Mongoose Gang

{{Short description|1967 to 1979 Grenada paramilitary group}}

The Mongoose Gang was a private army or militia which operated from 1967 to 1979 under the control of Sir Eric Gairy, the Premier and later Prime Minister of Grenada, and head of the Grenada United Labour Party.{{Cite web |url=http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDgairy.htm |title=Eric Gairy : Biography |accessdate=2013-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131009213422/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDgairy.htm |archive-date=9 October 2013 |url-status=dead}}{{cite book |first=James Stuart |last=Olson |title=Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uyqepNdgUWkC&pg=PA262 |year=1991 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-26257-9 |pages=262– |via=Google Books}} Officially, Mongoose Gang members were called Special Reserve Police (S.R.P.) or Volunteer Constables.{{Cite web |url=http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/bloodymonday.html |title=BLOODY MONDAY, or the "Battle of St. George's" 21 January 1974 |access-date=2017-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190715231727/https://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/bloodymonday.html |archive-date=15 July 2019 |url-status=dead}}

A news report from 1974 states that the "Mongoose squad" sometimes carried rifles, but generally carried "thick pieces of wood".{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=980OYZ6M7k0 |title=z017409 GRENADA POLICE Screener NTSCSD60i |date=25 October 2015 |website=YouTube |access-date=July 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202024406/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=980OYZ6M7k0 |archive-date=2 February 2017 |url-status=live}} Mongoose Gang members also tended not to dress in any distinctive way.{{cite book |first1=Ajamu |last1=Nangwaya |first2=Michael |last2=Truscello |title=Why Don't the Poor Rise Up?: Organizing the Twenty-First Century Resistance |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TjKdDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT161 |date=17 July 2017 |publisher=AK Press |isbn=978-1-84935-279-6 |pages=161– |via=Google Books}}

The Mongoose Gang was responsible for silencing critics,{{Cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/223562/Sir-Eric-Matthew-Gairy |title=Sir Eric Matthew Gairy (prime minister of Grenada) - Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=9 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619084430/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/223562/Sir-Eric-Matthew-Gairy |archive-date=19 June 2013 |url-status=dead }} breaking up demonstrations and murdering opponents of the Gairy regime, including Rupert Bishop, the father of Maurice Bishop, in January 1974. Maurice Bishop himself was beaten by members of the Mongoose Gang two months previously, in November 1973, and jailed.{{cite book |first=John E. |last=Jessup |title=An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945-1996 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&pg=PA75 |date=1 January 1998 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-28112-9 |pages=75– |access-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170404052816/https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&pg=PA75 |archive-date=4 April 2017 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}} The violence of the Mongoose Gang and the Grenadian police became a more important factor than the state of the economy in generating unrest.{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Meeks |title=Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory: An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WLs0H9cAGLYC&pg=PA142 |year=2001 |publisher=University of the West Indies Press |isbn=978-976-640-104-7 |pages=142– |access-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170404052733/https://books.google.com/books?id=WLs0H9cAGLYC&pg=PA142 |archive-date=4 April 2017 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}} MI5 intelligence reports at the time referred to the Gang as being "ruthless", and "an un-uniformed and undisciplined body{{nbsp}}... many of them have criminal records".{{Cite magazine |title=New Documents Reveal Britain's Secret Plan to Invade a Tiny Caribbean Island |url=https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3b74yb/revealed-britains-top-secret-plan-to-invade-a-tiny-caribbean-island |magazine=Vice |access-date=25 July 2019 |first=Phil |last=Miller |date=24 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725223247/https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3b74yb/revealed-britains-top-secret-plan-to-invade-a-tiny-caribbean-island |archive-date=25 July 2019 |url-status=live}}

In November 1974, 10 months after Grenada's independence from Great Britain, Bishop's New Jewel Movement issued a People's Indictment calling for "power to the people" and declaring that "the Gairy Government was born in blood, baptized in fire, christened with bullets, is married to foreigners, and is resulting in death to the people".{{cite book |first=John |last=Foran |title=Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=szJtXBrr2poC&pg=PA164 |date=17 November 2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-44518-4 |pages=164– |via=Google Books}}

