A Lesson To Third World Countries - Invasion Of Grenada
Kojo Smith
The execution of the Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop by some members of his own People's Revolutionary Government as well as the People's Revolutionary forces should be an eye opener to both blind and not too well-informed followers of Cuba and Libya which are proteges of the Soviet Union.
The late Marxist revolutionary leader in a population of 110,00 had over 2,000 soldiers most of whom were trained in Cuba plus over 10,000 People's Militia yet when he was being executed none of these' 'defence apparatus' could save him.
Since December 1981 when Rawlings and his henchmen seized power they have been preoccupied with trying to protect themselves and to entrench their rule instead of concentrating on how to cater for the welfare of teeming Ghanaians. Millions of hard earned foreign currencies have been used to purchase more arms and ammunitions just to perpetuate a regime when thousands of people are dying daily in the hospitals and villages because there is a chronic shortage of drugs.
But as Shakespeare said "there is no armour against fate" and therefore no amount of arms from the Soviet Union or East Germany via Cuba and Libya as well as a contingent of people's militia will avert the inevitable.
It is very strange that people who have catapulted themselves into positions of leadership in Ghana today, a country of intelligent people, should be oblivious to the fact that Cuba has nothing mysterious about her. That Cuba could not have survived if the Soviet Union, the paymasters have not been pumping over $11 million a day or an estimated figure of $4 billion a year into her economy for a population of about 10 million people.
Not only is Cuba benefitting generously in financial aid from the Soviet Union it has liberal trade relations in which Cuban exports of sugar and nickel are heavily subsidised. In addition Cuba receives oil from the Russians at a price which is below the international market price as well as free military aid.
Despite this heavy patronage by the Soviet Union the Cuban Revolutionary leaders have not been able to eradicate poverty, squalor illiteracy and disease from their country and she is just as poor and backward as any Third World country.
But the same government finds it untenable and objectionable that the United States should march into Grenada simply because they did not like what was happening there.
The British prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher lamented, "if you are going to pronounce a new law that wherever communism reigns against the will of the people.....the United States shall enter, then we are going to have really terrible wars in the world'.
The Western World, she also said, defends their way of life but does not impose it on others.
When a group of people who by virtue of their chosen profession are armed, turn away from the duty of defending their country's territorial integrity and its people, turn their guns on the civilians and seize political power from them, their action cannot be anything less than an invasion. There are many countries in Africa who are still smarting under a state of siege declared by their military rulers.
When Libyan troops marched into Chad to instal Goukhounni Weddeye as President of that country, their action was an invasion.
When troops from Senegal crossed into The Gambia to quell a rebellion, their action which was supported by the British was tantamount to an invasion of one country by another.
When the Russians moved into Afghanistan they were described as invaders. The latest of the invasions is that of Grenada by the US and, as can be seen from the list, the targets have almost always been weak nations of the Third World.
The people of a country deserve to be given the freedom to choose their government. A denial of this inalienable right either through a coup d'etat or invasion by another country is regrettable.
But it is equally regrettable that the British government from its own experience with other countries should find it expedient to wax so loud in its condemnation of the American invasion of Grenada.
Or does Britain feel slighted by Sir Paul Scoon's refusal to invite it to help restore order in Grenada just as Sir Dauda Jawara of the Gambia did in 1981? Could it be that the entire British reaction has been one of pique?
