Cuba commemorates 40th anniversary of U.S. invasion of Grenada

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 25 (ACN) The memory of Grenadian leader Maurice Bishop and the 24 Cuban internationalist fighters who fell in that Caribbean nation 40 years ago deserved a tribute held at the headquarters of the Caribbean Association of Cuba and attended by members of the Caribbean and African diplomatic corps accredited to Cuba, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a group of Cuban aid workers who were in Grenada when the U.S. invasion took place on October 25, 1983.

Gastón Rodríguez, then Cuban ambassador to Grenada, recalled the cooperation projects promoted by the revolutionary process in Grenada and eventually thwarted by the criminal intervention—such as the construction of the International Airport where Cuban workers were employed—and Yankee imperialism’s constant attempts to prevent Grenada from becoming an example, including the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and part of his cabinet on October 19 on the eve of the attack.

“However, the dream did not die with the end of the Grenadian Revolution on October 25, but flourishes today with an increasingly united Caribbean, inspired by those events to stands up to the oppressors,” he said.

On his end, Grenadian Ambassador Glen Benedict Noel denounced the inhuman U.S. blockade of and sanctions against Cuba, which he described as immoral and unjustifiable, and stressed that the invasion dealt a harsh blow to the left and dashed the hopes of millions of people worldwide, the effects of which we still feel today.

“No wonder,” he pointed out, “that Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz called it a great Revolution in a small country. (…) Long live the spirits of Maurice Bishop and the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of Grenada! Long live the memory of the fallen!"

On October 19, 1983, a faction instigated by the United States deposed and executed Bishop, a move leading up to a U.S. intervention intended to dismantle the social process initiated by Bishop that was condemned by the majority of the international community and decried by the United Nations, since it was just a show of force by US imperialism to try and intimidate other socialist governments in flagrant breach of international law and the sovereignty of the peoples.