Former Grenadian deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard plans to lobby the United States government in an effort to recover the remains of the country’s revolutionary leaders slain who were murdered in the 1983 coup.Coard was a member of the group known as the Grenada 17 jailed for assassinating then Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his cabinet ministers.
Soldiers of Bishop’s own People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA) executed Bishop and the others in a power struggle between Bishop and Coard. The internal conflict resulted in the U.S. invasion of Grenada.
The location of the bodies of Bishop and the others remains a mystery. A number of prominent Grenadians including former Governor General, Sir Paul Scoon, have been said Bishop’s body and the bodies of his colleagues were destroyed and disposed of before the United States troops landed.
But Coard has consistently disputed the claims and has now announced that he has formed a broad-based committee to lobby the Obama administration.
"I take the matter very seriously, as do all of us. It is something that, frankly speaking, we will not rest until the matter is dealt with because it is something that means a lot to a lot of people," Coard told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
A pathologist from the United States was among witnesses who testified before a commission four years ago that they had seen the remains of the Grenada leadership dug out from a hole at an army camp in the south of the island after the invasion.
Coard, who was released from the Richmond Hill Prison six months ago, has been living in Jamaica with his wife Phyllis, the lone female member of the so-called Grenada 17.
He is conducting research for a book on Grenada’s political history.
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