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Until a U.S.-Caribbean force landed on Grenada on October 25, in an action called Operation Urgent Fury. This action was taken in response to an appeal obtained from the governor general and to a request for assistance from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, without consulting the island's head of state, institutions or other usual diplomatic channels (as had been done in Anguilla). Furthermore, United States government military strategists feared that Soviet use of the island would enable the Soviet Union to project tactical power over the entire Caribbean region. U.S. citizens were evacuated, and the status quo was restored (though the previous culture has since been overlaid by U.S. influences).
Seventeen members of the Peoples Revolutionary Government and the Peoples Revolutionary Army were convicted via a Court set up and financed by the USA. fourteen were sentenced to death, eventually commuted to life imprisonment after an international campaign. Another three were sentenced to forty five years in prison. These seventeen have become known as the Grenada 17, and are the subject of an ongoing international campaign for their release. In October 2003 Amnesty International issued a Report which stated that their arrest and trial had been a miscarriage of justice. The seventeen have protested their innocence consistently since 1983. The campaign for justice for the seventeen is the subject of a sixty minute documentary, which explores the idea that the continued confinement of the seventeen reflects the post-traumatic state of the island as a whole. Hence that the islanders, as well as the seventeen, remain frozen as emotional "prisoners" of the Cold War.
An advisory council named by the governor general administered the country until general elections were held in December 1984. The New National Party (NNP) led by Herbert Blaize won fourteen out of fifteen seats in elections and formed a democratic government. Grenada's constitution had been suspended in 1979 by the PRG but it was restored after the 1984 elections.
The NNP continued in power until 1989 but with a reduced majority. Five NNP parliamentary members, including two cabinet ministers, left the party in 1986-87 and formed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which became the official opposition. In August 1989, Prime Minister Blaize broke with the NNP to form another new party, The National Party (TNP), from the ranks of the NNP. This split in the NNP resulted in the formation of a minority government until constitutionally scheduled elections in March 1990. Prime Minister Blaize died in December 1989 and was succeeded as prime minister by Ben Jones until after the elections.
The NDC emerged from the 1990 elections as the strongest party, winning seven of the fifteen available seats. Nicholas Brathwaite added two TNP members and one member of the Grenada United Labor Party (GULP) to create a 10-seat majority coalition. The governor general appointed him to be prime minister.
In parliamentary elections on June 20, the NNP won eight seats and formed a government headed by Dr. Keith Mitchell. The NNP maintained and affirmed its hold on power when it took all fifteen parliamentary seats in the January 1999 elections.
To be continued.....
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