Questions

Where are the original Grenada Documents? See Return of Original Grenada Documents 373.2

From Findings and Recommendations by Jiri Valenta on p. 241 of the book "Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy: Internal Crisis and U.S./OECS Intervention" published in 1986:

" . . . not all of the documents had become available to the public by the time of the conference 'Soviet/Cuban Strategy in the Third World after Grenada' (August 1984) . . . according the the same source [a senior U.S. Government official attending the conference], it has been agreed among U.S. and Grenadian officials that upon completion of processing, all documents will be returned to Grenada."

1. Circumstances surrounding the alleged murder in 1962 by electrical cord strangulation of the Englishman named Moore in his bed, and the fire occurring on the same night.

2. Circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Irie Bishop, 19 December 1978.

3. Circumstances surrounding the deterioration of Luckey Bernard's health.

4. Circumstances surrounding the disappearance from Frigate Island of Gregory Francis, Alston Leonard, Fortune Matheson and Godwin Matheson, 22 March 1979.

5. Circumstances surrounding the arrest of American citizen Mary Elizabeth Andrew or Andrews, employee at Sea Change, detained 17 JUL 1979, released December 1979, and deported.

6. Circumstances surrounding the death of Scotilda Noel, 2 November 1979. First-hand, corroborated evidence is reported that Scotilda Noel died in a tragic road accident. Reports are she was returning from a meeting at Prime Minister Bishop's house to her home in Birchdale. At Mt. Gay, the car, driven by a soldier of the PRA, went off the road into the river. People in the neighborhood heard the commotion. Ms. Noel was killed instantly; the driver seriously injured. The TRC did not review the matter of her death at all. Because the matter was not reviewed by the TRC, the omission from the TRC Report about the circumstances of Scotilda Noel's death leaves the matter open to speculation and doubt. After Scotilda Noel's death, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop first spoke of Scotila Noel as a national hero in his "Freedom of the Press and Imperialist Destabilization" speech on 19 June 1981 and additionally honoured Scotilda Noel in a speech given at the First Congress of the National Women's Organization in 1982 when he said:

   We salute today, comrades, the memory of Edith McBain, of Scotilda, of Laurice, Lorraine and Bernadette, and so many unknown and unsung martyrs and heroes who died in the cause of justice and freedom over the years.

   
   A special First Congress Newsletter of the
   National Women's Organization issued 4 December 1982

7. Story behind the Queens Park Bombing of 19 June 1980.

8. Circumstances surrounding the death of Stran Phillip on 19 June 1980.

9. Circumstances surrounding the deaths of those in St. Patricks, November 1980.

10. Circumstances surrounding the disappearance without a trace of Franklin "Frankie" Bedeau. The occurrence was between 9 or 10 March 1981 in Gourave. Bedeau owned BBC disco with his wife. He was also a personal bodyguard of Maurice Bishop.

11. Circumstances surrounding the complaints of Antonio Clement Langdon.

12. Circumstances surrounding the deaths of Ethelbert John, Ralph Thompson and any others who died during incarceration.

13. Circumstances surrounding the River Antoine Estate disputes - during PRG time; also circa 1986.

14. Circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Sir Dennis Henry's wife, and following his family's departure for the UK, the alleged confiscation of his home.

15. Circumstances surrounding the arrest, release, re-arrest and death of British national Dr. David Seegobin - not the David Seegobin pseudonyn used in letters to Guyanese newspapers circa 2005.

16. Circumstances surrounding the decision for or by Maurice Bishop to go to Fort Rupert rather than Market Square.

17. Circumstances surrounding the death of Conrad Mayers on 19 October 1983.

18. Circumstances relating to who fired the first shot on 19 October 1983.

19. Circumstances surrounding requests for additional claims following the "Recommendations of the Claims Commission," appointed by His Excellency Sir Paul Scoon, Governor-General in 1988.

20. Circumstances surrounding the question of who paid the costs of evacuating the 500-600 medical students in 1983 from Grenada.

21. Circumstances surrounding the location of the original Grenada Documents returned to Grenada.

22. Circumstances surrounding the meaning of this quote from Volume One of the TRC Report:

    Of course, come whose claims for compensation have not been addressed or only partly dealt with, saw the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as another Claims Commission and so expected it to bring finality to that vexed question. But while this Commission listened to matters concerning claims for compensation and recognized the need for settlement, it recorded those presentations requiring attention, and indicated the nature of the claims reported for compensation.

