Edging toward Democracy

Stability is the goal as U.S. troops prepare to leave Grenada

The neatly plugged potholes along Grenada's twisting dirt roads are a testimony to U.S. aid. Less visible but more ample is the American effort to help fill the Caribbean island's political vacuum before all but several hundred of the remaining 3,000 U.S. troops pull out for good this month.

Last week, as banana boats were leisurely unloaded near by, U.S. military commanders, diplomats and British advisers gathered at the white colonial residence of Sir Paul Scoon, Governor-General of Grenada, to discuss the island's political future. Grenada's nine-member interim advisory council, which will administer until elections can be held, later also convened at Scoon's to thresh out the problems of their succession. At stake is the introduction of a democratic system to replace the institutions that were swept away in the tempest of dictatorship, socialist revolution and armed upheaval that has racked Grenada in recent years. Scoon's legal adviser, Commonwealth Constitutional Scholar Antony Rushford, says that Grenada's British-style Independence Constitution of 1973 will be revived in stages, returning the island to a two-house parliamentary system and a majority-elected Prime Minister. Trouble is, the island's political parties are, according to one high-ranking U.S. official there, "in various stages of disorder." When they will be strong enough to participate in elections is anybody's guess; U.S. officials do not expect voting to take place for at least a year.

The handful of parties that formed in the 1970s to oppose the despotic rule of Sir Eric Gairy were gathered together in the New Jewel Movement after its Marxist leader, Maurice Bishop, took power in 1979. By and large, the N.J.M. followed Bishop to the grave in October. The only existing political group on the island is the Grenadian National Party, which has fewer than two dozen members and whose leader lies crippled by arthritis on the sister island of Carriacou. Many Grenadians, moreover, are leery of a return to democratic institutions that were a mixed blessing even before Gairy and Bishop emasculated them. "Having elections and more politics, we'll have more corruption again," frets Farmer Lloyd Bridgeman.

The U.S. military last week took new steps to boost Grenadian confidence. To root out lingering Marxist elements on the island, the Army offered rewards for guns and information. The 82nd Airborne, meantime, conducted target practice for the 396-man Caribbean Peace-Keeping Force that will soon be in charge of Grenada's security.

Efforts were also under way to rebuild Grenada's shattered police force, which has only 100 men, one-fifth of the number before Bishop took power. Noted regional Police Adviser Michael Baugh: "They are in a hell of a state." While U.S. soldiers repainted police stations abandoned after the 1979 revolution, the British government offered Grenada $1 million toward training and equipping policemen and dispatched advisers from Britain to Belize to rally the Grenadian department. Next month, 50 Grenadians will go to Barbados to study police procedure. "In three years we hope to build the force up again to 500 men," Baugh says. By then, it is hoped, the local police will have taken over from the Caribbean peace keepers.

Steering Grenada back to stability is a delicate task. Says U.S. Ambassador Charles Anthony Gillespie: "There is a commitment to the ideal of democratic government, but it would be a mistake for us to try to direct that process." Yet sometimes it is difficult to relinquish the tiller. U.S. diplomats publicly dismiss fears of a leftist resurgence, but in private they are less sanguine. Says one U.S. Army officer: "There is a lot of concern that once things get rolling here again, these people will go out and elect another Bishop." qed This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.