Independence and the national question – part II

Editor’s note: This is the second part of an essay, written by Gabriel Christian and first published as a DAAS article in 2008. The article is being published in 7 parts on DNO. If you haven’t and would to read it, here’s the link to the first part which was published on DNO earlier this week: https://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/features/commentary/independence-national-question/

John was also cut from his organizational roots in the trade Waterfront and Allied Workers Union (WAWU) of which he was once part. Under leaders such as Louis Benoit (aka Zaboca) of WAWU and Charles Savarin of the Civil Service Association (CSA) organized labour now openly sympathized with the DFP.

The revived Dominica Farmers Union (DFU) was led by Ted Honeychurch, Athie Martin and Alvin Armantrading; all persons who were considered anti-government in posture. The Dominica Federation of Students (DFS) led by Angus Aulard, Romus Lamothe, Agnes Esprit, Steve John Debbie Douglas, alongside its President Gabriel Christian and others who had supported the independence drive of Prime Minister John became increasingly critical of government policy. On January 29, 1979 the DFS organized a demonstration of high school students around Roseau in solidarity with the DFU and farmers who were calling for prompt government action to arrest the spread of the leaf spot disease which was crippling the banana industry. The demonstration ended with a huge rally on the Goodwill savannah and was a harbinger of things to come. For a Labour Party which was born of the labour movement, and which once had the overwhelming support of farmers, to have lost such support was indicative of the growing chasm between government and the governed.

In February 1979, the BBC News program Panorama sent a TV crew to interview Prime Minister John and investigate reports of his involvement
with a South African backed bank in London. His answers were unconvincing and suspicions deepened. Local news reports became more
critical; the opposition among young people, farmers and business owners began coalescing.

In 1979 Prime Minister John offered the north of the island for a Dominica Free Port Authority owned by Texan business man Don Pierson which would limit the island’s control of its most fertile lands. Don Pierson had been a business associate of Haitian dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. He was also linked to the Zapata Oil Company, which had been implicated in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Pierson’s Dominica Free Port lease would be for 99 years at a paltry sum of $99 a year. The Free Port authority, with its own laws and immigration procedures, was seen as undermining the sovereignty of the new nation-state. Such actions by John were a deviation from the heritage and philosophy of the Labour Party, and angered students, farmers and workers who formerly supported the Labour Party. Rallies organized by the PIC, DFS, DFP, WAWU, CSA and a new grouping led by Mike Douglas called the Dominica Democratic Alliance (DDA) were held around the country to oppose the Free Port deal. On March 2, 1979, Don Pierson was invited to a meeting with student leaders of the DFS at the Dominica Grammar School. During that meeting he was unable to answer questions as to who would account for income from the Free Port Authority. He arrogantly refused to provide the students with copies of the contract and Pierson was rebuked for concealing important information which affected the national interest. He hurriedly left the meeting after being booed.

John’s promotion of such policies as the Free Port was considered a sell-out of the national interest. When John sought to pass legislation to muzzle the media and curtail trade union activism, Dominicans protested. In one such notable protest on May 29, 1979, the Dominica Defense Force (DDF) opened fire on stone throwing crowds outside parliament; fifteen were seriously wounded and Philip Timothy was killed. The son of Labour Party stalwarts (at the time his father was a gardener for Premier John) Timothy was martyred for the cause of Dominica’s young democracy and must never be forgotten.

Incensed, civil servants, workers and students closed schools, government offices and businesses. A call for a Premier John to resign resounded across the land; with disenchanted Labourites in the lead. Rosie Douglas called for a Committee of National Salvation grouping all opposition forces, after promoting the founding of the Dominica Liberation Movement on the evening of May 30, 1979. It must be noted that during the unrest in following May 29, 1979, many innocent Labourites had their homes attacked and businesses looted in Roseau by angry opposition crowds. The country had been divided into competing zones of control. The airport and the entire of north of the island, and Grandbay in the south and areas of the southeast, were solidly in the control of the left-leaning DLM; the DFP was strongest in Roseau and its adjoining suburbs with sometimes armed groups patrolling their areas as Prime Minister Patrick John was said to be planning to bring in mercenaries to assist him. The beleaguered John, who had retreated to the Prime Minister’s residence at More Bruce, came on radio and stated: “Citizens of Dominica! I shall never surrender! I shall not resign!”

Alarmed by a situation which seemed to be spiraling out of control, the DLM in turn organized its own revolutionary committees on June 16, 1979 to buttress its control of the countryside. Both the DDF and Royal Dominica Police Force were mostly barracks-bound and unable to maintain law and order. In an alarming escalation of the violence, the House of Assembly was consumed by flames on the evening of June 17, 1979. That night Roseau crowds attacked the homes and businesses of Labourites and sympathizers. Even members and supporters of the DLM were threatened and roughed up by DFP partisans, as they were seen as intent on making a revolution as had occurred on Grenada on March 13, 1979.

