Westlake, Donald E - NF 01 (7 page)

The first two were simple
reassurances concerning local political structures, but the next four all
referred to the island's development:

3. Projects
for
Anguilla
had been included in the Development Plan, including
road improvements and the construction of a jetty, and they would be carried
out accordingly.

4. A
consultant having advised that due to the wide dispersal of housing it would be
uneconomic to set up an electricity undertaking in Anguilla, the law would be
amended to permit any person to supply power to his neighbors, and the
Government would give five to ten years' notice before withdrawing such
permission if it should thereafter propose to provide a public supply.
[Electricity wouldn't be profitable for the Government, so they'll turn it over
to private industry!]

5. Work
had already begun under contract with Cable and Wireless to provide a telephone
service, but delay had been occasioned due solely to the
United Kingdom
equipment manufacturers failing to keep their
promised delivery dates; every effort would however be made to speed up
delivery.

6. Canadian
aid had been sought and promised for providing a supply of pipe-borne water,
but distribution problems remained to be resolved—again because of the wide
dispersal of housing.

Number seven explained why St.
Kitts couldn't afford to do any more for
Anguilla
financially, and Number Eight would be baffling if I weren't prepared to
explain it, which I am:

8.
Policy reasons did not permit applications for licenses under the Aliens
Landholding Ordinance to be dealt with otherwise than by the State Government,
but any such applications would be given prompt attention.

The Aliens Landholding Ordinance
said, in effect, that Anguillans could sell their land to one another all they
wanted, but if they wished to sell land to an off-islander—a retired American
pilot, for instance, or an English hotel builder—they had to get approval from
the central Government on St. Kitts. The idea of this was that the central
Government would have a chance to keep "undesirable elements"—such as
the Mafia— from buying land on any of the three islands. However, the
Anguillans claimed the Kittitian Government stalled
forever
in making
decisions about applications, and that Kittitians attempted to dissuade
prospective buyers from their Anguillan choices in order to sell them Kittitian
land instead. The result was that sales to rich foreigners of homesites were
well below the
Caribbean
average. The Anguillans
suffered a loss of revenue not only in the immediate sale but also in the
ongoing process of having a rich foreigner build a house and then live in it.
For an island that had damn little to sell foreigners
except
land, this
was a source of irritation, about which the
Bradshaw
Government proposed to do nothing except speed up the red tape in the
applications. (The phrase "policy reasons" leads me to believe that
British insistence on the status quo was back of this one, and that British
distrust and dislike and envy of Americans was back of the insistence.)

The day after Mr. Hall brought these
eight statements to
Anguilla
, the Anguillans held
another meeting. Thirty-five people showed up and they decided they didn't care
for the eight proposals.

The same day, just three days from
statehood, Mr. Arthur Bottomley, the British Minister for Overseas Development,
arrived in St. Kitts to join in the independence festivities. Two days later,
he and his party, plus Paul Southwell, Bradshaw's Deputy Premier, all went to
visit
Anguilla
and have a big Statehood Day celebration
there. Bottomley, like Hall before him and Johnston before
him
, went
smiling to
Anguilla
, expecting happy islanders and a
jolly celebration.

Bottomley was met by the usual
demonstrators with the usual signs. Being British, he personally was cheered as
he stepped from the plane. Southwell, however, was roundly booed. Bottomley
took this ill, and took up a loud-hailer to tell the Anguillans he intended to
tour the island. They cheered. He said he intended to tour the island with Paul
Southwell. They booed. He said he was
going to
tour the island with Paul
Southwell. They booed louder.

Bottomley and Southwell got into a
car together and proceeded to tour the island, and a group of young men trotted
along on both sides of the car, banging on the roof. Because years of British
neglect and Kittitian animosity had resulted in incredibly potholed and
unfinished roads, the chauffeur couldn't drive fast enough to get away from the
young men—a charming incident of biter-bit. The car toured the entire island,
accompanied throughout by young men thumping on the roof. As one group tired of
trotting along, another group would take over. The tour ended at the airport.
Bottomley and Southwell and party gathered their dignity about themselves and
left
Anguilla
.

The next day was February
27—Statehood Day. At four in the morning, Vincent Byron, the Warden—the St.
Kitts Government representative on
Anguilla
—raised the
new state flag
in secret
at his house, guarded by police officers. He
was wearing pajamas at the time, and after hoisting the flag he yawned and went
into the house for breakfast.

Independence
had arrived.

They never would hear,

But turn the deaf ear,

As a matter they had no concern in.

