The Hill Times
Remembering the invasion that time forgot
Washington’s justifications for the Oct. 25, 1983, invasion of Grenada were a mix of gross exaggerations and outright lies.
Opinion | BY KIRK ATKINSON, LIISA L. NORTH
January 29, 20
In the middle of the world’s multiple crises, it may be understood—although regrettable—why no Canadian news outlet mentioned the 40th anniversary of the Oct. 25, 1983, United States invasion of Grenada, a small island of a little more than 100,000 people in the southeastern Caribbean. Justified by then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan as necessary to “prevent humankind from drowning in a sea of tyranny,” the invasion force consisted of 5,600 troops and 10,000 additional soldiers for backup in 15 ships around the island. That adds up to one soldier for every seven Grenadians.
The invasion followed the implosion of the four-year-old revolutionary regime of the New Jewel Movement (NJM), with Jewel standing for “Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education, and Liberation.” Grenada’s charismatic and much-loved leader, Maurice Bishop, and several members of his government were murdered on Oct. 19, 1983, in a power struggle within the revolution itself. Stunned Grenadians were suddenly faced with rule by a Revolutionary Military Council that they did not trust. As then-Cuban president Fidel Castro observed at the time, the murders and their aftermath provided an ideal pretext for the American invasion, which, in fact, had been in the works since the NJM took power in 1979.
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