Cold War in a Hot Country

The two-week celebration marking the first anniversary of Grenada’s revolution is over now, the bunting and posters so selflessly donated by Cuba fading beneath the withering tropical sun. Delegates from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Kampuchea, Libya, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and other “progressive” countries have made their token speeches against American imperialism and departed for their respective Workers’ Paradises. Gone too are the comradely Cuban sign-painters responsible for the billboards dotting the Grenadian landscape, and carrying such revolutionary slogans as “let. us GROW WHAT WE EAT AND EAT WHAT we grow” and “imperialism is our ENEMY—BE VIGILANT.”

To the casual observer, in short, Grenada appears to have become once again that Caribbean Never-Never Land beloved of Club Med promoters and devotees of Harry Belafonte ballads. Native farmers harvest sugar cane, cruise ships disgorge their sunburned, camera-bedecked passengers, and the Land Rover hearse merrily plays “La Cucaracha” on its five-note horn as it trundles its funereal cargoes along the pot-holed roads. Ah, the tourist sighs, how quaint —an idyllic island of matchless beauty far removed from the world of international politics and strife. Or is it?

RB

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Richard Buel

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The two-week celebration marking the first anniversary of Grenada’s revolution is over now, the bunting and posters so selflessly donated by Cuba fading beneath the withering tropical sun. Delegates from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Kampuchea, Libya, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and other “progressive” countries have made their token speeches against American imperialism and departed for their respective Workers’ Paradises. Gone too are the comradely Cuban sign-painters responsible for the billboards dotting the Grenadian landscape, and carrying such revolutionary slogans as “let. us GROW WHAT WE EAT AND EAT WHAT we grow” and “imperialism is our ENEMY—BE VIGILANT.”

To the casual observer, in short, Grenada appears to have become once again that Caribbean Never-Never Land beloved of Club Med promoters and devotees of Harry Belafonte ballads. Native farmers harvest sugar cane, cruise ships disgorge their sunburned, camera-bedecked passengers, and the Land Rover hearse merrily plays “La Cucaracha” on its five-note horn as it trundles its funereal cargoes along the pot-holed roads. Ah, the tourist sighs, how quaint —an idyllic island of matchless beauty far removed from the world of international politics and strife. Or is it?