The long-awaited report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has not provided any new and startling information about the tragic events of October 1983 in which the island attracted international headlines with the killing of a Prime Minister and a U.S-led military intervention on a very small Caribbean island.

It is rather unfortunate that the major players in the October tragedy, now languishing at the Richmond Hill prison, did not participate in the process and help bring final closure to that very dark chapter in Grenadian history.

The exercise could go down as another waste of tax-payers money at a time when the country's finances are not that healthy and deteriorating. The most vexing question is not what brought about the tragic events within the then ruling New Jewel Movement (NJM) but what became of the bodies of those persons who were slaughtered on October 19, 1983, as well as those Grenadians who were killed in the U.S intervention.

GRENADA TODAY continues to hold the Bernard Coard Gang of prisoners on "The Hill" responsible for the bodies of late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, his executed Cabinet Colleagues and other associates like Evelyn "Brat" Bullen and Keith Hayling and Company.

The Coardites have not really apologised to the people of this country for this barbaric acts that was so foreign to the Spice Isle in those dark days. This paper has said several times in the past that Bishop was no saint and was just as guilty as Coard and Company for some of the atrocities that took place in Grenada in the name of defending the Grenada Revolution against counter-revolutionaries.

However, persons who have read a lot about the October 1983 events whether from the account of former Governor-General Sir Paul Scoon or former island scholar, Maurice Patterson can be left in no doubt about the deceptive nature of the lot.

It is clear that the leaders of the so-called Grenada 17 were engaged in mammagism when they met with Sir Paul to discuss the burial of Bishop and his fallen comrades.

As leader of the newly formed Revolutionary Military Council (RMC), the imprisoned General Hudson Austin and his colleague Major Leon "Bogo" Cornwall must have known that the bodies were already taken out to Camp Calivigny and destroyed.

The question still remains: Who gave the orders? Surely, an officer of the rank of Callistus "Iman Abdullah" Bernard cannot take on his own to try and burn the bodies to a stage where they cannot be recognised. And from the account of late Agriculture Minister, George Louison he and slain Foreign Minister Unison Whiteman were engaged in several negotiations with Bernard Coard to free Bishop from house arrest at Mt. Wheldale.

Coard has never publicly denied this at all. How come he wants us to believe after 23 years that he is such an innocent man and wants to only take "moral responsibility" and not "criminal responsibility" for the heinous killings?

One of the issues that continue to bother us at GRENADA TODAY is the silence on the part of both Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell and current Governor-General, Sir Daniel Williams on the status of Coard's wife, Phyllis who has seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth.

Phyllis, like her husband was convicted in a court of law for Bishop's murder and sentenced to hang and then given a reduced sentence to life imprisonment for the rest of her natural life by the Sir Nicholas Brathwaite government. She was allowed to leave the country for reasons best known to Sir Daniel and Dr. Mitchell to seek medical treatment abroad for cancer of the colon for a certain specified time.

It is now more than four years since the departure of this female prisoner and not one word is coming from the relevant authorities in Grenada on the status of Phyllis Coard. If the government has "freed" the prisoner then the people have a right to know.

This newspaper is calling on the Mitchell administration to give an account to the people of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique on the Phyllis Coard matter. There is also very little in the report for which the Mitchell government might like to use as ammunition against the so-called RMC elements (Coardites) in the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The fact of the matter is that both sides of the political divide in Grenada have elements of the ill-fated 1979-83 Grenada Revolution on their side. And these ex-revolutionaries might have become versed in the acts of torture that were perpetrated against scores of Grenadians from their mentors and tutors in Cuba, the former Soviet Union and socialist bloc of States like East Germany and Hungary.

The position of this paper is that Coard and company have already been condemned to the dustbin of history regardless of the final outcome of their case whether at the Privy Council level.
Grenada has to move on with or without these people in our midst since there are far too many pressing issues which need to be addressed in the areas of education, health, the rebuilding of the agriculture sector, the deepening of tourism and addressing the massive national debt of $1.5 billion dollars and growing with almost each sitting of parliament.