Bernard CoardThe Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened? (Volume 1)

"In the first of what the author promises will be a five volume series, The Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened? is a behind-the-scenes look at local, domestic, regional, and international relations between Grenada, her allies, and her enemies during the Cold War. The author is a true insider—Bernard Coard was convicted of ordering the murder in 1983 of Maurice Bishop, Grenada’s deposed Prime Minister who in 1979 was installed by the NJM-led Grenada Revolution. Some consider Coard a cold-blooded killer; others see him as an inspired revolutionary leader of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) and the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). Coard delivers a riveting, telenovela-like rendition of the rise and fall of the NJM leadership within the PRG, its many intricacies, and its inability to be independent from Cuban influence, from US aggression, from Third World blight, and from the Bresidues of empire.^ Less a telling of what really happened, The Grenada Revolution offers a fresh, if subjective, narrative of an unfinished revolution, revealing that history is always a complex of contingencies involving social, cultural and political dynamics, interpersonal relationships, individual personalities, competing interests, and local and global power....While not the last word on the revolution in Grenada, What Really Happened offers an important, fresh, insider perspective on revolutionary struggle, a process that is far from over. Volume I of The Grenada Revolution closes with the horrific shooting deaths of Coard’s former comrades, leaving this reader yearning to learn what happened next. As the crows flew above on 19 October 1983 under the scotching sun overlooking the turquoise water where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean Sea mounted on volcanic rocks, history was created, a revolution died and bodies were buried like vessels at the bottom of the ocean. Hopefully, those bodies are not forever forgotten. After thirty-four years, Coard has begun an excavation, however partial..."

All decisions are individual. This very personal explanation of what happened to scuttle the Grenada revolution of 1979-1983 by someone very inside it exemplifies the importance of understanding the important role of microeconomic decision making and its macroeconomic outcomes. It also provides a case study of the power of the mob in achieving huge outcomes. The sad story is rust in this case as in many other individual cases, the partners who build also author the destruction of their edifice. Mr. Costs has given us more than a story about Grenada and its revolution. Each of the characters, Fidel Castro, Ronald Reagan, regional leaders, individual party members, soldiers and civilians, big and small, all show how personal interest and passions cause human actions with telling impacts.

Bernard Coard's predictably meticulous and exacting account of the Grenada Revolution is the best there is in book form. It's very well written, organized, and reads like a mystery even to those of us who know the end, even the details of the end, and what came later. As one who was in Grenada several times during and after the revolutionary period, who has studied and written about this extraordinary event in the Americas, a revolution led by mostly young black men and women, I found the book to be harshly honest and self-critical. For those with just a passing interest in the history of the US as an empire, to spy versus spy buffs, to those who seriously study revolution in search of better answers, this book is a "don't miss." Since this is Volume 1, there is more to come. I look forward to that.

Coard gives his account of the revolution. I appreciate the historical context that added to the overall story leading up to the US invasion. The writer has learned little in 34 years. He quotes select sources to collaborate a failed narrative. One thing he helped settle is the US and Cuban influences, though real, are not the main reason of the failed revolution. It is the frailties of the revolutionaries.

The Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened was a great read and a book I highly recommend to every Grenadian. This page turner is a seemingly unbiased account of the raise and fall of the Grenadian Revolution and the personalities that contributed to its untimely ending. To the author thanks for this historical master piece, I await your other offerings.

The captivating writing style of Mr. Coard kept me in suspense even though I already knew the tragic outcome. It felt like I personally knew all the main characters which made the book exciting to read. I am looking forward to his follow up work as well as the writings of his spouse, Phylis.

This book helps to understand how the Grenada revolution imploded after 4 1/2 years.Bernard Coard was the deputy prime minister during the revolution.He is sharing inside information of personal relationships and decisions from the central committee of the revolution.

I like the way he used all sides of evidence given. He named names of the people involved. Just disappointed that to this date we have no closure. I truly feel for the author.

Good read and brought memories of the fateful day. However, for someone who really want to know who did what, when and why on the fort there are lot of unanswered questions. I was under the age of 10 at time.I live not too far from the fort where I saw people jumping off the fort and heard the two intervals of gunshots. The second interval took the lives of MB and colleagues. At that time it appeared to be lots of speculation and rumours of the cause.The book provided some events leading upto . However, I will really like to know who gave orders on the fort to shoot MB and colleagues and on what basis it was made at the time.

