CUBAN AND US INVASION OF GRENADA. (Videos/Photos)The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation ‘Urgent Fury’, was a 1983 US-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of just over 100,000 located 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela. It was triggered by a military coup which ousted a brief revolutionary government.
The successful invasion led to a change of government but was controversial due to charges of American imperialism, Cold War politics, the involvement of Cuba, the unstable state of the Grenadian government, and Grenada’s status as a Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as the monarch. Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1974, and Leftist rebels seized power in a coup in 1979. After a 1983 internal power struggle ended with the deposition and murder of revolutionary Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the invasion began on 25 October 1983. A combined force of about 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica, and members of the Regional Security System (RSS) defeated Grenadian resistance and the military government of Hudson Austin was deposed. Civilian deaths include all the residents of the island’s only Mental Hospital.
Why ?
The Bishop government began constructing the with the help of Britain, Cuba, Libya, Algeria, and other nations. The airport had been first proposed by the British government in 1954, when Grenada was still a British colony. It had been designed by Canadians, underwritten by the British government, and partly built by a London firm. The U.S. government accused Grenada of constructing facilities to aid a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean, and to assist the Soviet and Cuban transportation of weapons to Central American insurgents. Bishop’s government claimed that the airport was built to accommodate commercial aircraft carrying tourists, pointing out that such jets could not land at the existing airport on the island’s north. Neither could the existing airport, itself, be expanded as its runway abutted a mountain.
In March 1983, Ronald Reagan began issuing warnings about the threat posed to the United States and the Caribbean by the “Soviet-Cuban militarization” as evidenced by the excessively long airplane runway being built as well as intelligence sources. He said that the 9,000-foot (2,700 m) runway and the oil storage tanks were unnecessary for commercial , and that evidence pointed that the airport was to become a Cuban-Soviet military airbase. We have known/informed of a secret intervention in Grenada of an special force led by the Cuban General Ochoa (in few more months taken before a fire squad as a traitor) and a hard core of proven first class cadres of Castro’s “international combatants”. That were taken in secret too from the island went it was known by the Cuban government of the imminence of the US intervention.
US Intervention..
http://youtu.be/qsGnyBQNMW0
The invasion, which commenced at 05:00 on 25 October 1983, was the first major operation conducted by the U.S. military since the Vietnam War.[citation needed] Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf, III, Commander Second Fleet, was the overall commander of U.S. forces, designated Joint Task Force 120, which included elements of each military service and multiple special operations units. Fighting continued for several days and the total number of U.S. troops reached some 7,000 along with 300 troops from the OECS. The invading forces encountered about 1,500 Grenadian soldiers and about 700 Cubans. Also present were 60 advisors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Libya.According to journalist Bob Woodward in his book Veil, the supposed captured “military advisers” from the aforementioned countries were actually accredited diplomats and included their dependents. None took any actual part in the fighting. Some of the “construction workers” were actually a detachment of Cuban Military Special Forces and combat engineers.
Official U.S. sources state that the defenders were well-prepared, well-positioned and put up stubborn resistance, to the extent that the U.S. called in two battalions of reinforcements on the evening of 26 October. The total naval and air superiority of the coalition forces – including helicopter gunships and naval gunfire support – overwhelmed the local forces. Nearly eight thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines had participated in URGENT FURY along with 353 Caribbean allies of the CPF. U.S. forces had sustained 19 killed and 116 wounded; Cuban forces sustained 25 killed, 59 wounded and 638 combatants captured. Grenadian forces casualties were 45 killed and 358 wounded; at least 24 civilians.
The Cuban government sent these troops there to support the leftist government of the country. In 2008 the government of Grenada announced a move to build a monument to honor the Cubans killed during the invasion. At the time of the announcement the Cuban and Grenadian government are still seeking to locate a suitable site for the monument.
While the invasion enjoyed broad public support in the United States,and received support from some sectors in Grenada from local groups who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as “a flagrant violation of international law”.25 October is a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day, to commemorate the invasion, and on 29 May 2009 the was officially renamed in honor of the slain pre-coup leader Maurice Bishop by the Government of Grenada.
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CUBAN AND US INVASION OF GRENADA.
The CUban History, Hollywood.
Arnoldo Varona, Editor