|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Reading Time 1 mins
The Government of Grenada has recently announced plans for a major upgrade of the Maurice Bishop International Airport. These plans include the construction of a new runway alongside the original runway that was the source of controversy engineered by the US State Department under President Ronald Reagan.
As a recognition of the historical value of the airport to the Grenadian people and the sacrifices that made it possible, Big Drum Nation is proud to republish a small but hugely important publication put out by the Grenada Forum in January of 1998. Introduced by Nadia Bishop and authored by Martin P. Felix, the booklet “Maurice Bishop International Airport” was the centerpiece of a campaign to gather signatures to be submitted to the then Grenada government.
It is important to recall that the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement undertook the first organized campaign towards this end in 1985. However, the earliest of these mass efforts can be gleaned from a New York Times report in October 1984 pointing out that a group of “women in their early 20’s quietly held hand-lettered posters indicating they thought the airport should have been named ”Maurice Bishop International Airport,” in memory of the late Prime Minister who was killed on Oct. 19, 1983. According to this article, commemorating the first anniversary of the invasion of Grenada, the women also displayed thanks to the Cubans for their immense contribution in constructing the airport.
The airport was renamed The Maurice Bishop International Airport on May 29, 2009, on what would have been Maurice Bishop’s 65 birthday. The renaming resulted from a combination of efforts and campaigns of which the following Grenada Forum publication became a major impetus.
-Martin P. Felix
[Big Drum Nation editors]