Privy Council hearing for Grenada 17 may provide new hope for release Thursday, August 10, 2006 7884 Reads Discuss 1 Comments 1 Prints 1 Sent

Deborah Gabriel

US government spun a web of lies over killings, say human rights group Bernard Coard, aged 62 today has been in prison for 23 years Assumptions have been made about certain things and we’ve tried to correct that. We have also published stuff about the trial itself, which was pretty much a kangaroo court. Alan Scott, Secretary of CHRGUK Hope may be on the horizon for Bernard Coard, aged 62 today and the other members of the Grenada 17 who have spent the last 23 years imprisoned for the deaths of former Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and other members of the government in 1983. The Committee for Human Rights in Grenada (UK) (CHRGUK) raised several thousand pounds following an appeal last year to enable the case of the Grenada 17 to be taken to the Privy Council in London. Funds have now been sent to the Caribbean Council and the case is due to be heard just before Christmas. CHRGUK is made up of individuals from Grenada including Richard Hart, who was the Attorney General in Grenada at the time of the Revolution and people from the UK; having been formed shortly after the US invasion in 1983. It’s Secretary, Alan Scott spoke to Black Britain about what hope the Privy Council might offer the Grenada 17. He said: “What we’ve never been able to do is to get the case away from the Caribbean system…they are desperate that these people are not released. I think it’s partly a political decision.” Bernard Coard and 14 other former members of the Grenadian government in 1986 were convicted of the murders of the then Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several others including the foreign minister Unsion Whiteman. They were sentenced to death while three others were convicted and given long prison sentences. Over the years they came to be known as the Grenada 17: Bernard Coard, Phyllis Coard, Hudson Austin, Ewart Layne, Selwyn Strachan, Liam james, Leon Cornwall, Dave Bartholomew, John ‘Chalkie’ Ventour, Colville Mc Barnette, Christopher Stroude, Lester Redhead, Calistus Bernard, Cecil prime, Andy Mitchell, Vincent Joseph and Cosmos Richardson. The convictions followed the US invasion of Grenada on October 25 1983 led by US forces joined by several Caribbean countries including Jamaica, Barbados, St Lucia and St Vincent. Over 7000 troops descended on the tiny island defended by Grenada and Cuba, with small numbers from North Korea, Libya, East Germany, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. CHRGUK has continued to publish information about the invasion to counter what it claims has been US propaganda and “lies” about the events leading up to the death of Maurice Bishop. He told Black Britain: “Assumptions have been made about certain things and we’ve tried to correct that. We have also published stuff about the trial itself, which was pretty much a kangaroo court.” Coard, along with 10 other prisoners allege that they were tortured. Scott told Black Britain that in many instances, the US government did not even carry out the tortures themselves but brought in people from other Caribbean islands. “We have a series of affidavits which sets out how most of them were tortured… It was quite shocking,” he said. According to Scott, the US government was “desperate to get people to blame the Central Committee members for what had happened.” He said that there was “no evidence” about what had happened, so the US Government “manufactured some.”

Bodies of Maurice Bishop and other victims have never been found Former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop They must be put to rest with a proper funeral and burial. There could also be a day set aside when people throughout the island who lost loved ones during or as a result of the tragedy of October 1983 can mourn the loss of their loved ones. Attorney General of Grenada, General Elvin Nimrod The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is the principal organ under the Charter of the Organisation of American States (OAS), with responsibility for ensuring respect for human rights in all states of the American continent. It is comprised of seven independent human rights experts, who are elected in their individual capacities by the member states of the Organization. It previously ruled that the US government violated the rights of the Grenada 17. In June of this year the Grenada Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up to establish exactly what happened between 1976 and 1991 ordered that the Grenada 17 receive new trials, but the Attorney General Elvin Nimrod said that that the government had “not identified priorities” and would have to look into how to approach the recommendations. Nimrod made reference to the as yet unrecovered bodies of Maurice Bishop and the others who were killed: “They must be put to rest with a proper funeral and burial. There could also be a day set aside when people throughout the island who lost loved ones during or as a result of the tragedy of October 1983 can mourn the loss of their loved ones.” Amnesty International who has written extensive reports into the case welcomed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls for the Grenada 17 to receive new trials. Kerrie Howard, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s America’s Programme told Black Britain: “[Amnesty] believes that the original convictions of the Grenada 17 were obtained by a process that was in gross violation of international standards governing fair trials and hopes that the Grenadian government will ensure the prompt implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.” In its 2003 report on the Grenada 17, Amnesty International said that there continues to be “a hostile atmosphere” towards them which “reaches the highest levels of authority.” Concurring with Amnesty, Alan Scott Secretary of CHRGUK told Black Britain that the reason that the Grenadian government is so opposed to the release of the Grenada 17 is because: “The case against the bulk of them is a complete fabrication. That is their concern. They operate on the basis that the Central Committee ordered the murders of Maurice Bishop and various other people. There is absolutely no evidence to support that, other than one made up statement.” The conviction of the Grenada 17 rested heavily on evidence given by Cletus St Paul, the former chief bodyguard of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. He had been arrested on the orders of the Central Committee and held in prison until October 19. In its report Amnesty International drew attention to the fact that St Paul reportedly gave five conflicting statements to the police, at the preliminary enquiry and at trial.

Successive governments have been against release of Grenada 17 Grenadian Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell The original convictions of the 17 were obtained by a process that was in gross violation of international standards governing fair trials; [we] hope that the Grenadian government will ensure the prompt implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. Kerrie Howard, Deputy Director of Amnesty International Americas Programme Scott claimed that people who have been involved in successive governments in Grenada were “privy to the invasion.” he also claimed that in the last election leaflets were distributed against the Grenada 17 warning that if they were released they would try and form a new government. “My understanding is that none of the 17 would ever be interested in getting involved in politics again on the island. It’s scaremongering and there are an awful lot of people who wouldn’t want the truth to come out, because an awful lot of questions would then be asked about their complicity, so it’s much safer to leave them locked up,” he said. Coard, prior to his return to Grenada from the UK in the late 1970s received widespread recognition for his 1971 seminal study: How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal by the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain It was the first articulate and public attack against the widespread practice of African Caribbean children being labelled as educationally subnormal and confined to special schools. It emerged from a growing movement among parents of African Caribbean children who demanded change in the way black pupils were treated by the school system. In 2004 Coard wrote an update to his earlier study from his prison cell entitled: Thirty Years On, Where Do We Go From here? Observing that little has changed for African Caribbean school children Coard wrote: The vast majority of black and white working class children cannot make it within this class and race-driven system.” This inspired Brian Richardson to re-publish Coard’s original paper along with his new paper in the book Tell It Like It Is , which was published last year. Coard, aged 62 today has started to suffer from ill health. He is losing his sight, due to keratoconus, an eye disorder that causes the eyes to take on a conical shape, which distorts the vision. He also has cataracts, a condition that has caused him to become slightly depressed, which is unsurprising, given that he is such an avid reader and writer. Another of the Grenada 17, John ‘Chalkie’ Ventour, who will be 49 on August 19 is suffering from prostate cancer. Scott told Black Britain: “They need to get out. I think that once they get out they will start giving people a detailed version of events…that’s one of the reasons why the government doesn’t want to release them.” Scott maintains that the mood of Grenadians is very much in favour of the release of the Grenada 17. He told Black Britain that even if Grenadians are not certain of their guilt or innocence, they feel that the inmates have spent long enough at Richmond Hill Prison: “The great majority of people in Grenada want them to be released.”

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