A stubborn fighter for workers' rights
Interview with Jim Wardally
Question. You had a lot of contact with Chester Humphrey over the years. You worked together politically before the revolution. And during the revolutionary period, you were the chair of your union and he was the vice chair. Can you tell us a bit about Chester's background and how he became involved in politics.
Answer. I have known Chester since we were small boys. He comes from a working-class family. His mother died when he was only a few years old. He was brought up by his grandmother and got an ordinary education at the Grenada Boys Secondary School. In 1977, he emigrated to the US to study marine biology at St Mary's University.
Politically, Chester came out of the Black power movement that swept the Caribbean at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. This was a movement that aimed originally at rediscovering and reinforeing the African culture. But it later broadened its perspectives to embrace general political struggle.
On Grenada, this movement developed into the most dynamic political party in the country, the New Jewel Movement. It became concentrated around the struggle against Gairy, under the leadership of Maurice Bishop, Unison Whiteman, and Kendrick Radix.
It was Maurice Bishop himself who recruited Chester Humphrey to the New Jewel Movement. He was seen as a gifted young man with many talents. He studied everything -history, sociology, literature, natural science as rapidly as he could get the books.
Above all, he was seen as a promising radical political activist with a determination to work among the people.
On Grenada, he was a dock worker from 1972 to 1975, and his political ability brought him into the NJM's Political Bureau in the mid-1970s. He was, of course, obliged to withdraw from that body when he left Grenada in 1977.
Q. Can you tell us anything about his character? What kind of a person is he exactly?
A. Chester is probably the stubbornest man I have ever met. Stubborn above all else, but with a feel for
International Viewpoint 28 October 1985 what is important and what is not. When he took on a task or decided to do something that he thought had to be done, he attacked the problem with a great earnestness and forthrightness, and he never gave up.
At regular intervals, you could be drawn into sharp disputes with him around various questions. If you managed to win a round, he waited eagerly for a return match. My experience of Chester is that if you disagreed with him, it never became a personal conflict.
Another typical "Chesterian" feature was his ability to sacrifice his free time and his nights to political work. It happened more than once that he turned up and knocked on my window at 5.00 in the morning to discuss one or another political problem that required a speedy resolution. He never took any great notice of the profanity he provoked on such occasions.
I remember once when Maurice visited us in New York, and we had a debate over my kitchen table. The discussion dragged on for hours. Finally, Maurice managed to draw me aside and whisper a few words in my ear. "Listen, Jim, I think it's high time you found an excuse for ending this discussion. I have a feeling that Chester is just warming up, and I can't hold out for ten hours without sleeping an hour before."
Chester is a type who won't accept a quick decision but wants to discuss the whole thing through from every standpoint. But he is stubborn, untiring, and fearless in carrying out decisions.
Q. He left the Political Bureau of the NJM when he went to New York, but he did not abandon political work, did he?
A. By no means. We met again for the first time in many years when he came to the US, and we worked together on a series of projects. We were both active in the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. I worked for the International Bureau whose task was to work out a coordinated program for the Caribbean, and Chester was soon drawn into this work.
In 1977, I was one of the initiators of the Grenada Nationals Association, who coordinated the struggle against Gairy among. Grenadans in the US. Chester was a leading activist in the GNA and in fact one of the most important, if not the most important, contributors to the organization.
Q. Early in 1979, when the revolution in Grenada was reaching the decisive point, you and Chester were arrested by the FBI. What happened?
A. What happened in the Spring of 1979 is intimately linked with Chester's being interned today in Grenada. If I were in Grenada I would be sharing a cell with him myself. That is why I am in exile.
At the time the revolution on Grenada was reaching a critical phase. The Gairy dictatorship was crumbling at an accelerating rate, and it was no secret that he planned a military solution to his problem. In practice, this meant liquidating the NJM leadership. The party knew what was in the works, and it realized that an armed confrontation was unavoidable. The problem was that the party's sympathizers and the people in Grenada had no weapons, while Gairy had a lot stored away. The party decided to import weapons so that it would not be helpless when Gairy loosed his blood-hounds.
It is no secret that the party imported weapons. Gairy himself knew about what was going on and revealed the plans in the press. The very fact that he did that gave rise to strong reactions by people in the country. A long queue formed outside of the party headquarters of people demanding their guns. The truth was that the party did not have the capacity to arm even a small part of those who wanted weapons, but that did not reduce Gairy's panic any.
What happened was that Gairy screamed as loud as he could and pointed to the US as the source of the smuggled weapons. This aroused the State Department from its slumbers and the atlases were hauled out to find out where Grenada was. Then they set the FBI on me and Chester.
Our first reaction was to stay in the US and fight it in the courts. We thought that there was no way they could win the case. But then the situation changed, and we were obliged to flee the US after having been released on bail.
