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Caribbean Islands Relations with the United States
The government of Prime Minister Blaize, recognizing the
importance of sustained United States support for Grenada, sought
to identify itself closely with the United States and particularly
with President Ronald Reagan's administration. After Blaize's
election, he traveled frequently to Washington to lobby for
sustained levels of aid, endorsed and defended United States
foreign policy actions that other Third World leaders either
condemned or avoided discussing (such as the United States bombing
of Libya in April 1986), and hosted Reagan's brief but tumultuous
visit to the island in February 1986. According to a Royal Grenada
Police Force (RGPF) estimate, some 42,000 attended a rally for the
United States president held in Queen's Park; if accurate, the
figure represented some 47 percent of the island's population.
For its part, the Reagan administration initially sought to
infuse Grenada with sufficient levels of development aid to effect
the repair of all collateral damage caused by the military action
of 1983, to upgrade the island's infrastructure to a point where it
could compete economically with other regional states (in such
areas as tourism, agriculture, and light manufacturing), and to
establish improved health care and education programs. Once these
goals had been accomplished to some degree, the United States plan
seemed to envision economic development for Grenada through foreign
investment, primarily in export-oriented enterprises and tourism.
By September 1986, postintervention United States aid to
Grenada had totaled approximately US$85 million. It had become
clear, however, that United States aid to Grenada would not
continue at the high levels it had reached during the previous
three years. A drawdown in aid was driven not only by an improving
domestic situation in Grenada but also by United States budgetary
constraints and the imperative of equal treatment for other
Caribbean states. The reduction was reluctantly accepted by the
Grenadian government; a decrease in United States economic support,
however, especially a precipitous one, threatened to exert
increased pressure on the Blaize government from a population whose
expectations of development and increased prosperity had been
raised (perhaps unrealistically) by the 1983 intervention.
In the security sphere, Grenada has been an enthusiastic
participant in United States-sponsored military exercises in the
Eastern Caribbean. These exercises, such as "Ocean Venture 86,"
have served to provide training to the SSU of the RGPF and to
improve Grenadian infrastructure to a limited degree through
associated civic action projects carried out by United States
forces.
In the late 1980s, it appeared that the United States-Grenadian
relationship would continue to be shaped and defined by the events
of October 1983. For the Grenadian viewpoint on that action--
variously referred to as an intervention, an invasion, or a rescue
mission--one could do worse than to quote the respected Grenadian
journalist Alister Hughes, who has written that: An academic
judgement in the world outside Grenada has condemned the military
intervention by U.S. forces and the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force as
a violation of the island's sovereignty. This view is shared in
Grenada only by the small Marxist minority. The overwhelming
majority see the intervention as a "rescue mission" which saved
them from the anarchy which had been created and from the possible
killing of thousands.
Data as of November 1987
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