Excerpts 2
to haunt him and to tarnish
all of his subsequent regimes. The opposition forces used that speech for
their benefit and were able to put the blame on Gairy’s “roughnecks” for many
unpleasant incidents in Grenada during 1972 through 1974. The alleged activities
by these thugs are what the international community heard and read about
during 1970 through 1979. It generally would have been concluded that Gairy,
his government, and the Grenadian police, in collusion with thugs, deliberately
and lawlessly engaged in brutality and oppression of the citizens during those
years. While recent information confirms that the opposition forces orchestrated
many incidents, a bad picture had been painted with respect to the rule in Grenada
under Gairy in the early 1970s.’
Chapter 5, Page 93
‘In 1950, when Gairy established his political party, the Grenada People’s Party
(GPP), later known as the GULP, within a short time of establishing his trade
union, the GMMWU, he had a purpose. His early activities on behalf of the
laborers and agricultural workers without doubt were his first strategic political
moves. He positioned himself. Through his union and his political party, he established
himself as someone on whom the ordinary working class could depend
for advancing their cause. He frequently referred to the process as the “movement,”
as first hinted at in his meeting on March 15, 1951. Based on the results
of Grenada’s first universal suffrage elections in October 1951, the movement
was gaining momentum.’
Chapter 5, Page 93
‘Gairy sought to rebuild his base after the GULP’s poor showing of only two
seats in the elections of September 1957. He succeeded. When the GULP
won the next elections of 1961 with a huge majority of eight out of ten seats, it
led Lloyd to make the previously mentioned statement.
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