Havana, Cuba, CMC – On the 40th anniversary of the Grenada invasion and to honor the memory of Grenadian leader Maurice Bishop and the 24 Cuban fighters who fell, a tribute was held at the headquarters of the Caribbean Association of Cuba on Wednesday.
The ceremony was 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 intervention—such as the construction of the International Airport where Cuban workers were employed—and 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 stand up to the oppressors,” he said.
For his part, Grenadian Ambassador Glen Benedict Noel denounced the 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!”
and then 