Happy Independence Day ... GRENADA!!!!

[underpants]

http://www.earthcalendar.net/_php/lookup.php?mode=date&m=02&d=07&y=2006

[Swede]

1. Now that was an invasion.

Everyone was home for supper.

[CottonBear]

2. I used to date a guy from Grenada!

I've met lots of his friends and family! Grenadians are very nice people! They are still a member of the Commonwealth. If things had gone differently, I'd be living there now.

Unfortunately, the island was severely damaged by a hurricane last year. It was the first hurricane in 50 years to strike the island. They are still rebuilding. Please don't forget them! They need our help just like NOLA and the Gulf Coast do.

[meganmonkey]

3. "I helped liberate Grenada!"

OMG - My grandparents got me t-shirt that said I helped liberate Grenada! on a cruise or something. One day I tried to wear it somewhere - I was about 10 years old - and my mom was like "STOP! You cannot wear that in public!!". Having no idea what 'liberate' meant literally, let alone in context, I obeyed her but was very confused. Years later I understood the whole thing much better :)

[CottonBear]

5. That's awful. My former boyfriend knew people killed by the US. forces.

:( :cry:

see my post #4 for links about Grenada. The situation is very complicated and there is much difference of opinion among the grenadina people about the Revo, the invasion, the trial, the prisoners and the subsequent politics and politicians who have governed the small island nation.

[meganmonkey]

6. Yes, I have become familiar with the situation

since then. Another US imperialistic mission against a sovereign nation :(

Thank goodness my mother didn't want to be seen with a kid in that t-shirt.

[CottonBear]

7. Here's information on the torture of the prisoners:

Did you know that the US military tortured the political prisoners (Grenada 17) by putting them in sweat boxes, menacing them with dogs and stripping them naked on US Navy ships and at the airport?

See this article about how the torture techniques at Gitmo were used in Grenada as well:

Grenada 17 says US torture of POWs not new
by Leroy Noel

Monday, June 28, 2004

ST GEORGE‘S, Grenada: The 17 persons convicted in Grenada for the death of former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his cabinet colleagues say reports of the humiliation and torture of prisoners of war in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, by their US military captors are nothing new.

A statement from the Grenada 17 says official US spokespersons have sought to portray these horrible abuses as recent, isolated incidents by out-of-control individual soldiers, and not the result of official US policy but those who lived through the US invasion of Grenada know the truth.

The prisoners added that in the months following the October 1983 US invasion of Grenada, 2,800 Grenadians out of a total adult population of 60,000 were detained, most of them at a prisoner of war camp set up at Point Salines International Airport. Many of the prisoners were kept in small ‘sweat boxes’ designed so that they had to crawl on hands, knees and stomachs like dogs in order to get in and out.

The Grenada 17 indicated that guard-dogs were set halfway into the sweat boxes to terrorize them; abuse, including racist abuse, was screamed at them day and night by the soldiers; and the boxes were constantly beaten at night so as to deprive the detainees of sleep. They were kept in those boxes on the asphalt tarmac for days or weeks, in the sun, in the stifling daytime heat. Leaks in the boxes let in the heavy October night rains, so that they shivered in their wet clothes night after night, many becoming ill they claimed.

more...
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2004/06/28/torture.htm

**********************************************************************
Your mom did the right thing by not letting you wear the shirt.

[CottonBear]

4. Remember the Grenada 17. They are still in prison all these years later.

Phyllis Coard, the only woman prisoner, is on medical release for cancer treatment, so technically there are 16 prisoners but all 17 were convicted in an unfair trial and imprisoned. They survived the hurricane in a 17th century fortress called Richmond Hill Prison. The roof was blown off in the storm. None of the 16 tried to escape.

Amnesty International statement on the Grenada 17's unfair trial:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR320022003

The best website about The Revo (The Grenadian Revolution:
http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/index.html

An interesting and lively Grenadian political/social talkshop. You'll need to be familiar with Grenadian politics, language and culture for a lot of this to make sense. (Warning: realdistwalker seems to be a former US army freeper/disruptor on this talkshop board. He claims to have particiapted in the invasion.)
http://www.spiceislandertalkshop.com/talkshop/

A great article by Rich Gibson titled "The last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black" about the political prisoners who are still imprisoned
more than two decades later:
http://www.geocities.com/elethinker/RG/GrenadaupdateMarch2001.htm

News from Grenada:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/grenada/grenada.htm