The following address was delivered by barrister-at-law,  Reynold C. Benjamin last Sunday on the occasion of the opening of headquarters office of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) at Gladstone Road, Grenville, St. Andrew:

Mr. President Wilfred Hayes, Members of the Executive, Honorary Executive member Mr. Herbert Preudhomme, GULP members and supporters, invited guests and friends of GULP.

You see, on the left side of our shirt, a newly designed star----the symbol of the Grenada United Labour Party for 56 years. You see, also, on the right side the wording---New Labour.

The redesigned star and the designation new tells us that we are historically the same Grenada United Labour Party but with a fresh mission, in a changed and changing environment. We remain the same Grenada United Labour Party because there is need for continuity with the philosophy of GULP.

We remain the same because it is not healthy to forge on in the politics of this nation without a profound understanding of the role of GULP in the political, economic, and social transformation of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, over the last 56 years. It is easy but unhealthy to confuse the role the Party has played, historically, with the personality of its founder and political leader Eric Matthew Gairy.

Eric Matthew Gairy's was a powerful, dominant and overwhelming personality and the calculatedly unfair assassination of his character by his political opponents has redounded harmfully on the Party and continues to obscure the great contributions that Sir Eric and this Party have made to the people of this dear little country.

So, in moving the Party forward, in a changed and changing environment, we must, forever, be conscious of the economic, social and political conditions and environment which gave birth to our Party.

We must, forever, keep in mind the battles which were fought by Eric Matthew Gairy and his youthful brigade of estate labourers - our grandfathers and grandmothers - for liberation from the plantation economy and the shackles of social and racial discrimination.

We must, forever, remind ourselves of the injustices of the political oppression and denials against which the founder of this great Party, arm in arm with our grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, fought so that we could begin to be a nation, in 1974.

The conditions which existed and the battles which were fought for the liberation of our forebears must be the central reference point on the political compass of our Party to ensure that our people are not returned to economic slavery, social discrimination and political marginalisation.

I say a reference point for, as you know, we cannot go forward by simply pointing to past achievements of GULP and calling the name Eric Matthew Gairy. But what were those conditions which gave birth to the Grenada United Labour Party? The economy was agricultural and centre on large estates. Each estate had its population of workers who in most cases lived on the estates. They were uneducated labourers, poorly paid, badly housed and clothed, working ungodly hours, were without health facilities and subject to diseases of all sorts.

Most people went barefooted. Most children helped their parents on the estates rather than went to school. They were our grandparents and parents. They had no social status or standing. There was no place on the social ladder for them. They were not in society. They were nobodies. They had no say in the politics.

Enter Comrades Eric Gairy and Gascoigne Blaize, in 1950/51 with the Grenada Manual and Mental Workers' Union and the struggle for better wages and better working conditions began. Then, in order to take that struggle to a higher level that the Grenada United Labour Party was formed. The Party was first named the Grenada People's Party. The Party fought for better living conditions, better housing, representative government, education for the masses, health facilities for the masses, land for the landless, removal of discrimination in all its form, colour and class, equal opportunities for all Grenadians.

The money from the cocoa, nutmegs, coffee, cotton, sugar and rum went to England. The plantocracy educated their children in England. They were the doctors, lawyers and businessmen and traders. The GULP and Gairy changed all that by giving the small man a stake in Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique. That is the historical fact. Mission accomplished in the first 28 years, 1951 to 1979.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? The children of the working class have been educated. We have professionals in all fields. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, all sorts. We have priests, and all, and we can boast of our Bishop who comes from the bowel of the Grenada United Labour Party.

Before GULP they would not have given our Bishop a job in the bank. Reason! Wrong complexion! Wrong complexion! Too black! Stay back. The landless labourers were made land owners by the Grenada United Labour Party. They were given a stake in their country.

The powerless, through the Party of the people GULP, were given charge of their destiny. Health and social facilities were transformed to the benefit of all the people. So in the first 28 years -1951 to 1979 - we have plenty to boast of and very little of which to be ashamed. But the mission was not accomplished. The mission was interrupted in 1979.

The vision of the founder, leader and first Prime Minister, the Father of this Nation was the economic transformation of Grenada to make it a very rich country and the envy of the region and the world. That vision included the building of the international airport and the construction of a cruise ship terminal.

The GULP had done well in agriculture, fisheries, tourism and the establishment of manufacturing industries. But the most vital economic aspect of that vision, first articulated in 1967, which forecasted riches that all the people would have enjoyed so that wants, poverty and deprivation would have been eradicated, was for the exploration and development of our offshore resources of petroleum to provide the revenue for social and economic transformation.

That vision was interrupted. The MISSION of New Labour is to return immediately to the realisation of that aspect of our Party's vision, which is bringing ashore the oil and gas under the seabed around our islands.

The vision is even more pertinent today because, in 1967, we were concerned with petroleum but, today, we are aware that there are also vast reserves of natural gas in our waters. Those who, in 1979, interrupted the mission of the GULP have set Grenada back 28 years.

The nation's agriculture is in ruin. The tourism sector is in great anguish and pain. There is high unemployment, especially among our youth, leading to frustration and violent behaviour. Despite the erection of elaborate structures, serious questions remain in the delivery of social services, principal among which is the poor delivery of health care and the lack of direction in our education system.

All this we are confident that we can fix and it is our mission to fix. What will be far more difficult to fix is the damage which have been done to the soul of the nation during the past 28 years. The soul of our nation has received serious wounds in several places and continues to bleed profusely despite the passage of time.

Recent events have shown us that those whom we have trusted with the nation's affairs from, time to time, during the past 28 years have failed to bring the nation together. There has been no healing. Not only have they failed to heal the nation but it is clear that as long as those who caused the injuries to the body politic that have the nation bleeding and in such great agony remain in political life, the nation will remain divided, continue to bleed and would, continually, suffer political trauma of the kind that we see happening, daily, in other countries.

And this is why a major plank in our mission as New Labour is the infusion of fresh blood into the Party. We are recruiting new blood, new thinking, new approaches to problem solving and especially young blood. We cannot have people in politics that are using the national political stage to fight their personal battles at the expense of the nation.

Our Party started with youthful elements. Uncle Gairy was 29 years. Most of his followers, then, were young people. Youth has the energy to get things done. More so, the youths are not carrying all that baggage, hate and anger from the collapse of the revolution.

We, the Gulpites, do not carry that anger and hate that is plaguing the nation. We of the Grenada United Labour Party are the only people who can move Grenada on to a new dawn. A dawn without rancour, bitterness and hate.

A dawn of plenty, for which we have to prepare, properly. We have begun the preparation. Let us continue the work.