Note to readers: This page highlights images and reference materials for the podcast “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop” and will be updated as new episodes are released.
Maurice Bishop: The Revolutionary Leader of Grenada
Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader of Grenada, was executed in 1983 along with seven others. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown. Over the past two years, we have investigated this mystery, including the role of the U.S. government in shaping the fate of the Caribbean nation, to produce a six-part podcast. We conducted interviews with over 100 individuals, examined archival photographs, studied government documents, and visited the sites where events took place. Here, we share some of the visuals and other evidence we uncovered, episode by episode.
Episode 1: “Someone Knows”
Our report began where things started: in the courtyard of the military fortress where Maurice Bishop, aged 39, was killed along with three ministers and four of his closest aides.
Photographer Jabin Poutsford captured photos of the fortress as it stands today. It bore the name of Bishop’s father, Robert, and is now known as Fort George.
You can still see the bullet holes in the pole of the basketball hoop.
When he came to power, Maurice Bishop was a charismatic young revolutionary who collaborated with communist leaders. We found images of Bishop standing beside Cuban President Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, who was then a member of the Nicaraguan revolutionary government, at a May Day rally in 1980 in Cuba’s Plaza de la Revolución.
This was the height of the Cold War. U.S. President Ronald Reagan viewed Grenada’s ties to Cuba – and by extension the Soviet Union – as a serious threat. He emphasized this in a live televised address on March 23, 1983: “We were told that Grenada was a friendly island for tourism. Well, it was not.”
Bishop came to New York a few months later, on June 5, to speak before an enthusiastic crowd. He read from what he claimed was “a top-secret report from the State Department” and told the audience that it revealed the real reason the United States believed Grenada posed a threat: “And if we have 95 percent of our population of African descent in our country, we could have a dangerous appeal for 30 million black people in the United States.”
Episode 2: “We All Had Great Expectations”
Grenada is an island nation with a population of 125,000 on the edge of the Caribbean Sea. Many of the inhabitants of this former British colony are descendants of enslaved Africans. (And if you heard “Grenada” and thought we were talking about a city in Spain, check out the helpful map below).
In the 1960s, as Bishop was growing up, Grenada was still a poor country, with many citizens working on farms as their ancestors had.
There were also families like the Bishops. Ellen Bishop Spielman, Bishop’s younger sister, shared this family photo and told us more about her family and her brother.
“We were our class beliefs. You couldn’t enter our lives if you were outside of our class. If you walked home from school and talked to a taxi driver or a servant child, you would be reprimanded. We were somewhat snobbish,” Spielman said.
“Maurice was very nice, and handsome, of course,” she said. “He was my doll. I think I remember one time he was sleeping and I was playing with his hair and wrapped most of it. And when he woke up and was in a rush for an appointment, he couldn’t get it off.”
Sir Eric Gairy was the national prime minister at the time. He was initially popular, but some Grenadians began to see him as power-hungry and corrupt, unleashing brutal violence on his political enemies. Here he is at a press conference in February 1974, joking that those who opposed him may have died of “natural causes.”
It was
about the Grenadian Revolution, which was partly led by Bishop, as a new beginning for many Grenadians. In addition to the radio clips you hear in this episode, we also found videos documenting life during that period.
We also heard stories about the negative side of the revolution. While Bishop presented an idealized vision of what Grenada had become, cracks appeared quickly. Here is an excerpt from his speech at Hunter College in June 1983: “The revolution has established a law that states no one, regardless of their identity, will be allowed to engage in any activities related to overthrowing the government using armed violence. Anyone who goes in this direction will be crushed mercilessly.”
In 2001, the Grenadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate “some political events” in the country, including activities during the revolution. The resulting report found that around 3000 people were arbitrarily detained during Bishop’s four-year rule. Some later reported being beaten and tortured in prison.
There were also severe conflicts within the ruling party. We interviewed several individuals who were loyal members of the revolution. One of them, Christopher Stroude, was a commander in the Grenadian army.
“There was a belief that the revolution was stagnating. People were dissatisfied, on different levels. We couldn’t address the various issues that were concerning the people,” Stroude said.
Christopher Stroude spent time in prison for the murder of Maurice Bishop.
We pieced together our account of October 19, 1983, through interviews with 18 people who were there that day, including some who were later convicted of playing a role in the executions.
At least ten people were shot dead that day. Others died or were injured when they jumped from the castle to escape the gunfire and fell onto rocks that were 50 to 60 feet high.
Maurice Bishop and the other seven were lined up at the castle and shot. While the remains of others have been located, the bodies of these eight individuals remain missing. We couldn’t find photographs of everyone.
Anne Bean told us about her husband Norris Bean, who died alongside Bishop that day: “Every October 19, this thing comes back. Every October 19, 1983, this thing comes back. And there is no answer.”
But we found someone with an answer.
Episode 3: “We Brought Them to Calivini”
To understand what happened to the bodies of Maurice Bishop and seven of his followers, we had to trace their movements, starting from the hours following the executions on October 19, 1983. To confirm the chain of custody, we needed to talk to the people who were there.
