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Caribbean Islands A Regional Security System
The cumulative effect of the various incidents since 1978 and
Cuba's activities in the English-speaking Caribbean prompted the
WISA to reassess the former practice of providing minimal security
and defense. On July 4, 1981, members agreed to replace the WISA,
which had proven to be an extremely ineffective decision-making
body, into the OECS, headquartered in Castries, St. Lucia. The OECS
was designed to strengthen Eastern Caribbean ties and address
issues of more specific concern to its seven members, particularly
those relating to economic integration and coordination of foreign
policy and defense and security matters. As a former WISA member,
Montserrat, although still a British dependency, was also admitted
into the OECS.
Article 8 of the OECS treaty established the basis for future
regional security cooperation by charging the ministerial-level
Defence and Security Committee of the OECS with "responsibility for
coordinating the efforts of Member States for collective defence
and the maintenance of peace and security against external
aggression." It also made the OECS responsible for developing
"close ties among the Member States of the Organization in matters
of external defence and security, including measures to combat the
activities of mercenaries, operating with or without the support of
internal or national elements." In effect, the OECS treaty served
as a regional security arrangement of the OECS countries, none of
which had ratified the Rio Treaty. Exercising its prerogative, St.
Kitts and Nevis chose not to participate in the defense and foreign
policy provisions of the treaty.
Barbados was conspicuously absent from the OECS membership, not
being a WISA member, but it was no less concerned about its
security posture. One researcher at the College of the Virgin
Islands (United States territory) illustrates Barbados' evolving
attitudes toward security and defense by contrasting the positions
of Adams and his BLP, as contained in their 1976 and 1981 party
platforms. The earlier platform stated that the party would not
commit the country to any defense pacts and would limit the defense
forces to the minimum needed to maintain law and order. The 1981
position, in contrast, emphasized the need for a limited defense
force capable of protecting the country against "potential
marauders, terrorists, and mercenaries."
For Dominica's prime minister Charles, the creation of the OECS
constituted only a first step toward establishment of regional
security cooperation in the area of defense and security. In
December 1981, Charles emphasized the need for joint training of
security personnel in order to develop a defense system to prevent
recurrences of attempted coups, such as the one that took place in
Roseau, Dominica, on December 19. The prime minister saw such acts
as having a destabilizing effect in the region. Charles's concerns
were heard in Washington, which increased United States security
assistance to the Eastern Caribbean in FY 1983. United States
military aid to Dominica rose from US$12,000 in 1981 (it had been
nothing in previous decades) to US$317,000 in 1983. United States
military assistance to Barbados increased from US$61,000 in 1981 to
US$170,000 in 1982. St. Vincent and the Grenadines received
US$300,000 in military assistance from the United States in 1982,
compared with nothing in previous decades.
On October 29, 1982, Barbados and four OECS countries--Antigua
and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the
Grenadines--took an important step toward establishing an RSS by
signing, in Bridgetown, Barbados, the Memorandum of Understanding.
The move was prompted by growing concern among island leaders about
the Grenadian regime's intentions. The three remaining OECS
members--Grenada, Montserrat, and St. Kitts and Nevis--did not
sign. Under the RSS, a member state whose security was threatened
or who needed other kinds of emergency assistance could call on
other member states. According to the Memorandum of Understanding,
members were obliged "to prepare contingency plans and assist one
another on request in national emergencies . . . and threats to
national security." RSS members could choose not to participate in
any RSS operation or training exercise because they were not party
to a binding treaty, but rather an informal memorandum. Threats to
national security covered by the memorandum included armed
insurgencies, mercenary actions, army mutinies, armed seizure of
facilities by insurgents, and armed secession attempts by smaller
islands. The security arrangement also provided for cooperation in
areas such as natural disasters, pollution control, maritime
policing duties, smuggling prevention, search-and-rescue
operations, immigration, customs and excise control, and fisheries
protection.
The accord established the structural basis for the RSS,
including arrangements for joint training and cost sharing.
Barbados, as the largest participant, assumed 49 percent, or
US$240,000, of the cost of supporting the RSS apparatus, and the
other islands paid 51 percent, based on an assessment of US$35,000
each. The RSS plan called for creation of an eighty-member
paramilitary Special Service Unit (SSU) on each island. In a
crisis, the SSUs would be coordinated by an RSS operations room at
BDF headquarters at St. Ann's Fort in Bridgetown, Barbados, headed
by the RSS coordinator, a Barbadian (see fig. 21). BDF chief of
staff Brigadier Rudyard Lewis was elected to serve as the first RSS
coordinator. The coordinator reported to the Council of Ministers,
which was composed of those government officials entrusted with
security in each member country. In a meeting held on February 19,
1983, in Castries, St. Lucia, the heads of government of St. Lucia,
Barbados, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent and the
Grenadines finalized arrangements for the RSS.