In the 1976 Grenadian general election, the Grenada United Labour Party won nine of the 15 seats, whilst the opposition People's Alliance (a coalition of the New Jewel Movement, the Grenada National Party and the United People's Party) won the remainder. However, the elections were marred by fraud (and branded fraudulent by international observers), as the Mongoose Gang had been threatening the opposition.{{cite book |author-link=Dieter Nohlen |editor-last=Nohlen |editor-first=Dieter |date=2005 |title=Elections in the Americas: A Data Handbook |volume=1 |pages=301–302 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-928357-6}}

The Mongoose Gang was used against protesters during the 1977 General Assembly of the Organization of American States hosted by Grenada.{{Cite web |url=https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20230519201251/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ad1a70.html |title=Grenada: The "Mongoose Gang" in Grenada |access-date=2016-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617095332/http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ad1a70.html

|archive-date=17 June 2016 |url-status=live}}

In 1979, a rumour circulated that Gairy would use the Gang to eliminate leaders of the New Jewel Movement while he was out of the country.{{cite book |first=Spencer |last=Mawby |title=Ordering Independence: The End of Empire in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1947-69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2jrI_pys1zUC&pg=PA239 |date=20 August 2012 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-27818-9 |pages=239– |access-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829224845/https://books.google.com/books?id=2jrI_pys1zUC&pg=PA239 |archive-date=29 August 2017 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}}{{Cite web |url=https://writing.danmalo.info/tag/mongoose-gang/ |title=Grenada: Gairy, Bishop, Balance or Coup |date=29 December 2014 |access-date=2016-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808011851/http://writing.danmalo.info/tag/mongoose-gang/ |archive-date=8 August 2016 |url-status=live}}

In response, Bishop overthrew Gairy in March of that year while the latter was visiting the United States.{{Cite web |url=http://www.gov.gd/biographies/eric_gairy_bio.html |title=Biography: Sir Eric Matthew Gairy |accessdate=2016-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308094648/http://www.gov.gd/biographies/eric_gairy_bio.html |archive-date=8 March 2016 |url-status=dead}}

The Mongoose Gang then ceased to operate; the Gang's leader, Mosyln Bishop, a taxi driver, was subsequently sentenced later that year to fourteen years in prison for attempting to murder three people in November 1973.{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=757&dat=19791208&id=QzZkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vkYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2458,1135652 |title=The Virgin Islands Daily News – Google News Archive Search}}

The name 'Mongoose Gang' originated in the 1950s, when the local health officials sought to eliminate the mongoose as a pest, and paid people who brought in mongoose tails as proof of killing the animals. The men who were employed in such work became known as the 'mongoose-gang'. Later, the name shifted to refer to gangs of political thugs on Grenada.{{cite book |first1=Richard |last1=Allsopp |first2=Jeannette |last2=Allsopp |title=Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PmvSk13sIc0C&pg=PA385 |year=2003 |publisher=University of the West Indies Press |isbn=978-976-640-145-0 |pages=385– |access-date=29 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130426121130/http://books.google.com/books?id=PmvSk13sIc0C |archive-date=26 April 2013 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}} In fact, it was Gairy himself who got jobs for a number of men and women on the mongoose-eradication project in the 1950s when he was a representative of the Colony of Grenada's Legislative Council. For Gairy's part, in a 1984 interview with New York magazine, he denied employing thugs or any kind of secret police.{{cite journal |author=New York Media, LLC |title=New York Magazine |journal=Newyorkmetro.com. |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oOYCAAAAMBAJ |date=13 February 1984 |publisher=New York Media, LLC |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oOYCAAAAMBAJ/page/n97 14]– |issn=0028-7369}}

The Mongoose Gang has often been compared to the Tonton Macoute of Haiti.{{Cite web |url=http://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/grenada/history |title=Grenada: History |access-date=2013-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029194005/http://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/grenada/history |archive-date=29 October 2013 |url-status=dead}}{{Cite web |url=http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-96/end-eric#axzz4AMgDH6uW |title=The end of Eric Gairy |date=March 2009 |access-date=2016-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160331130603/http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-96/end-eric#axzz4AMgDH6uW |archive-date=31 March 2016 |url-status=dead}}