Very-well written account of the circumstances surrounding the Grenada revolution from the writer's perspective. Given the varied opinions and accounts of what happened to have brought on the demise of the revolution, the writers perspectives, as one of the architects and central figures, allowed me to bring some closure.Highly recommended for persons interested in Caribbean history, politics and socio economic development .

Easy read

This is the review I wrote for the Morning Star newspaper that was published on July 31. The headline on this review isn't mine. In fact, it contradicts my review. I have asked Amazon to change it but no dice yet. Hey ho, why not just read the review and make up your own headline.Grenada made history in 1979 with the first revolution in the English-speaking Caribbean, but, as one of the Revo’s leaders Bernard Coard tells in his new book, it ended in disaster, writes JOHN HAYLETTThe Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened by Bernard Coard (McDermott Publishing, $18.50)Grenada’s dictator Eric Gairy was off the island in March 1979 when the revolution broke out and his armed forces surrendered at the first volleys of shots fired into the air, unleashing massive celebrations among Grenada’s population of just 100,000 people.A people’s revolutionary government (PRG) was proclaimed, headed by prime minister Maurice Bishop, a popular lawyer. His father Rupert had been murdered by Gairy’s thugs, known as the Mongoose Gang.Apart from a small number of business people and just two villages on the entire island, Grenadians enthusiastically welcomed what they called the Revo and were ready to defend it.A modest shipment of arms and military advisers arrived from Guyana but its president Forbes Burnham told the New Jewel Movement (NJM) revolutionaries that there were limits to his country’s capacity and that they should “tap the Cubans.”Within weeks, more substantial means of defence, together with trainers who had fought to defend Angola’s independence against imperialist machinations, were flown in.There is little doubt that, at the time, had the NJM leadership chosen to hold elections, its candidates would have romped home. But the party was committed to a new form of society, turning its back on the Westminster model bequeathed to former possessions by British colonialism.Rather than agitating for elections, Grenadians welcomed PRG laws that offered idle lands to idle hands to set up agricultural co-operatives, public ownership of banking, telecoms and other monopolies and free comprehensive education.Local communities gathered to repair housing with materials donated by the PRG and to engage in joint endeavours to tackle health hazards such as mosquito breeding areas.Expatriate Grenadians in north America and Britain competed to help the Revo in various ways, from collecting bedding for the general hospital to organising collection of investment funds for a new international airport capable of receiving tourist flights.Fearing revolutionary contagion, some regional governments were wary of what was happening in Grenada from the outset.But Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley — whose government was close to Cuba at that time — led a cultural delegation that included reggae artist Peter Tosh and the Theatre Group for National Liberation on the first anniversary of the Revo.Aware that the US had a track record of destabilising and invading regimes of which it disapproved, Grenada’s youth signed up to join the People’s Revolutionary Army or the People’s Militia, both equipped by Cuba.US president Jimmy Carter was mulling over a potential naval blockade of Grenada within days of Gairy’s overthrow and, following his replacement by Ronald Reagan in 1981, hostility was ratcheted up with wild allegations that were lapped up by the British and US mass media.The new airport was unnecessary for tourism and was really a Cuban military base was one fake news item, the Soviet Union was building a secret submarine base under the island was another.The US and regional propaganda barrage was accompanied by a number of terrorist acts on the island, such as the bombing of the June 19 Heroes Day anniversary rally in Queens Park in 1980 that killed three young women and wounded 100 others.Reagan demanded that Grenada hold immediate “free” elections, break its links with Cuba and release all detainees, emboldening Washington’s allies on the island, a so-called Committee of 26, to publish their anti-Revo Grenadian Voice newspaper in 1981.Bishop had told the Queens Park rally that the Committee of 26 equated to the CIA and “those who want to link up with the CIA to overthrow the revolution, they are going to understand that counter-revolutionary activity will be met by revolutionary action, counter-revolutionary violence by revolutionary manners.“All counter-revolutionary plots, plans and schemes will be crushed with revolutionary firmness, revolutionary manners.