By Nathan 'Jolly' Green, April 05, 2020

Wake Up Barbados

Tom
Adams, the deceased Prime Minister of Barbados, must be rolling in
his grave when he sees the cooperation taking place between the
current Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, QC, who like
Gonsalves is an attorney. Like Gonsalves, she is the leader of a
Labour Party, her close affiliation with Dr. Ralph Everard Gonsalves
currently the disputed prime minister [disputed by a large section of
the electorate] of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Jon
Michael Geoffrey Manningham Adams, lovingly known as 'Tom Adams'
(September 24, 1931 – March 11, 1985) was a Barbadian politician
who served as Prime Minister of Barbados from 1976 until 1985.

Adams
banned Ralph Gonsalves from Barbados, made him officially
'Persona-non-Grata' wouldn't have him on the island. Gonsalves was
said to escape the island under cover of darkness, covered in a
stinking tarpaulin and dressed as a woman, getting a ride with a well
known Bequia boat captain, Captain King, to Saint Vincent. 

I
suppose to be fair to Tom Adams, Gonsalves was banned at one time or
another from two other island states as well.

Adams
maintained close relations with the U.S. He was the leading proponent
in the grouping of Eastern Caribbean states that asked Reagan to
intervene in overthrowing the Cuban-backed communist regime of
Bernard Coard, who had toppled Maurice Bishop, who was later
murdered, in Grenada. Barbados was used as a staging point for some
of the U.S. forces, and a nominal contingent of the Barbados Defence
Force accompanied in the invasion force's wake, not least to allow
(as Barrow claimed) Reagan to gild the statistics. The Barbadian
population was of two minds about Adams' move, generally conceding
that Bishop's murder had moved Grenada too far, but being uneasy with
Reagan's U.S. heavy-handedness. Nevertheless, Adams' BLP was tipped
to win the upcoming elections at the time. 

Tom
Adams died of a heart attack at Ilaro Court, the Prime Minister's
official residence, on March 11, 1985. He was the first sitting Prime
Minister of Barbados to die in office. He was buried in Bridgetown,
Barbados, at the churchyard of the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael
and All Angels on Saint Michael's Row.

Ralph Gonsalves supportive, and was deeply mixed up with the Marxist – Leninist revolutionary Maurice Bishop, who led a Cuban/Russian encouraged coup d 'état in Grenada know as the Grenada Revolution in December 1979. Gonsalves was riding in his car and attending meetings and rallies and writing the speeches for Maurice Bishop.

Gonsalves
also hitched a ride from Grenada in a USSR supply plane, which
dropped him off at Barbados airport. The Russians wrote during the
Grenadian revolution that Gonsalves was someone they could trust.
That perhaps only added to Tom Adams's intense dislike of Gonsalves.
But the feeling became more intense because Gonsalves never forgave
Adams for being a kingpin in the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which
brought the revolution to an end and reinstated democracy. The ending
of the communist era in Grenada must have been a significant
disappointment for Gonsalves because he had always dreamt of SVG
being a communist stronghold under his command. Now all those ideas
were dashed to the ground. 

During
my research for this opinion, I came across this, which I had
forgotten. But since being written has become a classical part of the
history of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is essential in the
scheme of things; I recommend everyone to read it.

This
article is spread through different agencies worldwide.  

Comrade,
by a different means you have almost achieved what you failed to
fulfill all those years ago. During these past years, you have
faithfully stuck by, if not clung to, your friendship and affiliation
of the Communist Castro owned Cuba. I suppose you will feel real
success if you somehow-or-other get re-elected in 2020. For the sake
of SVG, let's hope and pray that never happens.

Well
at least Gonsalves will not be annoyed by what he reads here, because
he is proud of his past and wears it like a medal of honour. He has
even written about it himself, a slightly different version of
course. You too can read his book, The Making of "The Comrade":
The Political Journey of Ralph Gonsalves, only US$29.95 free
shipping.

Remember
Comrade, “The past is never where you think you left it.”

― Katherine Anne Porter

END

– IMAGES supplied by author

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