Despite the formation of the RSS, the English-speaking islands
of the Eastern Caribbean did not follow the United States political
and economic boycott of Grenada. They remained convinced that
Washington's concern had more to do with strategic competition with
the Soviet Union than with the problems of greater concern to the
ministates in the region: economic and social problems and efforts
to increase Caribbean economic cooperation. The estimated US$23
million that Grenada received in foreign aid in 1982, mostly from
Soviet bloc countries, did not go unnoticed by the Commonwealth
Caribbean islands. Nevertheless, security issues became of
overriding concern in the region as a result of the crisis in
Grenada in October 1983.
Meeting in Barbados on October 21, the Defence and Security
Committee of the OECS requested assistance from Barbados and
Jamaica and nominated Dominican prime minister Charles to formally
notify Britain and the United States of the OECS decision to take
joint action to restore order in Grenada. The request for United
States intervention reportedly was made orally to United States
diplomats in Barbados that evening. In its formal request for
United States assistance, made in writing on October 23, the OECS
cited the consequent unprecedented threat to the peace and security
of the region created by the vacuum of authority in Grenada and
violations of human rights, including killings. The OECS request
also noted the likely imminent introduction of military forces and
supplies to consolidate the position of the government, the
potential use of the island as a staging area for aggression
against its neighbors, and the unnecessary expansion of the
Grenadian army's capabilities.
In an emergency session held in Trinidad and Tobago on October
23, the Caricom heads of government were unable to reach a
consensus on the proposals for joint action. They agreed only to
impose sanctions on Grenada, including suspension of its Caricom
membership. Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister George Chambers,
the Caricom chairman, and Guyana's Forbes Burnham led the
opposition to invading the island; they were supported by the
Bahamas and Belize. Chambers reportedly was subsequently excluded
from final planning for the military action, which was conducted by
the nine other Caricom member states, including Jamaica, that
favored the operation. The OECS actively supported the joint United
States-Caribbean operation of October 25, 1983, although three OECS
members--Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Montserrat--did not
participate in the voting (see Current Strategic Considerations,
this ch.). An OECS statement noted that "the extensive military
buildup on Grenada over the past few years has created a situation
of disproportionate military strength between Grenada and other
OECS countries."
In keeping with their prior positions, the Bahamas, Guyana, and
Trinidad and Tobago publicly condemned the intervention. Chambers's
stance was not shared by the Trinidadian press, however, which
portrayed him as out of touch with other Caribbean nations. A poll
published in the Trinidad and Tobago Express on October 30,
1983, also showed 61 percent of Trinidadians and Tobagonians
supporting the invasion and United States involvement and 56
percent in favor of committing Trinidadian troops to the assault.
After the Grenada operation, the United States, Britain, and
neighboring states such as Barbados began assisting the island to
rebuild its security forces. The 350-member, multinational
Caribbean Peace Force (CPF) maintained security on the island for
the rest of the year, and United States combat forces departed
Grenada on December 14, 1983. Following the departure of the combat
forces, British and Barbadian police and United States Green Beret
advisers regrouped and retrained the 270 personnel left in the
Grenada police force and incorporated them into a new force.
Barbados contributed by instructing some of the Grenadian recruits
at the Regional Police Training Center in Barbados. The United
States military team supplemented the British and Barbadian police
training by forming an eighty-member Grenadian SSU and providing it
with basic light infantry training and equipment.
At the specific request of the OECS, the United States also
began increasing its military training assistance to the RSS member
states. In February and March 1984, eight-member United States
Green Beret teams trained eighty SSU personnel on each of the RSS
islands, including newly independent St. Kitts and Nevis. The
latter was admitted into the RSS at a meeting of the RSS Council of
Ministers in Bridgetown on February 7, 1984. United States efforts
also went into developing and equipping a coast guard force for the
region.
When the RSS Council of Ministers met again in Bridgetown on
March 17, 1984, the leaders of the 6 RSS islands adopted a plan for
creating a mobile, 200-member task force and a coordination
agreement among the various island coast guard services. The heads
of government in the region discussed regional security again at a
meeting held on November 23, 1984. CPF forces withdrew from Grenada
on September 22, 1985.
On November 30, 1984, United States, Canadian, and British
representatives met with officials from the RSS member states in
Bridgetown, Barbados, to discuss financial and material support for
the RSS. They also reportedly discussed the establishment of a
Barbados-based central command and training structure, as well as
the provision for suitable logistical support. Under the proposed
structure, each nation would have an SSU consisting of police or
defense forces capable of acting on their own or in a regional
capacity.
Testifying before the United States Congress during hearings on
the foreign assistance budget for the Eastern Caribbean in early
1985, officials from the Department of State and the Department of
Defense stressed the fragile economies of the islands and the
absence of foreign threats to regional security. Accordingly, the
1986 United States budgetary request, as in the past, balanced
military and economic assistance on a ratio of one to four. United
States military assistance for the region in FY 1986 was set at
US$10 million, the same as for FY 1985. The FY 1986 United States
military aid package was primarily for logistical support for
patrol boats and communications equipment, with an additional
US$400,000 for military education and training for the SSUs. Having
acquired coast guard boats from the United States in the mid-1980s,
Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, and Grenada were among
the five Eastern Caribbean nations to carry out joint maneuvers
with six United States Navy vessels in November 1984. The joint
naval exercises involved search-and-rescue operations and other
coast guard functions. Grenada was admitted into the RSS at a
meeting of Eastern Caribbean leaders held in Kingston, Jamaica, on
February 26, 1985.
