TNAG-0926-FCO40-1144-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1980 — Page 68

J

CONFIDENTIAL

4.

Mr Ridley said that Mr Bishop seemed to believe that we were trying to isolate Grenada. This was not the case. We wanted to maintain links and to discuss our differences. Mr Augustine said that there were only a few points of disagreement between us. What did Mr Ridley see as the main problems? Mr Ridley said that one of our principal concerns was that there should be an early return to a democratic form of government. We were not critical of the PRG for having displaced Gairy but rather of their displacement of democracy. We accepted that democracy could take many forms and we would welcome the restoration of any so long as it was democratic. It was our policy to support democracies and to withdraw active support from non-democratic countries, not merely to make disapproving noises. Hence the downturn in UK aid for Grenada.

5. Mr Augustine replied that democracy was a word open to many interpretations. After all, Gairy had held elections but they were not truly democratic. During his own recent visit to Grenada he had been able to sit in on a meeting of one of the new parish councils, an interesting experiment in grass-roots democracy. The Government was also experimenting with community medical committees to run health and social centres. These were early days and it would take some time yet before the form of these and other institutions became clear. Mr Ridley said that the acid test was surely whether a government could be changed freely and fairly by democratic process. Could the PRG be validated by this criterion? Grass-roots democracy was fine but

was not quite the same thing.

6.

Mr Augustine asked if Mr Ridley considered Chile a democracy by these criteria in the light of Pinochet's recent plebiscite. Mr Ridley replied that of course he did not. We freely accepted that democratic systems could take many forms. But we did not hesitate to speak out in criticism of those governments which refused to put their policies from time to time to the test of a genuine popular vote. The conserva- tive government in Britian believed that what it was doing was right, but if at the end of 5 years, the people thought otherwise, they would be voted out of office.

7. Mr Augustine suspected that eventually the local councils of Grenada would become institutionalised and form the basis of a type of democracy which would give greater expression to the wishes and aspirations of the people. The system would give them the ability to change the government if they so required. Mr Ridley said that it would be useful if the PRG were to give some positive indication or undertaking that it intended to proceed along these lines. Grenada after all had a constitution embodied in a British Act of Parliament. Mr Augustine said that that Constitution had been suspended because it could not guarantee democratic rights. Gairy had done exactly what he wanted; therefore careful consideration was being given as to how the Constitution should be corrected. In addition, the PRG had been convinced in the early days of the Revolution that there was a strong external threat and their energies had therefore to be diverted to strengthening the defences of the State. They could now pursue the course which they really wanted. Mr Ridley again stressed that Grenada faced no external threat from any Caribbean state, the USA or United Kingdom. Furthermore Grenada must believe that there was no plan to isolate her. Our concern was that there should be a return to a form of democracy which gave the Grenadian people the right to decide their own future. We were also concerned about human rights. We understood that there were nearly 100 detainees,

Vinclud

CONFIDENTIAL