n546  0404  07 Nov 83
BC-GRENADA-11-07
     By Robert Healy
     (c) 1983 Boston Globe (Independent Press Service)
     ST. GEORGES, Grenada - A cabinet official in the government of
Grenada's slain prime minister, Maurice Bishop, told a fact-finding
delegation of U.S. congressmen Sunday that Bernard Coard, the deputy
prime minister, ordered Bishop's execution.
     It was the first confirmation by a top official in Bishop's
government that Coard was responsible for the assassination.
     Minister of Agriculture George Louison, who resigned and was jailed
when Bishop was put under house arrest Oct. 7, told the 14-member
congressional group that a white flare was fired to indicate the
execution had been carried out. Then, he said, Coard and his
associates on Grenada's 12-member military council gathered around a
table and began chanting:
    ''The central committee's order is given.
    ''The central committee's order is complied with.''
    Louison said Coard, who once lived in Boston and was educated at
Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., was in charge of the council
and ordered the execution. Louison said he received his information
from other members of the council.
    Coard and his wife, Phyllis, who is Jamaican and also lived in
Boston in the late 1960s, were transferred Sunday from the brig of
the aircraft carrier Saipan and handed over to Grenadian authorities.
Gen. Hudson Austin, who led the coup with Coard, also was handed over.
    The execution of Bishop, three cabinet members and two labor leaders
on Oct. 19, along with the killing of up to 200 civilians in the
streets of St. Georges, resulted in chaos and preceded the U.S.
invasion of the island on Oct. 25.
    The congressional delegation heard condemnations of the invasion
from Louison and Kenrick Radix, who served as attorney general and
was one of the founders of Bishop's leftist New Jewel Movement.
    Before the meeting with Radix and Louison Sunday afternoon, the
congressmen heard a stream of witnesses in private and public
sessions tell them the people of Grenada were behind the invasion, or
''relief mission,'' as they called it. The witnesses said American
forces should stay until security on the island can be guaranteed.
    Sunday morning, Beverley Steele, a resident tutor at the University
of the West Indies, told the congressmen there are ''people in direct
pay of the Soviet Union still here.''
    Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.) spoke of the conflict between
security and freedom of speech and was told by a Grenadian
businessman, Frederick Toppin, that the situation on the island did
not resemble the McCarthyism of the 1950s in the United States.
    ''You in the United States have not been ruled by Cuba and the
Soviet Union. It is important for us to root out these Cuban and
Soviet cells,'' he said.
    Some of the witnesses said they hoped the U.S. troops would stay for
at least a year; others suggested that Grenada might have a
relationship with the United States like that of Puerto Rico.
    Rep. Don Bonker (D-Wash.) told the audiences it would be a mistake
for them to think U.S. troops could stay beyond the 60-day limit of
the War Powers Act. The limit on troops in Grenada was approved by
both the Senate and the House. But other congressmen said some kind
of security would have to be available to the Grenadian people until
they are able to form a government.
    On fences around Grenada's cities Sunday, posters urged resisters
and members of Grenada's former army, the People's Revolutionary
Army, to turn themselves in to the Caribbean peace forces. ''You will
be treated fairly,'' the posters said.
    Other Grenadians told the congressmen that for the last four years
the economy had been built on aid from East bloc countries such as
Czechoslovakia, Cuba and the Soviet Union.
    They said the transition to the West will be difficult. They asked
in particular that the airport and its 10,000-foot runway, being
built with help from the Cubans, be finished. ''That airport is very
close to the hearts of every Grenadian,'' said Royston Hopkins, a
hotel operator on the island. ''We are now in your hands. If you
leave now, we go back to square one.''
    Hopkins said that before the invasion there were 10 Cuban doctors on
the island. They are now gone and 1,500 men who served in Grenada's
army are out of work, he said. In addition, he continued, a number of
Grenadian students are being trained in the Soviet Union and Cuba.
    Rep. Michael Barnes (D-Md.) said the United States ''should
definitely be out of here before the 60-day War Powers Act runs.''
    ''We should not accede to the pressure here,'' he said, adding that
the United Nations vote condemning the invasion made it clear that
the United States would be perceived as an occupying force if it
remained in Grenada for six months. ''We need to make sure that does
not happen,'' he said.
    Saturday night, after a day of meetings, Rep. Thomas Foley
(D-Wash.), head of the fact-finding delegation and House majority
whip, shied away from a commitment for a quick withdrawal. He said he
was ''less confident that we could have a satisfactory transfer of
authority in a matter of a few weeks.''
    ''Some sort of security presence is necessary,'' he said.
    The congressional delegation left Grenada Sunday night for meetings
with leaders of eastern Caribbean states in Barbados Monday.
    END
    
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