Maurice Bishop

Maurice Bishop distinctive features:

It was in 1983, where disputes at the top level of the party leadership occurred. A group from within the party attempted to get Bishop to either step down or agree to share power with the Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. Bishop rejected these proposals and was eventually desposed and placed under house arrest in the first week of October 1983. There were large public demonstrations demanding that Bishop be restored. Bishop was eventually freed from his house by a crowd and he made his way to Fort Rupert at the time (today known as Fort George). With his arrival, a military force was dispatched from another location in the said fort and chaos broke out. Many civilians were killed and Bishop himself and seven others including cabinet ministers were captured. Later on, they were executed by an army firing squad., In 1979, Maurice Bishop staged a revolution and deposed Gairy who was out of the country at the time. He suspended the constitution and declared himself Prime Minister of Grenada. After he took power, Bishop built a close relationship with Cuba and initiated a number of projects, most significantly, the building of a new international airport on the island`s southern tip. Bishop did not live to see the completion of this airport and it was named Pt. Salines International Airport. It was in May of 2009, where the airport was renamed in his honour as "Maurice Bishop International Airport.", Maurice Bishop was educated in London school of Economics and thus he had an extensive background pertaining to black power movement. On return to Grenada, he became active in politics. It was in 1973 that he became head of the Marxist New Jewel Movement (NJM) political party. He was then elected to parliament and held the position of leader of oppositionin the Grenadian House of Representatives for a number of years. As the leader of opposition, he opposed the then ruling political party "Grenada United Labour Party" (GULP) under the Prime Minister Eric Gairy