“If you play with fire, fire will burn you, if you touch the revolution, power is going to break your backs. Don’t touch the Revo. It is too strong. It is too powerful.”Bishop told Reagan that Grenada would not bow the knee. It would not release the Mongoose Gang bully boys or sanction any return to a bourgeois model of society. It would remain friends with Cuba.That may have been when Washington decided to invade Grenada, going on to hold war games, initially Ocean Venture 81, and the next year a seaborne invasion operation in Puerto Rico dubbed Amber and the Amberines in a clear reference to Grenada and the Grenadines.But, by the time US troops landed in Grenada on October 25 1983, the Revo was in tatters. Grenadians had taken up arms against each other, Bishop was dead and a narrative, given credence by Washington and Havana, was already current that his deputy Bernard Coard had overthrown him in a power struggle.Coard, Bishop’s friend since they were 12, has consistently denied this account.He was sentenced to hang by a USfinanced and driven court of convenience in Grenada before his sentence was commuted, first to life and then 40 years, of which he served 26.His book is the first of a five-volume endeavour looking at the roots of the revolution, its achievements, its internal degeneration, the role of the US and the prison education programme that Coard led during his incarceration.While Bishop was the public face of the revolution, never happier than addressing rallies or mingling with the people, Coard was more bookish, responsible for the economy and inner-party political education.His attention to detail and recourse to recorded evidence shine through his self-critical account of the problems and disagreements that afflicted the revolution, which was carried through by small numbers of young and inexperienced comrades.Coard’s conclusions may be disputed, but they cannot be cast aside as fanciful. Chapter and verse merit engagement and evaluation.Some internal differences during the process were suspected during the revolutionary period, such as between the “Maximum Leader” principle favoured by the Cuban revolutionary leadership and collective responsibility preferred by the NJM central committee.But Coard brings to light conflicts on other issues where the NJM voiced disagreements but had to abide by Cuban leadership decisions.Possibly the most disturbing is over the kind of invasion that Grenada might expect and prepare for — a full-blooded intervention by US armed forces or something akin to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba or the Contra war against the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, where exiles and mercenaries were deployed.Coard reports that the Cuban leadership believed that direct US involvement was unlikely. Grenadians thought otherwise and sought supplies of heavy weaponry from Moscow, only for supplies to be held up in Cuba rather than being forwarded.Had they reached Grenada, resistance to the US invasion might have exacted a higher price, but Washington would still have prevailed despite the brave efforts of the Cuban internationalists and Grenadian armed forces, particularly in light of the revolution’s implosion, the consequent divisions between the NJM and the mass of the people and Havana’s refusal to intervene militarily.Whatever his complaints about the Cuban leadership, Coard does not hide the reality of Grenadian responsibility for what took place.It was Grenadians who elevated to principle status acceptance or rejection of so-called “joint leadership” within the NJM, though not government functions.Grenadians alone, from opposing sides of the controversy, chose to put Bishop under house arrest, to release him by force of numbers and take over Fort Rupert rather than hold a rally in the capital St Georges as planned, to open fire on army units sent to restore order and to execute Bishop and seven of his supporters by firing squad.Coard’s denial of criminal guilt for the deaths on October 19 1983 has always been accompanied by acceptance of “moral and political responsibility” for what happened.“Because of my seniority in the party, I blame myself most of all of those alive today. I should’ve seen where things were heading much earlier, should have taken vigorous steps to avert the crisis and then, when it began, to end it speedily. I did not see things ending the way they did. I should have. I will have to live with this realisation for the remainder of my life,” he writes.The searing honesty of his account, frankness in acknowledging errors and shortcomings and desire to assist future generations to learn from the positives and failings of Grenada’s Revo make this book a must-read.May his subsequent four volumes prove as compelling and enlightening.

Highly recommended reading, brilliantly and honestly written and is must read for every Grenadian and indeed everyone who is interested in the history of the Caribbean as this book provides us with much recent history. The book also reveals the true facts and impossible position that the Grenada revolution found themselves in, inasmuch as the USA were going to invade Grenada regardless of the events that took place and perhaps points to the USA's direct involvement in the events that led up to the inevitable USA invasion of this tiny island. The fact that the USA took the position of this tiny Caribbean Island and the Grenada Revolution as being a "National Security Risk" for the USA demonstrates the corporate/imperialistic bullying that was always behind the scenes and adds credible weight to the claims that the USA would rather a neighbour who would build economic relations to benefit the USA than build homes and hospitals/schools to benefit their own community/country. Another fine example of imperialism at it's worst and the conflicts within a revolutionary movement that failed to recognise their own power, and ironically, powerlessness, whilst also facing to recognise and fully appreciate the powerful imperialistic machine that would inevitably bring down the Grenadian Revolution. A fascinating and interesting account from Bernard Coard, brilliantly written and a must read..