Grenada After "Intervention"

Prime Minister Herbert Blaize, 70, interviewed at his office, puts the best face on the situation. "From 1979 [when Bishop's New Jewel Movement seized power in a nearly bloodless coup], everything went upside down. We--the New National Party--were elected [in December 1984] to reconstruct, to try to put the country back on its democratic feet. We have provided an atmosphere of stability and growth. Most important, self- confidence has returned to the people. "We're a small country, everybody knows everyone else. Our resources are limited. Looking back from where we're at I can say, without prejudice, that we're moving ever upward."

George T. Brizan, 45, one of the Grenada Parliament's 15 members, disagrees. Brizan, an educator who was a Blaize cabinet member until splitting away to form the National Democratic Congress party last year, spoke in his "constituency office" at Snug Corner Junction. "Our economy is managed on an ad hoc basis. There's a good deal of migration to Canada and the U.S.-- we're losing our brightest people. Unemployment is anywhere between 30 and 33 percent of the workforce.... In Bishop's time it was slightly lower, about 25 percent, because a lot of people were in the army. "Our number one problem is that the cost of living is extremely high for incomes that are relatively low. Our average wage is about $185 in U.S. dollars monthly."

An American professor, who requested anonymity, adds: "Grenada is a microcosm of the hemisphere, but here the terms are starker, more clear-cut. We have to demonstrate that democratic governments are relevant and seen to be relevant to the population. The intervention was the easy part. Now, we have to work together to meet the needs of the people. We have to help provide a context so democracy has a chance of working. "Things are improved," he emphasizes. "There's dramatic improvement in roads, phones, electricity, water supply, sewage, all basic stuff. There's much domestic economic activity. The streets are hustling and bustling, construction is booming and Grenadians abroad are sending remittances home, lots of money."

Peter Orr, who directs the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) program here, says the United States has sunk about $120 million into Grenada since the intervention. Of that, some $26 million has gone directly to Grenadian budgetary support. At the same time, Orr notes, the U.S. budget crunch is cutting help here and throughout the Eastern Caribbean. In fiscal year 1988, ending September 30, new U.S. AID funds amounted to only $7 million, of which $3.8 million went to help the deficit- ridden Grenadian budget.

No one really knows what Grenada's jobless rate is. Indeed, the International Labor Organization is just starting to survey the size of the workforce and unemployment. But Blaize and his government economists say joblessness ranged between 18 and 22 percent this year in a labor force of about 32,800.

The gross national product (GNP), the sum of the value of all goods and services produced, was estimated at $129.7 million for 1988 against $82.7 million in 1984. Per capita income for 1988 was put at $1,378, up $108 from 1987 and far above 1984's $907. Consumer prices have been rising at an annual rate of one to four percent since the intervention. "There's been no big boom," says Franklin St. Paul, who owns a grocery store on the edge of this capital's Market Square, a shoe shop and a small hotel. "Expectations were too great," he adds. Those dashed expectations have created a slight anti-American undercurrent in parts of the island.

In downtown St. George's, graffiti on walls demand "Yankees go home," and "Yankees out." Another large wall scrawl says "African struggle is our struggle," while another refers to "Bro. Bishop." On the streets of the northerly towns of Gouyave and Victoria, teenagers hiss "CIA" at a Peace Corps volunteer. Bishop was particularly popular in that agricultural region and remains revered island-wide. Though the "Yankees" have been the biggest single providers of aid, Canada, the European Economic Community (EEC), Venezuela, the United Kingdom, France and South Korea have provided substantial aid, probably equal to the U.S. amount. Thus, nearly a quarter-billion dollars has flowed into this tiny island in five years. And it is still coming, as the new Venezuelan taxi vans, new South Korean ambulances and the newly-paved roads to the north--funded by Canada and the EEC--prove.

But Grenada is still very dependent on agriculture. Nutmeg and mace (the outer covering of nutmeg) comprise two-thirds of the nation's export crops, and Grenada has profited from a cartel arrangement established two years ago with the world's only other major nutmeg producer, Indonesia. Most of the rest of the crop exports consist of cocoa and bananas. Cocoa output plunged to 3.8 million pounds last year in a weak market. The lowered output (from a peak of six million pounds in 1969) is attributed to aging of trees. AID and Canada are rushing in new plants. Bananas lose their trade preference in the British market in 1992.

But the biggest agricultural problem is a labor shortage. The young men on the streets of this city, without jobs, do not want low-paying agricultural work. Manufacturing, which was supposed to be the solution to Grenada's problems in the heady days soon after the intervention, has finally taken root, but on a very small scale. Smith-Kline Beckman manufactures cases for contact lens cleaning kits here; Abbott Labs makes units for internal feeding of hospital patients; Johnson & Johnson makes surgical caps; Schering Plough is about to open a plant to make Maybelline lipcare and Dr. Schoal's footcare products. Together, these plants employ just over 200 workers.

