回答是可以预见的。"我们认为他们从第一天起就致力于与古巴保持密切的联系。" 但是，我问，为什么与古巴的关系要排除与美国的关系？"想想这将成为一个先例，"他回答说，并提到了加勒比海东部其他岛屿的潜在不稳定，如圣卢西亚、圣文森特、多米尼加和安提瓜。"在整个地区，有一些小的左派团体有权力野心。如果我们在不给[亲古巴]政府造成损失的情况下改善与格林纳达的关系，试想一下，这将对东加勒比地区的其他潜在当局说什么。他们会说，'我们可以发动一场政变，然后，在与山姆大叔闹了三四年后，他就会回心转意。" 这位官员最后说："我们显然不喜欢被放在重的位置上。我们想表现得像一个成熟的、负责任的世界大国。但这里有一个小国在说无礼的话，而我们却不得不回答。"


抛开9000英尺的跑道、武器库、文件、关于恐怖分子训练营和出口马克思主义的报告。也抛开未能举行选举、关押政治犯、关闭报纸等问题不谈。对美国来说，真正的症结似乎在于这个离美国如此之近的小岛坚持其执行独立外交政策的权利，并一再坚持地宣称这一权利。美国不能容忍在其直接影响范围内的这种挑战。从这个角度看，去年6月毕晓普和威廉-克拉克之间的会晤所承诺的和睦关系似乎是一个幻影。美国对亲切的话语和友好的姿态不感兴趣。它想从毕晓普那里得到一件事--他要把古巴人赶出去。而这一点他做不到。


毕晓普是卡斯特罗的囊中之物吗？当然，格林纳达依靠古巴提供大量的经济和军事援助。但是，简单化的 "古巴的棋子 "的分析是对加勒比地区甚至第三世界的左翼政治的严重误读。它忽略了这样一个事实：就政治经历而言，毕晓普与菲德尔-卡斯特罗的共同点比他与现任美国驻巴巴多斯大使、前内布拉斯加州公路专员米兰-比什的共同点多得多。

更重要的是，格林纳达与哈瓦那的联系及其与华盛顿的疏远反映了该岛作为奴隶殖民地的历史，它几个世纪的贫困和不发达，以及它在埃里克-盖里统治下的痛苦，他的镇压政策没有引起美国的抗议。还有就是美国干预拉丁美洲的历史。革命党和其他革命政府一样，经常在1920年代援引尼加拉瓜，1954年援引危地马拉，1961年援引古巴，1965年援引多米尼加共和国，1973年援引智利，1980年代援引中美洲。在未来，1983年的格林纳达可能会在名单上，这使得美国更难与可能出现的其他莫里斯主教合作。

随着格林纳达离社会主义世界越来越近，这个世界对革命产生了引力，将其从格林纳达的现实中剥离出来。为了证明自己的革命能力，PRG采取了越来越激进的世界观，强调意识形态的纯洁性、党的首要作用和工人的先进意识。这种严格的教义在一个偏僻的热带岛屿上是不协调的。格林纳达不像尼加拉瓜和牙买加，这些国家的特点是深刻的社会分裂和极端的财富，在这些国家，激进的政治哲学可能解决真正的需要。格林纳达革命的悲剧之一是，其领导人感到不得不在一个不存在明确阶级的社会中挑起阶级对立。


当 "群众"（在一个只有11万人口的岛屿上，这本身就是一个不和谐的词汇）没有反应时，该党就迷失了方向。当它开始瓦解时，相信党和革命是同义词的科尔德和他以前的学生们做了最后一次疯狂的努力来挽救两者。他们的绝望在毕晓普死后革命军事委员会发布的一份公报中得到了总结，该公报宣称："格林纳达革命万岁! 永远前进! 永不后退! 社会主义或死亡！"

既然格林纳达已经脱离了社会主义的轨道，美国无疑将寻求使该岛成为东加勒比海其他地区的典范。国务院可能会调整其对牙买加的蓝图，提供大量的援助--在入侵后一个月内提供了超过3000万美元的经济和军事援助，以换取格林纳达建立私营部门作为发展的动力。此外，美国可能会鼓励中间派、支持资本主义的政党。这意味着要防止埃里克-盖里（Eric Gairy）的回归，这将是美国的一大尴尬，也要防止新宝石运动的复活，这将是更糟糕的事情。新泽西运动剩下的痕迹已经被铲除。美国可能把莫里斯-毕晓普描绘成一个烈士，但它正在尽力让他的政治运动安息。


对格林纳达来说，不结盟可能仍然像以前一样难以实现。商会主席理查德-梅内塞斯告诉我，尽管他欢迎美国的援助，但他不希望格林纳达成为 "一些海外飞地"。他说："我不希望因为解放而不得不完全放弃我们的国家利益。美国必须认识到我们过度向一个方向看齐的隐患。"

"这很可悲，"主教政府的一位前官员疲惫地说道。"大多数格林纳达人从未想过要成为东西方之间的这个争论的焦点。"但格林纳达人没有太多的选择。在一个被超级大国分割成相互竞争的集团的世界里，寻求中间路线的小国没有什么位置。

迈克尔-马辛是一位居住在纽约的作家。