23. Circumstances surrounging the retrieval of bodies/remains from Camp Calivigny of those executed: What role did US Graves Registration (GRREG) personnel play in removal of the bodies? Did GRREG team members include Captain Henry Fore? MSG Charles Gerlach? Frank A. Rivero? Were these bodies removed from a pit? Or were these bodies those of serivceman who died when three helicopters crashed during the evening of 27 October assualt on Calivigny Camp? When did any photos first appear in the media? When exactly was this photo below taken? Might there have been multiple body bag removals? Can you identify the source of the photo below? If you are the copyright holder, please CONTACT .
    
    Probable photo of Graves Registration team members

“All the stranger, then, is the presence of one-time CIA operative and international bête noire Frank Terpil on Grenada right up to the time of the [Coard] coup, when he returned to his haunts in the Middle East.”

The above statement was written in a postscript chapter by the late Jonathan Kwitny, former Wall Street Journal reporter, in his book Endless Enemies, p. 411, published in 1984 by Congdon and Weed. Kwitny had no footnotes, sources or references in this book. Frank Terpil is wanted by the U.S. Marshall's office. Terpil jumped bail September, 1980, seemed to travel the world until September 1995 when he landed in Cuba. Is it true that Frank Terpil was on Grenada?

Did Eric Gairy create the conditions that made the rise of the New JEWEL Movement (NJM) possible? Was Gairy the catalyst? Or was revolution in the air, not only in Grenada, but worldwide? Were the young urban intellectuals transformed into Communists by their studies at universities? Was the crisis a matter of changing socio-economic conditions? Answering these questions would be an excellent premise for a dissertation.

Michael Sylvester's broadcast for 'Spotlight,' a Voice of America [VOA] radio broadcast of 12 June 1983 was conducted in the United States by producer/interviewer George Meeker. Where can one obtain a transcript of this broadcast? Apparently both journalist Alister Hughes and The Observer of the Free West Indian had a copy of this transcript.

Who was in charge of seaports and Pearls airport; i.e. exits and entries to Grenada, between 13 March 1979 to 25 October 1983? Was Ochoa in charge? Was the Ministry of Finance in control of the ports? And when?

Would you have comments or leads on the sentence below by Tafari, Rastafari in Transition, footnote No. 50, p. 269? In your experience were the popular forces at first passive, and later active, followers?

"Arguably, this notion of the grassroots people's consciousness being 'underdeveloped' is ultimately the ground on which Meeks makes his erroneous claim that '1979 . . . took the form of a party-led, pre-emptive strike, in which the popular forces were at first passive and later entered the fray enthusiastically, but as followers.'" (Meeks, Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory, Macmillan Caribbean Press Ltd., 1993, p. 144).

Would you have comments or leads on the argument above by Tafari, Rastafari in Transition, footnote No. 50, p. 269? Do you think a supposition about what happened has grown into myth so large that is contradictory to what actually happened? Do you have leads on how to get first-hand information about this from any of the people or groups mentioned below?

"All the evidence-from Maurice Patterson's [sic] two written works, The Future of the Past (Grenada, 1991) and Big Sky/Little Bullet (Grenada, 1992), to interviews with the Budhlalls, the Muslims, the Rastafari and other oral sources—contradicts this class-bound assertion, which unfortunately has been widely accepted outside of Grenada."

Would you have comments or leads on this sentence by Tafari, Rastafari in Transition, footnote No. 50, p. 269? What exactly were the initiatives put forward by the people involved in the River Antoine seizure? How did the usual story about the Coca-Cola seizure buttress any fact that grassroots participation was put down?

"The most convincing effort at debunking the above myth is contained in Patterson [sic] (1992), Chapter 1, but an effective rebuttal of this NJM propaganda lies with the fact of the later revolutionary initiatives put forward by the grassroots cadre (the River Antoine and Coca-Cola seizures). Certainly these were not the actions of 'followers.'"

What if one of the 17 on Richmond Hill [who term themselves 'political prisoners'] were at one point a paid agent of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), or any other US intelligence agency?