Many witnesses to these moments are no longer alive, but some still are. One of them, apparently, owned an electrical repair shop in the capital city of Grenada, St. George’s.
We wandered down a narrow side street in the city center, searching for the shop. We found a faded sign for Mr. Brown’s electrical services, which says, “Only the best is good enough.” The shop is owned by Earl Brown.
Before running this shop, Brown served in the Grenadian army, or the People’s Revolutionary Army. Brown was at the castle on the day Bishop was killed. He said he did not witness the executions, but he saw the aftermath. It is still difficult for him to talk about it.
“When I saw what happened to Maurice, it was heartbreaking,” he said. “And the other comrades, like Norris Bean… Jacqueline Craft…” It took him a long time to find the words.
Later that night, Brown received orders to dispose of the bodies. He said he was overseeing the soldiers who were told to transport the bodies to Calivini, an area of the island that was being used as a military barracks at the time. He watched the soldiers put the bodies in a pit, place tires over the remains, spray them with gasoline, and then set them on fire. He said he and the other soldiers left – there was no one left to tend to the fire. Others reported that by the next day, the flames had faded and turned to smoke.
We spoke
Some forensic experts talked about this. They said they did not believe that these conditions would lead to the cremation of the body.
Six days later, on October 25, 1983, the United States launched an invasion of Grenada. President Ronald Reagan stood at a press conference next to Eugenia Charles, the head of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and Prime Minister of the Caribbean island of Dominica. We found a video of that on YouTube.
“In the early hours of the morning, forces from six Caribbean democracies and the United States began a landing operation on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean,” Reagan said.
“Between 800 and 1,000 Americans, including many medical students and elderly people, make up the largest group of foreign nationals residing in Grenada.”
The mission was dubbed “urgent and intense.” It began with the first wave of American troops. Initially, Reagan described the invasion as “completely successful,” but that was not the full picture. Nineteen American soldiers were killed during the invasion. Some were victims of friendly fire or accidents, including helicopter crashes.
The United States also mistakenly bombed a psychiatric hospital in Grenada, resulting in the deaths of several patients. In total, over 20 civilians were killed during the invasion. At least 69 Grenadian and Cuban soldiers were killed.
We discovered a report prepared in 1997 for the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Joint History, which found that “the operation suffered problems from the beginning.” “The success of the urgent and intense operation was marred by the consequences of insufficient planning time, a lack of tactical information, and command and control issues,” according to the report.
Colin Brathwaite was an investigator in Barbados at the time. In his mid-thirties, he was sent to Grenada to assist in the investigation of executions, having arrived on the island after the U.S. invasion.
Brathwaite was responsible for investigating the killings. Therefore, he interviewed witnesses and sought evidence – including bodies. “We received some reliable information, I believe, about where the bodies were buried. My information was that the bodies were in Calivigny,” he said.
He said that he and a group of police officers did not go to the reported grave in Calivigny until several days later. We believe this was after several weeks following the executions. And when they arrived there, they found the pit. But he said he immediately knew something was strange.
“The area was completely dug up and there was caution tape around it,” he said. “Someone had come before me.”
During our report, we discovered a set of photos taken by the associated press on November 8, 1983, at the burn pit site, days before Brathwaite and his team of investigators arrived at the location. Some of the photos show U.S. army soldiers pulling what appears to be a body bag from a pit in Calivigny. Brathwaite had never seen these photos before.
Through our report, we also know that within two days, those bodies were examined by a U.S. forensic team, which was tasked with determining whether the remains belonged to Bishop and the other individuals who had been executed with him.
However, the United States never released the examination results to the public.
Episode 4: “The military wants to take a look at some corpses.”
Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of human remains.
Stephen Trujillo was a military doctor in the U.S. Army during the invasion of Grenada. In 2017, he published a memoir that included details about what happened in Calivigny that may provide a new explanation for part of the mystery surrounding the remains of Maurice Bishop and his followers. This summer, we tracked him down and he told us his story.
On October 25, 1983, Trujillo and his fellow paratroopers jumped into the island. He said they quickly took control of the Cuban resistance and seized the airport. They killed many Cubans that day.
“But it was…
“It was a war. I was a soldier. They were soldiers,” said Trujillo. “And this is what happens when old men send young men to war. We fight and kill each other for stupid reasons most of the time.
The next day, Trujillo and his team rescued American students at the medical schools’ campus. He thought his work was done. But on October 27, they received a new mission.
He ordered the soldiers to prepare for an attack on Calivini, where the last of the Cuban and Grenadian resistance was believed to be hiding. Trujillo said one of the commanders was angry because there wasn’t enough time to prepare for the attack, and they lacked information on the potential threat.
“He said, ‘My soldiers will not go until I make it a parking lot.’”
So Calivini was bombed. Trujillo and his team watched from a nearby airport as artillery shells were fired toward Calivini from the ground, with U.S. Navy planes flying overhead. We later discovered from U.S. Navy accounts that the planes were dropping cluster bombs known as Mark 20 and 500-pound bombs known as Mark 82. They were also firing thousands of rounds.
When the troops attacked
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/23/empty-grave-comrade-bishop-podcast-guide/?itid=mr_investigations_4
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