New Jewel Movement
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The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation, or New Jewel, was a Marxist populist political movement in the Caribbean island nation of Grenada and the ruling organization of that country from 1979 to 1983.
The New Jewel Movement (NJM) was formally established March 11, 1973 with the merger of the New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) a rural activist group and the intellectual Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP) led by young lawyer Maurice Bishop.
The NJM had its intellectual and political roots in the local black power movement. The New Jewel Movement was led by Maurice Bishop, a charismatic figure who came to power in Grenada in 1979 following a period of instability which had occurred under the previous regime, led by Sir Eric Gairy, whose rule had grown to be increasingly paranoid.
New Jewel had been the Opposition party and was widely regarded as having been defrauded out of an election victory by Gairy's supporters. Bishop's supporters took advantage of a trip that was made by Gairy to New York City to address the United Nations on one of his primary topics of concern, UFOs, and took power in a well-executed revolution containing only minimal violence. The party established the People's Revolutionary Government.
Bishop was a Marxist who strengthened ties with Cuba right away, inviting Cuban construction battalions into the country to assist in the construction of a new international airport. The leaders of several other Caribbean nations, and the U.S. government, were very concerned over the Marxist direction in which Bishop was leading Grenada, yet could not doubt Bishop's considerable popular support; hence they could not work openly to undermine or remove him without appearing to be anti-democratic.
Meanwhile, Bishop was not hard-left enough to suit some New Jewel members, notably Bernard Coard, his nominal deputy and former close friend. In October, 1983 Coard, with backing from the military, overthrew Bishop in a coup d'etat and had him and others in his inner circle summarily executed, resulting in a subsequent U.S. invasion of Grenada ("Operation Urgent Fury") and the overthrow of the New Jewel regime six days later.
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