Would any paid agent's or agents' situation not be similar to Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant, head of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) from 1991-1995? Constant, who lived for many years in New York and recently was incarcerated for a petty crime, was chief of a Haitian paramilitary group while also, as alleged, a paid agent for the CIA. If true, this is called double-dealing.

Suspicions have been raised concerning a double-deal gone bad in relation to one or more of those 17 on Richmond Hill.

If Linda Flohr [and Ken Kurze] flew into Grenada on 18 October 1983 for a 'State Department' assessment, what is the meaning of the fact that Linda Flohr is reported in 2002 in 'The New Yorker'  to be a 27-year veteran of the CIA who worked for Oliver North's bullet-proof vest factory? If Oliver North, in his early days' employment with the National Security Council, is rumored to have wanted to fly in to Grenada and get Bishop out of house arrest, what connection might that rumour have with Linda Flohr?

From Seymour Hersh's article "Annals of National Security: The Debate Within" from the March 11, 2002 issue of "The New Yorker":

"Downing recently hired Linda Flohr, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service who, after retiring in 1994—her last assignment was for the top-secret Iraqi Operations Group—went to work for the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm that was retained by the C.I.A. in 1991 to handle press issues related to the Iraqi opposition, including Chalabi and the I.N.C. The firm, headed by John Rendon, who once served as executive director of the Democratic National Committee, was paid close to a hundred million dollars by the C.I.A. over the next five years, according to an I.N.C. official.

Last fall, the Rendon Group was retained by the Defense Department to give advice on how to counter what the government considered to be "disinformation" about the American war effort in Afghanistan. The firm was also retained by the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, which was eliminated last week after the Times reported that it would provide foreign reporters with "news items, possibly even false ones." (Rendon's contract with the Pentagon was not cancelled, however.) Flohr also worked for a private business-it manufactured bulletproof vests-founded by Oliver North, the former marine and Reagan Administration N.S.C. aide who was fired for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal."

How can a copy of Jorge Luna's Granada: La Nueva Joya del Caribe from Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1982 be found translated into English?

Commonsense leads one to ask about the closing financial status of the PRG/RMC in terms of cash and transferable funds during the time right before the US landed. Where is the money? Is there an accounting of funds? Were assets melded into interim government funds? How come few have asked for such an accounting? Or, if such an accounting has been recorded, where can that information be obtained? And, by the way, what was the state of the Gairy Treasury when the PRG took control of the government?

In relation to the Bandeirante twin-engine turbo prop, 18-seater airplane, purchased or leased in late December 1980 from Empresa Brazileira De Aeronatica of Brazil by way of a letter of credit supposedly arranged by Bernard Coard and Selwyn Strachan, what was the purchase cost? Was it $2 million, $8 million? What were the functions of this Bandeirante plane and the Cheyenne? If the airplane was a personal gift to Prime Minister Maurice Bishop from a supporting country, what is the story on that? What were the names of the pilots? Were they trained in Brazil? Was the route to be between Trinidad and Barbados and Grenada? Where is that airplane today? What part did Terry Moore and Lyden Ramdhanny have to play in the acquisition of this plane? If it was later sold, when and for how much? Is the information above true?

Is the air flight manifest of passengers from Bishop's return on Saturday, 8 October 1983, available? Who was the pilot of that plane? What are the names of the people in the group in Hungary, or elsewhere in Eastern Europe at that time?

What exactly changed the minds of Geoffrey and Peter Bourne and Charles Modica about the medical students being in danger? How does one explain Peter Bourne's links with Grenada?

Are there transcriptions of the shortwave radio messages from the medical students, or anyone else in Grenada, to the United States during October 1983?

Below is the essence of a series of questions asked on a public forum, SpiceIsle and Spiceislander Talkshop. The first eight were asked by COUNTRY MARXIST. The ninth one asked by HORSE. Questions ten through twelve were asked by ANOTHER CPD. Question thirteen is asked by 2nd LT.

The first thing that puzzle me is, the purging of the original NJM activists and fighters from the revolution.

The second one is, the marijuana issue, when rastas, ganja farmers, right wing politicians and the PRG had confrontation.

The third one is, Bishop never explained to the Grenadian people why OREL Comrades were in charge of the revolution.

