Calls for Grenadians to reject US request to set up radar station

As Grenada’s government considers the Trump administration’s request to set up a military radar base on the island to monitor nearby Venezuela, calls for authorities and islanders to reject the move and allow Grenada to avoid an impending war are beginning to emerge.

Leading the charge for the Dickon Mitchell administration to politely say no to the base at the Maurice Bishop International Airport comes from no less influential regional labor leader and ex-senate president Chester Humphrey. Humphrey, 73, says that Grenada, which itself was the victim of a bloody American invasion back in 1983, is being lied to by the US about the US’s true intentions and ambitions with Venezuela, using drug interdiction as an excuse for military action against Venezuela. Venezuela is about 100 miles south of Grenada.

And though the US has not explicitly linked the radar facilities to its planned action against Venezuela, islanders are making no pretenses about the nexus between the presence of an armada of warships, fighter planes, a nuclear-class vessel positioned off the Venezuelan coast, and the radar systems.

“Let us be clear that the US, the American military build-up in the Southern Caribbean just off the Venezuelan coast has absolutely nothing to do with the interdiction of drugs,” Humphrey told local television anchor Calistra Farrier. “The Americans have had a history of lying regarding their intentions before going to war. Of recent vintage, it lies in respect of its invasion of Iraq, so America has a long history of lying. It lied when it invaded Grenada, but this one has taken all the prizes,” said the combative veteran labor leader.

The foreign ministry said this week that Grenada “is carefully reviewing the request, noting that ‘we wish to assure our citizens that any decision taken will be guided by Grenada’s sovereignty, public safety, and national interest.”

Washington’s move also came at a time when some regional governments were expressing concern about rising tensions in the Caribbean, which they had long considered a zone of peace.

As Venezuela prepares to defend itself against any American military aggression, Guyana and Trinidad, both close geographic neighbors of Venezuela, have both publicly supported the US moves, arguing that the time has come to deal with organized drug trafficking and other cross-border crimes. Humphrey says Grenada should stay clear of this issue.

“Venezuela has not done us anything. Venezuela has helped us. On a state-to-state basis, Venezuela has probably provided more than the US in recent years. Why must we join in somebody else’s war? It will be a grave strain on history against the memory of our forefathers for us to join a war against a state that has done us nothing, a state that has helped us tremendously.  They have murdered Venezuelan citizens,” he said.

During the program, both Farrier and Humphrey pointed to the irony of the US asking to use the local airport as its base. They noted that in the 1980s, they had peddled propaganda that the airport was to be used by socialist nations for nefarious purposes, reminding that the airport is a civilian facility.

Humphrey also linked a string of recent US actions against Grenada as a prelude to the request and the political and diplomatic pressure associated with it, noting the alleged cancellation of the local finance minister’s visa and threats to ban fish exports to the US from next year.

“All this was softening up the ground for what has come now. The threat of banning our fish from going to the US was all part of softening the ground. The worst you can do for yourself is to run from a bully. You will never stop running,” he urged authorities to out rightly reject Washington’s request. “The excuse is so flimsy that you are sending a massive flotilla into the southern Caribbean to interdict drugs. You don’t send a nuclear-armed submarine with missiles, several destroyers, and an entire fleet of F-16 aircraft with advanced Tomahawks to interdict fishing boats. The Trump administration has broken all international laws by murdering persons on the high seas without giving them an opportunity to be heard by a court. If you are indeed interdicting drugs, then your coast guard is quite adequate to do that,” he said.