Andrew Sage

And there were still prejudices against religious groups and movements like the Rastafarians that had yet to be addressed.

You know, these things aren't dealt with overnight, but I think when all you have is a hammer, everything can sort of look like a nail.

They didn't do anything too drastic in the economic sphere.

For the most part, they left people's private businesses alone.

They implemented some state enterprises and they implemented some cooperative enterprises.

So a fairly standard mixed economy, a mixed economy that can to varying extents be found throughout the Caribbean, whether they had a revolution or not.

But they did establish cooperative and friendly relations with Cuba, which was a real thorn on the side of the United States.

yeah he didn't like them and now this is i would say from 1979 to 1980 so their first two years in power people were nervous sighted you know they were hopeful of the genuine decolonization and positive change taking place but the excitement part of the new excitement

started to die down by 1981.

The People's Revolutionary Government, PRG, became increasingly militaristic as time went on.

They organized militias and armed people.

They were essentially preparing for a Gary counter-coup, but also potential CIA involvement.

The police were replaced with military personnel.

And I think this is the trap that a lot of these projects end up falling into.

This concern about the enemy within and the enemy without leads these revolutionaries to cannibalize themselves.

The revolutionary potential and excitement gets curtailed because there's so much fear dominating that

some enemy is going to attack uh some violence is going to take place that they need to prepare for and so you over you militarize you militarize and you stare the course of the project away from its original intentions to a point where it's not even recognizable to the people who initiated it yeah you know i'm not saying that they weren't right to be wary of u.s intervention

History has demonstrated as much, but it was something that the people of the country were becoming increasingly concerned about because it's a small country and it's uncommon.

You know, it's strange.

It's unusual.