Fresh off a flight from Canada in 1994, Burns Bonadie went to a rally hosted the NDP in Chato and said, “The only profession in the world where you start at the top is grave digger”. He was throwing words for “people like Ralph … Gonsalves”.
“Opposition unity cannot be based on opportunism; it cannot be based on different philosophies”. That’s a direct quote from a story carried in The Vincentian in June 1984. It was reporting on an interview with James Mitchell, conducted by Mike Findlay on SVG TV.
Leading up the 1984 elections, opposition unity was a hot topic.
Barbados-based CANA News reported in September of 1982 that UPM leader, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, had resigned as leader of the party. While party secretary Renwick Rose confirmed the news, he declined to give reasons at that time.
Then in December of that same year, Barbados Advocate News reported on how Gonsalves had made a “virtual about turn”. Quoting from the story: “Gonsalves quit radical left wing United People’s Movement (UPM) he helped found in 1979, and which he led until his resignation earlier this year, after disagreement with the executive over the future course of the party”.
“He was joined by another former UPM member, Caspar London, in forming the Movement for National Unity (MNU) which he said is dedicated to unifying opposition to the Labour Government of Prime Minister Milton Cato.”
“Gonsalves split with the UPM over ideology surprised even the most experienced observer of Vincentian politics…”
This same piece expressed how surprised persons were at the new Gonsalves, whom it claimed was “virtually expelled from Barbados for having been regarded as the eastern Caribbean most exponent of Marxism-Leninism and scientific socialism”.
Now, in 1982, having split with the UPM, the same person was saying that having such a socialist view was a bad decision and that such a party would be isolated from “the mass of the working people”. He appeared to have come to the realisation that such a party would never form government in St. Vincent.
He is quoted as saying: “A certain collective madness seems to have possessed the comrades”. This is after he couldn’t get his UPM colleagues to change course.
You see, Gonsalves as leader of the UPM, was already courting opposition alliance, but Mitchell was adamant and quoted as emphatically stating “I am not joining any communists”. The story goes on to say “… he and Gonsalves began a series of private contacts which actually culminated in an agreement at least in principle on the need for unifying opposition forces against the government”.
This writer, however, is of the view that since Gonsalves couldn’t get his UPM colleagues to change course, the alternative was to leave and form the MNU, to further entice an alliance with Mitchell to bring down Cato.
Quoting from the Advocate further: “Vincentian political observers felt the two men developed a strong personal friendship and considerable mutual admiration, to the extent that last August, Mitchell invited Gonsalves to address a special convention of his NDP.”
Some political pundits have socialised the thought that Mitchell was threatened by his own members; that they would walk if he ever followed through with this idea of having Gonsalves as a speaker. Perhaps they recognised what they thought was “snake oil” and raised objections to the idea. In fact, some are of the opinion today that this is part of the reason for what appears to be a vendetta against former members of the NDP. We know the story of Marcus DeFreitas and recently we heard about Allan Cruickshank’s pension.
Gonsalves led UPM into the 1979 election with its leftist ideology. After its defeat, “the principal lesson he seemed to have learnt was that the UPM could not by itself, take power in St. Vincent”. Failure to convince his colleagues in UPM that changing their “communist” gaze was the only way to the political throne in SVG, pushed him to break off to form what was reported to be the 8th political party in the country — MNU, “geared towards uniting local opposition forces”, as reported by CANA News in November 1982, in a piece entitled “New party formed, seeks united Opposition”.
This same piece by CANA stated: “Dr. Gonsalves, who describes himself as a scientific socialist, said he left the UPM because it had decided to follow a path of Marxism-Leninism”. However, UPM’s new leader, Oscar Allen, is reported to have said in the same piece that everyone who joined UPM knew exactly what the policies were from the beginning.
It made sense to target the NDP for unity. It had its strong Grenadines base. Mitchell was also Premier between 1972 and 1974, and he was also a minister from 1967. It makes sense that if there’s any alliance, he and the NDP would be at the centre of it. Though Mitchell’s NDP eventually brought down Cato in 1984, the thought then was that the opposition was too divided to get the job done.
Again, this writer is of the opinion that this is the grave digging that Burns was describing, and perhaps Mitchell almost fell for it. If it is true that members of the NDP at the time adverted an MNU/NDP union, maybe they did so at the expense of their livelihood.
By Observer
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Interesting piece