On Oc­to­ber 31, 1979, the Grena­di­an Peo­ple’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment (PRG), un­der Prime Min­is­ter Mau­rice Bish­op, led the adop­tion of a res­o­lu­tion by the OAS Gen­er­al As­sem­bly [AG/RES. 456 (IX-O/79)] de­clar­ing the Caribbean a “Zone of Peace”.

Four years lat­er, that as­pi­ra­tional “Zone of Peace” was shat­tered when Prime Min­is­ter Bish­op’s own PRG col­lapsed in­to in­ternecine war­fare be­tween him­self and his for­mer deputy Bernard Coard, and Gen­er­al Hud­son Austin. They in­tro­duced in­to their “Zone of Peace” the con­cept of as­sas­si­na­tion by fir­ing squad to elim­i­nate po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­saries.

Prime Min­is­ter Bish­op and Min­is­ters Jacque­line Creft, Uni­son White­man, and Nor­ris Bain, trade union­ist Fitzroy Bain, Kei­th Hayling, and busi­ness­men Eve­lyn Bullen and Ce­cil Mait­land were lined up in­side Fort Ru­pert and shot dead on Oc­to­ber 19, 1983. This was a left-wing pow­er strug­gle gone wrong, car­ried out by el­e­ments of the Peo­ple’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Army (PRA) loy­al to Bernard Coard and led by Hud­son Austin.

On Oc­to­ber 22, 1983, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS), un­der the chair­man­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Eu­ge­nia Charles of Do­mini­ca, met and agreed to re­quest mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion in Grena­da by the Unit­ed States.

On Oc­to­ber 23, 1983, Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan signed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty De­ci­sion Di­rec­tive 110A un­der the head­ing “Re­sponse to Caribbean Gov­ern­ments: Re­quest to Re­store Democ­ra­cy on Grena­da” (par­tial­ly de­clas­si­fied on Feb­ru­ary 6, 1996), which read in part:

“In re­sponse to the OECS re­quest for US par­tic­i­pa­tion in a multi­na­tion­al ef­fort to re­store democ­ra­cy on Grena­da and to take pru­dent pre­cau­tions to pro­tect the lives and safe­ty of Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, the fol­low­ing ac­tions rec­om­mend­ed by the Spe­cial Sit­u­a­tion Group (SSG) are di­rect­ed: The Sec­re­tary of De­fense and the Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in co­or­di­na­tion with the Sec­re­tary of State and the Di­rec­tor of Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence, will land US and al­lied Caribbean mil­i­tary forces, in or­der to take con­trol of Grena­da, no lat­er than dawn Tues­day, Oc­to­ber 25, 1983.”

On Oc­to­ber 25, 1983, Pres­i­dent Rea­gan and Prime Min­is­ter Charles ap­peared in the White House Press Brief­ing Room to an­nounce the suc­cess­ful land­ing of US and Caribbean mil­i­tary forces in Grena­da to take con­trol of the is­land.

To­day, Eu­ge­nia Charles is cel­e­brat­ed by The UWI Glob­al Cam­pus Do­mini­ca with an an­nu­al Dame Eu­ge­nia Charles Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture. Hav­ing col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Rea­gan ad­min­is­tra­tion to bring US troops to Grena­da in 1983, her lega­cy is se­cured by an­nu­al com­mem­o­ra­tion by The UWI.

Pres­i­dent Rea­gan lat­er apol­o­gised to UK Prime Min­is­ter Mar­garet Thatch­er for not in­form­ing the British Gov­ern­ment of his de­ci­sion to in­ter­vene in Grena­da on Oc­to­ber 25, 1983. This apol­o­gy was re­vealed by au­thor William Doyle fol­low­ing a free­dom of in­for­ma­tion re­quest on No­vem­ber 8, 2014, when pre­vi­ous­ly un­heard tapes of the tele­phone apol­o­gy were re­leased to the New York Post.

Fast for­ward to Ju­ly 31, 2024, when an OAS res­o­lu­tion failed by one vote to re­quire Venezuela to pub­lish its vot­ing pro­to­cols from its Ju­ly 28, 2024, elec­tion. Sev­en­teen of the eigh­teen votes need­ed were se­cured.

Votes for the res­o­lu­tion were cast by Ar­genti­na, Cana­da, Chile, Cos­ta Ri­ca, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ecuador, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Ja­maica, Pana­ma, Paraguay, Pe­ru, Suri­name, Uruguay, and the Unit­ed States.

Ab­sten­tions came from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Bo­livia, Brazil, Colom­bia, Grena­da, Hon­duras, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lu­cia.

Ab­sent were Do­mini­ca, Mex­i­co, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Venezuela.

Cari­com was di­vid­ed, and Trinidad and To­ba­go was ab­sent. Why?

Fast for­ward again to Sep­tem­ber 2025 to Jan­u­ary 2026. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­her­it­ed a Sta­tus of Forces Agree­ment (SO­FA) signed by the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion on De­cem­ber 10, 2024, per­mit­ting mil­i­tary col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States. She em­braced the agree­ment and its pow­ers, po­si­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to sup­port a US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean and to per­mit ac­cess for those forces.

In do­ing so, she con­tin­ued the lega­cy of the late Eu­ge­nia Charles.

Im­pe­ri­al­ist threats from Venezuela to an­nex a por­tion of Guyana through a ref­er­en­dum, cou­pled with the re­draw­ing of Venezue­lan and Guyanese maps, de­stroyed any re­main­ing sem­blance of a “Zone of Peace”.

This was fol­lowed by a di­rect im­pe­ri­al­ist threat to Trinidad and To­ba­go, with Venezuela as­sert­ing a claim to Trinidad on the ba­sis that it once be­longed to the Cap­tain­cy-Gen­er­al of Venezuela in 1777. The re­gion­al si­lence was deaf­en­ing.

Through it all, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained stead­fast in her sup­port for US for­eign pol­i­cy in the re­gion. She did not re­treat in the face of sabre-rat­tling from Venezuela, while oth­ers were too cow­ard­ly to con­front bul­ly­ing and im­pe­ri­al­ism.

Two Sat­ur­days ago, the strug­gle first ad­vanced by Eu­ge­nia Charles, and con­tin­ued by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, suc­ceed­ed. The im­pe­ri­al­ist threat from Cara­cas has been si­lenced.

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.