| I had just made the keynote address at a conference on Peace in the
Caribbean at Howard University. As I left, about six men suddenly approached me. They
indicated I was under arrest and that I should get into the car. I had already been pushed
against the open door. I was standing there, baffled: "Why have I been arrested and
what is this all about?" The men--they were armed-- tried to keep people away from
me. Then one fellow grabbed me by the neck from behind and the other one pushed his hand
in my pelvic area and the other hand on my head, and they crumpled me into the car. All I
knew was that there were these aggressive, hostile white males speeding off with me in a
civilian car. We eventually arrived at a jail, and a woman matron began to search me. She
found some little buttons that said, "Maurice Bishop's Spirit Lives." She said,
"They're weapons. They have sharp points." I had a lot of foreign currency from
years of travelling. "These are very important documents." I was put in a tiny
cell and released on bail in the morning. The charge was that I was living here illegally.
In fact, I'd been going back and forth from Grenada for eleven or twelve years. |