The fourth one is, the innocent blood that was shed between the PRG and some old friends of Bishop and Coard.

Fifth one is, how did the revolution split.

Six one is, why Bishop and his followers chose to march up on the fort after he was released from house arrest by the crowd.

Seventh one is, why did the organizers of the march allowed school children to be part of such a dangerous confrontation.

Eightth one is, why did the Army kill Bishop and his comrades?

Ninth, what was the NEW PRG government's plan after Bishop's death?

Tenth asks why the Bishop government did not like the Rastas?

Eleventh question rhetorically asked over and over on the Talkshop online discussion group -

why [and how] are former PRA and Coard people now "living high in Uncle Sam country"?

Twelfth is why Bishop could not see through Coard if he was so bright?

Thirteenth is who shot Conrad Mayers?

There was a 4-volume "Captured Documents from Grenada" published first when the U.S. Government was anxious to 'exploit' the found documents. A search reveals the four volumes are only available in the United States at the University of Pittsburgh library. Three bound volumes and a fourth loose leaf bunch of these reproduced documents is available at the University of the West Indies, Marryshow House Library in St. George's. These initial reproductions are different from the one-volume Romerstein "U.S. Grenada Documents" Who got to see what first?

There were tons of documents taken from Grenada by US forces. Surely there were photographs. Where are they?

Initially, there was a 'complete' microfiche set of photographed copies of the 'Grenada Documents' at the National Archives in College Park, MD. Some documents were not placed in the public collection; thus the reason for the qualified on 'complete'.

Over the years, the attrition rate of loss [meaning unchecked Sandy Berger-type maneuvers occurred, assuming by scholars of this time period] of some of those small microfiche cards is alarmingly high. Some fiche have been pulled by the State Department and others; usually containing personal information, and most likely the result of complaints. Nevertheless many more have plainly been stolen. An authority at the location of the microfiche files says there is no BACKUP to replace these missiing fiche. How can this be?

Is, or was, there a José Marti Memorial in Grenada in January of 1983?

Evidently there was a faded graphic portrait of Che Guevara on a wall. Know the location where it was in Grenada? A photograph of this graphic exists. Word is the graphic was in Grenada and drawn by a Grenadian living in New York. A faint photo of a Fort Rupert wall shows an image of Che Guevara. Do you have confirming information?

At a site linking to John Stockwell's The Secret Wars of the CIA of 10 October 1987, Part I includes a short part about Grenada which reads:-

I went to Grenada and established a dialogue with Maurice Bishop and Bernard Cord [sic] and Phyllis Cord [sic], to see - these were all educated people, and experienced people - and they had a theory, they had something they wanted to do, they had rationales and explanation - and I went repeatedly to hear them. And then of course I saw the U.S., the CIA mounting a covert action against them, I saw us orchestrating our plan to invade the country. 19 days before he was killed, I was in Grenada talking to Maurice Bishop about these things, these indicators, the statements in the press by Ronald Reagan, and he and I were both acknowledging that it was almost certain that the U.S. would invade Grenada in the near future.

There's one problem here. Nineteen (19) days before Maurice Bishop was killed on 19 October 1983 was 30 September 1983. Maurice Bishop left for Eastern Europe September 26 and returned October 8th. Was John Stockwell with the group that traveled to Eastern Europe?

The quote above could be a victim of faulty punctuation; i.e. Stockwell could see an invasion plan by the end of September 1983. Stockwell most likely talked about covert action by the U.S. on Grenada with Maurice Bishop.

But, here is an interesting question. What if John Stockwell really was in Grenada the end of September when crucial meetings were taking place in Maurice Bishop's absence? What did Stockwell do there? With whom did he talk? What was John Stockwell's assessment, in detail, of what was happening?

According to Political Bureau Minutes of 1981, John Stockwell wrote a letter to the PRG asking to live in Grenada for six months. It does seem, although not verified at this time, that John Stockwell visited and lived in Grenada.

Topics for further investigation:

• Arguments for/against Parliamentary Democracy
• Whether 'people's participation' was real, unreal or somewhere inbetween
• How is private information used, or not used, in relating historical events?
• Compare the policies and their 'socialisic' path of the late Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and the current President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez.