Andrew Sage

The New Jewel Movement wasn't responsible for the bombings, but you can imagine people were probably saying when they were at the parlor, by the grocery, you know, out by the bar, down the street, they're saying, you know, at least they didn't have any bombings under Gary.

You know, at least they didn't have these car ambushes under Gary.

Gary wasn't nice, but we didn't have terrorist attacks.

And the sort of transparency and engagement people were accustomed to was starting to evaporate.

The New Jewel movement was starting to be seen by some as a secret society.

And if your society is already small, right, just about 100,000 people.

Having a secret society within that small society where everybody knows everybody.

That's not good.

Especially when the revolution is so new, so nascent.

You need people's trust.

And especially as well, because people were not ideologically for Marxism-Leninism.

Most of them, that is.

They weren't ideologically for Marxism-Leninism.

They weren't ideologically neutral movement advocates.

They just wanted Eric Gehry out, and they wanted improvements to their living conditions.

They didn't have a particular political ideology they were committed to.

And in this time, you know, the Caribbean is part of the rest of the world.

The Caribbean is paying attention, has to pay attention to what's happening in the rest of the world.

And especially with the northern neighbor, the United States of America, and it's very infamous at that point in time, we're talking late 70s, early 80s.

Cold War rhetoric that people are getting in the media.