The RSS regional security concept was put into practice in a
five-day exercise by United States, British, and RSS forces in
September 1985. Called Operation "Exotic Palm," it was the first
regional military exercise to be held in the Eastern Caribbean.
Operation Exotic Palm involved 200 Caribbean troops from 7 West
Indian nations, including Jamaica, and 300 United States troops, as
well as a United States Navy destroyer and a British frigate and
support ship. Under the scenario, thirty to fifty insurgents seized
an airport in St. Lucia, whereupon RSS forces retook the field and
flushed the fleeing rebels out of a forested area. Despite heavy
rains during the first two days, the US$1 million exercise was
considered a success. Trinidad and Tobago did not participate but
sent observers. St. Vincent and the Grenadines was the only RSS
member to decline any involvement; it did so because of the
opposition of its prime minister, James F. "Son" Mitchell, to the
regional military roles of the RSS and the United States.
St. Lucia's prime minister, John G.M. Compton, proposed
extending the RSS to include the other islands within the thirteen-
nation Caricom. Neither of the two principal West Indian nations
lying just outside the RSS region--Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago-
-was interested in joining, however, in part because of fears that
they would be expected to assume most of the financial burden. In
an October 20, 1985, news conference, Jamaican prime minister Seaga
pledged his country's willingness to provide technical training and
other assistance for the RSS forces, but he reaffirmed his
government's unwillingness to join any such regional grouping.
Despite its stance on RSS membership, Jamaica participated--
along with forces of the United States, Britain, and all RSS
members except Barbados--in an exercise called "Ocean Venture 86,"
held in April and May 1986. The maneuvers--involving 700 members of
the United States Green Berets, Marines, and 101st Air Assault
Battalion units, and 160 RSS personnel--included landings on
Grenada and the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
Convening in Castries, St. Lucia, in October 1986, the RSS
Council of Ministers decided, in its first meeting in twenty
months, not to adopt a treaty making the RSS a formal organization
but to continue operating the system under the 1982 Memorandum of
Understanding. Dominica's prime minister Charles argued
unsuccessfully that a formal RSS treaty would permit some kind of
official agreement with France and Venezuela. For two weeks later
that month, joint exercises called "Upward Key 86" were conducted
on and off the coast of Barbuda. The maneuvers involved 240 troops
from the United States, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and
Nevis in a series of land, sea, and air operations.
Their stated objections to the RDF proposal and the military
features of the RSS notwithstanding, prime ministers Errol Barrow
of Barbados and Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines retained
their island nations' RSS memberships. Barbados went its own way on
the issue of United States coast guard training by signing a coast
guard training agreement with Canada on August 29, 1986. Barrow
affirmed in September 1986 that Barbados was willing to continue
hosting the RSS headquarters and to participate in United States
and British training of RSS forces. Both Barrow and Mitchell also
were on record as staunchly supporting the RSS's coast guard role
in narcotics interdiction, search and rescue, and other law
enforcement activities. Barrow pledged that Barbados would continue
to regard the RSS as a means of furthering regional cooperation in
the areas of narcotics and contraband control, maritime training,
and fisheries protection. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for its
part, was one of only two RSS-member countries not in arrears with
RSS payments in late 1986 (the other being St. Kitts and Nevis).
Operation "Camile," the first exercise to include units from
all RSS members, was held in early May 1987. RSS troops, as well as
forces from Jamaica, Britain, and the United States, participated
in the maneuvers. The exercise emphasized civil defense, disaster
relief, and coast guard functions, rather than military operations,
and included a rehearsal of evacuation of civilians endangered by
a volcanic eruption.
By mid-1987 the RSS member states undoubtedly were better
prepared to cope with security problems as a result of the modest
security measures implemented by the Eastern Caribbean islands with
outside assistance, the RSS training exercises, and greater
regional security cooperation. Nevertheless, the English-speaking
island nations remained a largely undefended concentration of
island democracies that were still highly vulnerable to subversion
and attacks by terrorists or mercenaries, as well as to social
violence. Four years after the October 1983 intervention in
Grenada, declining economic prospects and rapidly increasing
population growth had raised social tensions throughout the
English-speaking Caribbean, potentially making the subregion
vulnerable to a new generation of radicals. Without outside
assistance, they were also defenseless against any possible future
military aggression by an extraregional power. The Soviet Union,
Cuba, and Libya did not abandon their interests in the subregion
after their debacle in Grenada.
In addition, beginning in the summer of 1984, Libyan agents
appeared to be playing an active role among dissidents on the
English-speaking Caribbean islands. According to the United States
Department of State and the Department of Defense, the loss of the
Libyan People's Bureau in Grenada in October 1983 forced Tripoli to
attempt to establish subversive centers in other diplomatic posts
in the region, including an "Islamic Teaching Center" in Barbados.
The State Department also claimed in August 1986 that Libya was
providing covert funding to radical groups in at least seven
Caribbean countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and
St. Lucia, and urging leftist leaders in the region to use violent
means to achieve power.
Data as of November 1987
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