Kimberly Ramkhalawan
October 20, 2022.
39 years after the killing of Grenada’s Former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, comes news that commencing from next year, October 19th will be a national holiday in commemoration of the 1983 killings.
The Grenadian cabinet led by Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell declared the to-be-holiday this week on the anniversary, signaling what is describes as “the start of it believes is the healing process thirty nine years after the demise of the Grenada Revolution”. On Wednesday, Ministers Ron Redhead and Denis Cornwall participated in a Flag raising and Wreath laying ceremony at Fort George.
Culture Minister Redhead said that the Dickon Mitchell administration believes that to move the country forward in a profound manner, the events of October 1983 must be addressed. “We must address the healing of our nation. To this end, government will use this opportunity to propose a series of actions geared towards promoting national healing from the demise of the Revolution,” he told the ceremony, which was attended by government officials.
“Next year, Grenada will remember and recognise all the days of the tragic ending. From the 19 to the 25 with a week of activities,” he said, adding that October 19 will be declared a holiday.
While October 19th marked the anniversary of the death of Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister of the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada, October 25th marks the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, where it attacked the island’s population of 110,000 with 7,000 troops via land, sea, and air.
The minister said government intends to give Special consideration to developing its national heroes’ framework to designate a day entitled “Maurice Bishop Day”, among others.” Redhead, whose father, a known fact, was a member of the militia, shared that government will make an official request to the United States and the United Kingdom to provide factual information surrounding the bodies of Bishop and others. This he says will be part of plans to erect monuments for peace in recognition of the tragedy of 83, incorporating the names of all who lost their lives on October 19th. He said “No government, people, or system is so evil that it cannot give a respectable burial…to our fallen Grenadian men and women leaders.”
Maurice Bishop and several members of his cabinet led the left-wing People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) from 1979- 1983.
He is remembered as a Marxist-Lenist with socialist ideals, who single handedly, led the New Jewel Movement (NJM) party.
It is said his political party sought development of Grenada’s socio-economic sectors through policies which became popular this perspective to ensure equality. He managed to have orchestrated a coup in 1979 removing then Sir Eric Matthew Gairy from office, who is said to have retained power through terrorism and elections fraught with fraud.
October is usually remembered when militia group within the party tried to make Bishop either step down or agree to a power-sharing agreement with Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. Having rejected the proposals, Bishop was placed under house arrest during the first week of October 1983 by Coard. This lead to widespread public demonstrations throughout Grenada, demanding for Bishop’s freedom and restoration to power. During one of the demonstrations, the crowd managed to free Bishop from house arrest, first via a truck, then by car, which allowed him to make his way to the army headquarters at Fort Rupert (known today as Fort George). Shortly after he arrived, a military force was dispatched from Fort Frederick to Fort Rupert. Bishop and seven others, including cabinet ministers, were captured. Then a four-man People’s Revolutionary Army firing squad executed Bishop, three members of his Cabinet and four others by machine-gunning them. The bodies were then transported to a military camp and partially burned in a pit. The location of their remains is still unknown.
In addition to Bishop and his cabinet colleagues who were killed in the palace coup orchestrated by his deputy, Bernard Coard, several civilians died at Fort Rupert, which was later renamed Fort George.