Article from the New York Times in 2006.



The jetty that _link_s this isolated Caribbean island to the outside
world is a simple wooden structure in obvious need of repair.
So
when the United States offered to send a detachment of marines here
to build a _base_ for the Grenada Coast Guard and to repair the local
school and clinic, residents might have been expected to welcome the
proposal.

Instead, the dockside site chosen for the project, which is
intended to strengthen drug interdiction efforts in the Caribbean,
is now festooned with graffiti demanding No _base_.
And when Prime
Minister Keith Mitchell traveled here recently in an attempt to
convince this islands 800 residents that the _base_, whose
construction costs would be entirely covered by the United States,
would enhance Grenadas national security and spur economic growth,
he was greeted with boos, placards and children chanting anti-_base_
slogans.

One hundred foreign soldiers here for even a short time would
completely change our life _style_, said Michael Caesar, Grenadas
former delegate to the United Nations and a native of this island,
as he stood at the jetty watching the twice-weekly mail boat take on
cargo.
Our little island is less than three square miles, so a
facility like this can only be detrimental to the entire island
community.
Accustomed as they are to going it alone, many here also seem
convinced that the proposed _base_ is part of an American effort to
gain a permanent foothold in a place where even the authority of
Grenadas central Government has always been minimal.

Its a Trojan horse, and we dont want it here, said Martin
Clement, who makes his living selling ice and gasoline to local
fishermen and visiting yachtsmen.
Although the monetary value of the project is small, about
$250,000, in strategic terms, something much larger is at stake.
American officials describe the satellite _base_ here, still
scheduled to be built next spring despite the local protests, as the
first of a series throughout the Caribbean, with similar
American-built installations contemplated for local coast guard
operations in Barbuda, Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Tobago by
the end of the century.

This caught all of us off guard, one American official
conceded. Everyone viewed this as a positive development, as a
gift. And no one realized there would be any opposition.
But as people here are quick to point out, any mention of an
American military presence in the nation of Grenada, an island group
with 120,000 people, involves sensibilities found nowhere else in
the English-speaking Caribbean.
In October 1983, the United States,
alarmed at signs of Cuban influence, invaded this former British
colony after a power struggle between two left-wing factions led to
the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.
Certain things trigger memories, and talking about Americans
and a military _base_ has reopened those memories, said Ivelaw
Griffith, an expert on Caribbean security issues who teaches at
Florida International University in Miami.
That is why the
Grenadian Government should have paved the way with communication
and seen as its special mission to tell the people what this is all
about and allay their fears.
In reality, however, people here grumble that they were not
consulted about the location of the _base_, which as currently planned
would take away their only cricket ground and childrens playground
and would abut their only school.
They would much prefer, they say,
to see the _base_ moved to the nearby island of Carriacou, which is
much larger and has idle land owned by the Government, or to any of
several uninhabited islets in the area.
The first we ever knew about this was when some American
soldiers showed up and started measuring the wharf and playing field
and planting stakes, complained Matthew Blair, owner of a grocery
store that fronts on the site chosen for the _base_. We had no idea
what was going on until we went up and asked them.

In an interview in the capital, St. Georges, Prime Minister
Mitchell said that _object_ions to an infringement of national
sovereignty are being used as a smokescreen by what he described
as elements profiting from illegality and drug activities.
This
island, he suggested, is a hotbed of smugglers who see the _base_ as a
threat to their livelihood.












If you benefit from wrongdoing, you dont want to see legal
institutions established, Mr. Mitchell said.
You will use all
sorts of innuendo and catchy phrases to get people on your side so
that you can continue to do what you have been doing all along.

Local people acknowledge that many here are engaged in what they
delicately call barter trade, sailing up to the French territory
of Martinique to swap fish for beer, wine and cognac, which they
then sell to passing yachtsmen and to the American residents of
condominiums in nearby St. Vincent.
But they deny any involvement in
drug trafficking and say that any other business dealings they might
undertake are simply none of Washingtons concern.
If the Americans are coming in for a domestic problem, as
opposed to an international matter like drug trafficking, then we
have even more right to oppose this _base_, argued Mr. Caesar, the
former United Nations delegate.
For the U.S. to interfere in the
internal affairs of Grenada and Grenadas domestic problems is
wrong.
But Prime Minister Mitchell said that the American offer to build
the _base_ is not only welcome, but is also essential, and that he
would be derelict in his duty if he did not accept it.
With only two
vessels, fewer than 40 men and a tiny budget, he said, Grenadas
Coast Guard cannot by itself protect the countrys coastline from
the encroachments of drug traffickers.
Since we dont have the resources to build the facility
ourselves, I will take help from any and all of our friends, he
said. In fact, I only wish we could have gotten other _base_s built,
so that we can protect the people as a whole and the integrity of
our country.

Below a picture of the petit Martinique Jetty