GRENADA: CUBAN PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO VISIT

(3 Aug 1998) English/Nat
Cuban President Fidel Castro received a warm welcome as he arrived in Grenada on Sunday - a clear signal that the two countries are putting a bitter past behind them.
The visit signals Castro's renewed acceptance by his former Caribbean foes and their frustration with U-S economic policies.
As part of his stay, Castro visited the airport site where Cuban construction workers battled American troops during the 1983 U-S invasion of the island.
Hundreds cheered President Castro's arrival in Grenada's capital, St George's.
The Cuban leader stepped off the plane to a thunderous applause.
The welcoming crows waved Grenadian and Cuban flags, banners which read "Long live the ideas of the Cuban Revolution" and even sang a revolutionary hymn in his honour.
The visit to Grenada - a former French and British colony of three islands tucked between Trinidad and St. Vincent - signals Castro's renewed acceptance among former foes in the Caribbean fuelled by their frustration with Washington's economic policies.
A much-touted new era in U-S-Caribbean relations promised at a 1997 summit in Barbados with President Clinton has failed to materialise, along with promised aid and
trade benefits.
Castro was met at the airport by Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, who was once outspoken against the Cuban leader.
Mitchell called the early 1980s - when Cuba and the United States competed for influence on the island - a time of "hatred and divisiveness" and shared Castro's call to put the bitter past behind them.
In welcoming Castro, he pleaded for American cooperation with Cuba and welcomed the warming of Cuban-Caribbean relations.
Mitchell also joined his Caribbean neighbours in supporting Castro's fight to lift tough U-S sanctions against the communist island.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I think we have sent the wake up call a long time ago and I think they must, I think they clearly understand this. I don't know why it's taking so long to understand."
SUPER CAPTION: Keith Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada
Castro's visit to Grenada - the final stop on an unprecedented three-nation Caribbean tour - marks a dramatic turnaround in Caribbean relations with Cuba, once shunned as an
exporter of communist revolution.
But not everyone is welcoming the Cuban leader with open arms.
Opposition politicians and their supporters, who were persecuted and jailed after the 1979 revolution installed the pro-Cuban government of Maurice Bishop, protested against alleged human rights abuses in Cuba.
Former prisoners, like policeman turned fisherman Noel Gordon, say they can't forgive and forget.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"When the revolution came they jailed as much as they put the ...(illegible.) I was one. I spent four and a half years in a prison. This is the time that the revolution lasted.
Q. So Maurice Bishop isn't you favourite leader?
A. Oh no I never supported him."
SUPER CAPTION: Noel Gordon, Fisherman and former Policeman
Grenada is the only place where U-S and Cuban forces fought face-to-face in the Cold War.
U-S troops landed in Grenada in October 1983 after Marxist hard-liners staged a bloody coup against the leftist government that had been supported by Castro.
The hard-liners executed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his cabinet.
Former President Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion, saying the United States was worried about students at the American School of Medicine at St. George's University.
Armed Cuban construction workers at Grenada's airport fought invading U-S soldiers and a token force of Caribbean troops for three days.

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