Saddened by the actions of a government which had lost its way Labour ministers such a Oliver J. Seraphine (OJ), H.L Christian, Eustace Francis and others resigned and formed a coalition government in alliance with the DFP and the DLM of Mike Douglas, Rosie Douglas, Para Riviere, Bernard Wiltshire, Lloyd Pascal, Athie Martin, Pierre Charles, Ron Green and other leftist leaders. DFP allies such as human rights activist and lawyer Brian Alleyne and former senior civil servant Charles Maynard were given ministries in the interim government. Mike Douglas served as minister of finance and Athie Martin served as agriculture minister. The interim government which replaced Prime Minister John was the first such coalition in Dominica’s history. The government had been crafted by the Committee of National Salvation, and was an example of civic leadership at its best, where it sought a peaceful resolution of a political conflict which threatened more street protests. Led by Seraphine, that interim government brought the island back from the brink of civil war. The interim government was dominated by Labour Party sympathizers and so the DFP soon withdrew its support as a prelude to the 1980 election. Rosie Douglas and Athie Martin were to be later expelled from the interim government when OJ Serpahine sought to assure the US government that his was not a leftist regime.

On August 29, 1979 Hurricane David struck Dominica a devastating blow. The first rescuers aboard the Royal Navy’s HMS Fife found almost total devastation from winds which topped 200 mph; luckily, only 67 Dominicans perished. Massive aid was garnered from the UK, USA, Venezuela and France. Other Caribbean islands also chipped in, with Jamaica sending its coast guard to assist. Helicopters scoured the island from each of these nations, rescuing stranded Dominicans from hillsides and dropping food supplies. The sound of falling boxes of emergency supplies – “brogodow!” – was later used to describe all such relief items. As in, “I had some brogodow for breakfast this morning.” Or, “He is wearing brogodow.”

Rosie Douglas and Bernard Wiltshire – with assistance from Grenada’s revolutionary leader Maurice Bishop – traveled to Cuba and lobbied its government for help. Maurice Bishop travelled to Dominica, along with Cuba’s economic minister Hector Rodriguez Llompart, for emergency assistance talks with OJ Seraphine and the interim government. Cuba offered a 500 bed hospital and 100 scholarships which the US pressured Dominica not to accept; instead only 11 scholarships and $100,000 was accepted from Cuba. However, Cuban president Fidel Castro persuaded the Non-Aligned Movement nations, meeting in Havana in September of that year, to render assistance to Dominica. From his appeal, $13,000,000 USD was raised to include $1,000,000 from Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, $10,000 from Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and $1,000,000 from Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. The hurricane assistance was to trickle into the island over the years and includes the Venezuelan funded Simon Bolivar Housing Scheme at Stock Farm.

In the July 20, 1980 election the DFP emerged the victor. It was the first time that a helicopter and a Goodyear blimp were used in a Dominican
election. The blimp (emblazoned with the words: VOTE DEM LAB) was owned by OJ Seraphine’s Democratic Labour Party and was towed by a
trawler leased to the PIC by Guyana’s Forbes Burnham. OJ Seraphine also moved from one pre-election rally to another aboard the Dem Lab leased helicopter. Afraid of further revolutions, such as had occurred in Grenada and Nicaragua in 1979, Bob Woodward – the reporter who broke the Watergate Scandal – reported that the CIA gave $100,000 to the DFP, along with other material support. OJ Seraphine’s Dem Lab hastily distributed plastic cowboy hats and relief supplies such as galvanize to shore up its support, but it was to no avail. The DFP responded with a huge motorcade which roved the island called “The Freedom Train.” In a marked indicator of the role of Cold War politics of the time, the conservative DFP partisans wore t-shirts with the slogan: No Russia! No Cuba! No Labour! The DLM tried to rouse the population with well scripted and educational talks, to include land reform, the development of light industry, equal rights for women and Caribs support for African liberation, and good relations with Cuba and the Non-Aligned Movement. Its campaign was, however, poorly funded and not well organized. Further the population, heavily Christian, was told that if the DLM won it would close churches and distribute the land
and possessions of its opponents to the poor and lazy.

The DLM was painted as a communistic menace to be feared. Overall, the Dominican populace was tired of instability and the DFP seemed to offer security under the leadership of a solid establishment lawyer, Mary Eugenia Charles. The DLM led by Dr. Bill “Para” Riviere, hitherto untested, made a good showing with about 12 % of the vote. Even then, the DFP eked out only 51% of the vote. The remaining votes were split between Dominica Democratic Labour Party of interim Prime Minister OJ Serpahine and the Dominica Labour Party of a still defiant Patrick John. That defiance would soon show its face in more deadly and menacing ways.

The sign at the DLP headquarters in Roseau states that it is the party of “National Independence & Progress.” However, it must be clearly noted
that the DLP did not lose power in 1980 because it had ushered in independence, progress or social justice. It was where it deviated from its
core values of independence, progress and social justice that it opened the way for the DFP. While the DFP always had a solid core of partisans in the Roseau area, it had been unable to expand beyond its urban upper class roots for a long time – until the DLP leadership strayed from its philosophical moorings. It must be considered that Dominica boasts a vibrant civic activism that spans almost 200 years; with a press often critical of government misdeeds. Thus, it is clear that there is exists a national consensus which demands that any government which seek to rule our land do so in accord with the principles of competence and integrity. That integrity driven pace was set by early leaders such as Loblack, Allfrey and LeBlanc. When it was lost, the party fell from grace………………to be continued.