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Q. Why did you flee. What had workers and the government. changed? Later, he was transfered to the
A. Three things happened. The building department, where, roughly first was that the revolution broke speaking, his job was the same as out in Grenada six weeks after our before, that of trouble shooter. It was in that period that he became arrest, and we were well known to be supporters of it. The State more and more absorbed in direct Department in Washington could trade-union work, and was elected not do much about the fact that vice chair of the TAWU. the revolution had occurred (at least not then), but it had every possibility Q. Can you say something about for doing something to its supporters Chester's contributions as a union in the US. They needed scapegoats, leader? How did he operate and how and Chester and I were clipped and was he seen by the members that shorn. elected him?
Secondly, there was no doubt A. Chester belonged to a very unusual type of devoted political that the revolution would turn politics in the Caribbean to the left. That activist who was always ready to Jim Wardally (DR) was something that they would not fight to defend workers rights. As accept and were determined to counter at any cost. Almost immedi- such, he had an exceptional link with the union and the workers' capable of waging a struggle is ately, they launched a poisonous struggles. He won the workers' respect. into exile, or arrested. dangerous. They are harassed, forced campaign of propaganda, half truths, One of our union's most importand skillfully woven lies, which ant advances was the democratiza- Q. What was Chester's role during were directed against the revolu- tion process that took place within the October crisis? Does that have tion but in the first instance came it. We both worked to strengthen any connection with his arrest? down on me and Chester. The congress started discussing the working class, and Chester's the revolution for the benefit of be mixed up. Chester made a political A. The two questions should not Grenada and issued wild statements activities guaranteed that the workers mistake before October 19, but fingering me and Chester as agents of would have the decisive voice in regardless of what this mistake was, the DGI, the Cuban security service, decisions about their own future in there is no reason to accept the persein the US. The fact that none of us revolutionary Grenada. cution to which he is being subjected had ever visited Cuba or had any Chester was one of the leading today. contact with the Cubans was immater- lecturers in the workers education Everyone in Grenada today is well ial. I was supposed to have been program, and he showed himself to aware that Chester supported Coard in "handled" by Rizo, Cuba's ambas- be not merely an intellectual theore- the political debate that went on in sador to the UN, who was supposed tician but also a man with roots among the party before the coup, but they to be the chief of the DGI in the US. the workers and an insight into the have no difficulty whatsoever in
It was claimed that I got instruc- future course of the revolution. making the distinction between tions in secret meetings with Rizo, On the practical level, he proved people's positions on a given question which can be shown to be a bare- to be a tough negotiator with stubborn and their concrete actions. There is faced lie. I have never seen the fellow bosses who held their employees in no accusation that Chester was in in my life. contempt, and an excellent organizer any way involved in any action or
The third thing that happened - for conducting actions and winning any decision that led to the murder and that was what really set us moving demands. of Maurice Bishop. as fast as possible toward the nearest His fighting spirit was rewarded This is something that Grenada's border - was that the judge was with respect and trust among the workers have understood, and that is changed in the middle of the case. membership. For them, he was always also the reason that today they are The new judge was no less than Judge "Chess" a comrade they could rely giving full support to Chester, and Sirica. He is better known as "the on. oppose every attempt to get him hanging judge," and this nickname is extradited to the US. The fact is no joke. Q. Is that also the reason why that the demand for his immediate
In short, we saw quickly that we he is sitting in jail today? release is being raised not only by had no chance of getting a fair trial A. The occupation authorities members of the TAWU but in general in the US, and so we fled. have no doubt whatsoever about in the working class.
Chester's importance. They know that This demand is so deeply rooted
Q. What did Chester work at when he is not some "commonplace activ- today among so many groups in the you came back to Grenada? ist." And they know the prestige he society that even some members
A. We came home in October enjoys among the TAWU's members of the present puppet regime have 1979 and immediately became invol- is based not only on his political tie been obliged to express a cautious ved in political work. Chester became with Maurice Bishop's party - the disapproval of the treatment Chester what you might call a trouble shooter NJ before the October coup - has been subjected to. in the Ministry of Agriculture. His but above all on the day-to-day The fact is that he was arrested job was to coordinate various prog- concrete fight he was able to wage because he campaigned actively to rams among the agricultural workers for the members' rights. throw the Americans out of Grenada and to assure that the new rights and They know that if he were free, not over any involvement in the benefits that were included in the he would be in the forefront of murder of Bishop and the others. government's legislation really reached defending the rights and gains that "Inciting unrest" , they called it, into the countryside - to give one the working class achieved during when he was arrested in November example, to make sure that the the revolution. 1983 a month after the invasion and workers really took advantage of the That makes him a dangerous two or three weeks after the main new health program. Thus, he was person. Anyone who came out of the defendents in the murder and conspirsort of an intermediary between the October 19 affair unbesmirched and is acy case had been thrown in the clink. 10 International Viewpoint 28 October 1985
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