Tourism has not boomed to the extent expected after the visit of President Reagan on February 20, 1986. In the 1970s, tourism did well here, peaking in 1978 at 148,667 visitors, with more than 116,000 of those on cruise ships, the rest "stayovers." In the Bishop years, these numbers fell dramatically and since 1983 tourism has risen, reaching a new high of 184,620 visitors in 1987, including 57,406 stayovers. But tourism cannot do much better because Grenada, despite its long, Cuban-built airfield and huge, under-used air terminal built by the United States, has only 700 hotel rooms. Blaize says he is now negotiating on two fronts to increase tourism. Talks are underway with investors interested in building a 140-room hotel (the largest built since 1983 is 30 rooms), and several airlines, including American Airlines, are "exploring" the possibility of extending service to the island.

But Blaize conceded that tourism, which would bring U.S. dollars and other hard currencies to stanch the outflow of his deficit- ridden budget, is a chicken and egg problem: which comes first, more hotel rooms or more flights? Keith Mitchell, who holds seven ministerial portfolios in the cabinet and is Blaize's heir-apparent, summed up the feeling here: "We've achieved reasonable success. Incomes are on the rise, people are much more comfortable in their life styles and there's a growing entrepreneurial spirit. Our people have confidence in the future. Grenadians felt humiliated by the trauma of 1983. Now, there's genuine freedom, an atmosphere of relaxation. That's our biggest area of success--you can see it when you look at people's faces."
-William Steif

Mexico at the Polls

When Mexico's current president, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, selected Salinas, his former student and Minister of Planning and Budget, to succeed him, Salinas' future seemed assured. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had not lost a senatorial, gubernatorial or presidential election since its inception in 1929 and no serious opposition was on the horizon.

But the party did not count on the strength or popularity of a few disaffected members within its own ranks. A group called the Democratic Current was calling for a U.S.-style primary to choose a presidential candidate. When de la Madrid followed tradition and named Salinas as his successor, the group broke off to form a rival party, the National Democratic Front (FDN). The FDN chose Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the former governor of Michoacan and son of a revolutionary hero and legendary president to run for president. Cardenas' nationalist and populist message attracted a strong following among small farmers, many of whom had been deeded land by Cardenas' father, and students and intellectuals tired of the bureaucracy, corruption and hegemony the PRI had come to represent. Labor, squeezed by a recessionary austerity plan designed by Salinas which forced per capita income down 50 percent in six years, also joined the Cardenas camp.

On the evening of the vote, the government's computers crashed-- at about the time when the first figures should have been announced--and when the results came in, Salinas was declared the winner. Government figures gave Salinas 50 percent of the popular vote and Cardenas 31 percent. Opposition results gave Cardenas 54 percent and Salinas 24 percent. Opposition groups on the left and right charged widespread vote fraud. El Porvenir and El Norte, daily newspapers published in the north of Mexico, reported that local unions organized workers to support the ruling party with "tacos"--ballots folded in half and stuffed with up to 50 other ballots for the PRI.

There were also reports that thousands of conservative National Action Party (PAN) supporters may have been struck from registration rolls, that opposition representatives were prevented from observing either voting or the vote count and that some boxes arrived at the polling places already full. In the state of Guerrero, opposition groups found bags of ballots marked for the FDN thrown in a river, according to news reports. The figure which raised the greatest suspicion was the 50 percent abstention rate. The July 14, 1988, edition of El Dia carried a column by Raul Moreno Wonchee, in which he noted that the "total number of votes barely reached the number of votes that Miguel de la Madrid obtained six years before.

What happened? ... Was it that in reality [this was] the most rejected election in history? Or--as many claim--were an enormous number of ballots misplaced?" The FDN, faced with a choice between fighting within the system to have the election results overturned or trying to incite massive popular protest, chose the system. Cardenas filed formal charges against Interior Minister Manuel Bartlett Diaz, accusing him of abuse of authority and conspiracy to defraud the Mexican people. The party demanded to see the results from 24,642 ballot boxes, some 46 percent of the total, contending that the results from those boxes had not been accurately represented in the nationwide polls. "The hiding [of the results] over such a long period indicates a fraud has been fabricated," the statement said. The PRI National Executive Council issued a statement rejecting the charges, labelling them "irresponsible" and "lies."

Meanwhile, the presidential vote had ignited one of the stormiest congressional sessions in the history of Mexico. The newly-elected Chamber of Deputies was required to ratify the elections of its members and the president. The only opposition tool was the quorum. Discipline within the PRI, which held a two-seat majority, never wavered, leaving the FDN and other opposition groups no room to maneuver as they would lose any vote. An opposition walk-out led to speculation of an impending constitutional crisis, but the ruling party was able to force through votes and Salinas' victory was ratified.

Salinas' presidency, however, will not be an easy one. He has made overtures to disaffected groups, calling his victory "a clear mandate for change," and has promised political reforms such as strengthening the legislature and decentralizing decision-making. It is unclear whether these actions will enable Salinas to regain legitimacy. Another problem for Mexico's president-elect is the deepening recession. Salinas, who served as de la Madrid's planning and budget minister, is well-known in international financial circles. Bankers and other observers expect that he will maintain payments on Mexico's $105 billion debt. Cardenas, on the other hand, has repeatedly called for a moratorium on debt servicing. Salinas, a 40-year old Harvard-trained economist, designed the Economic Solidarity Pact, a thinly-disguised wage and price freeze implemented in December 1987. As a result, he will rule a population hit by a 50 percent decline in per capita income over the past six years. This decline, diminished oil revenues and Salinas' damaged credibility present Mexico's new president with many challenges.
-Diane K. Bartz