—Jonathan Swift,
"Dingley and Brent"

Governor Sir Fred Phillips had
received a report from the local-government expert, Peter Johnston, saying
there had been no serious
trouble on
Anguilla
.
Mr. Henry Hall, sent to the colony by Mrs. Judith Hart two weeks later, where
he was shouted at, shoved around and perhaps shot at, returned to
England
to claim there had been no disturbances. And now Mr. Arthur Bottomley, the
British Minister for Overseas Development, having gone to
Anguilla
to help the islanders "celebrate" Statehood Day, and having received
a variant on the same treatment as his predecessors, also returned home to
insist that nothing had happened.

The
Commonwealth European and
Overseas Review,
a publication of the Conservative Party, stated in July
1967, "Mr. Bottomley went to the islands for the
Independence
celebrations, and perhaps unwisely visited
Anguilla
where he was booed and jostled by a large crowd, but on his return to
London
refused to admit there was any trouble."

Driving around an island
accompanied by relays of young men thumping on the roof of the car doesn't
constitute trouble.

There is an old story about a man
who owned a very stubborn donkey, and who was told that in a nearby town there
lived a famous donkey trainer whose work was guaranteed. The owner got in touch
with the donkey trainer, who arrived the next day at the owners farm, took a
baseball bat from the trunk of his car, stepped in front of the donkey, and
began to lambaste the animal backward and forward about the head. "For
God's sake, stop!" the owner cried. "You'll kill him! What are you
trying to do?"

"I am trying," the donkey
trainer said, "to attract his attention."

On
February 27, 1967
, statehood had come to the former colony
of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, and on
Anguilla
the new
state flag had been raised in a guarded secret ceremony by the Warden, Vincent
Byron, in his pajamas. He was in his pajamas once more on the night of March 8
when his official residence burned to the ground and he leaped out an upstairs
window just in the nick of time. He left
Anguilla
the
next day, and things were fairly quiet until the night of March 20, when shots
were fired into the police station, manned as usual by the police from St.
Kitts.

On the twenty-first of March, in
London
,
Mr. George Thomas, speaking as Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office,
and replying in the House of Commons to questions raised by the Conservative
Opposition, said, "I am not aware that any difficulties have arisen since
the inauguration of statehood."

He was perhaps also not aware of
difficulties that had arisen shortly before the inauguration of statehood, when
Robert Bradshaw had cut off
Anguilla
's mail and medical
supplies in an effort to soften the islanders' resistance. The mail, containing
so much of the islanders' income, was a serious enough problem, but holding
back medical supplies was even worse.

On the twenty-fifth of March, the
police station on
Anguilla
was fired at again. And on
the eleventh of April somebody shot at it a third time.

According to the
Commonwealth
European and Overseas Review
, "Between February and the end of May,
the Conservative Opposition asked a number of Questions in the House of Commons
and Mr. Wood, the Conservative Front Bench spokesman, wrote a number of letters
to Mrs. Hart. The Government refused to admit that there was any tension on the
island."

On the fifteenth of April, Peter
Adams wrote a letter to Robert Bradshaw, which said:

Sir,

It
is with regret that I have to bring to you a matter which is of prime
importance and not without some justification:

(1) People
of
Anguilla
have no confidence in the Government of St. Kitts,-

(2) 
Anguilla
is treated like a very distant poor relation and is in effect a
neglected Colony of St. Kitts;

(3) 
Anguilla
has not been given proper Local Government to suit her geographical
position seventy miles away from St. Kitts with several French and Dutch
territories between them;

(4) The
Constitution is not being followed in the letter nor in the spirit;

(5) Complaints
to the Government of St. Kitts and to the Government of Britain have not
improved conditions and divorce seems imminent.

The
majority of Anguillans think that the only course open now is to work towards
secession from St. Kitts for it appears that Nature herself did not design them
to be together; they want to be able to decide their own future.

Will
you please take some action to rectify these matters?

I
have the honour to be, Sir,

Your
obedient servant, P. E. Adams, J P,

Member
of Council for
Anguilla

No response.

On April 20, six shots were fired
at the small hotel owned by Mr. David Lloyd, one of the half dozen or so
statehood supporters on the island. As the Wooding Report describes him,
"Mr. Lloyd is a member of the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Labour Party and
was once the elected member for
Anguilla
in the
Legislative Council and later a member for the State with Mr. Bradshaw in The
West Indies Federal Parliament."

Throughout April and May, gunfire
was sporadic over the island, including another attack on the police station,
and culminating on the twenty-seventh of May when more than fifty rounds of
ammunition were fired into Mr. Lloyd's hotel. An Acting Warden, replacing Mr.
Vincent Byron, was staying in the hotel that night, but the next morning he
left and went back to St. Kitts.

Meanwhile, no medicine was getting
through. The only doctor on the island, a Welshman, Dr. Jeffrey Hyde, wrote to
the St. Kitts Government repeatedly throughout the winter and spring of 1967,
warning of dwindling medical supplies and asking for the new shipment, and
never got either the medicine or an answer. The only message he had from St.
Kitts was a brisk note demanding to know why he was serving white sugar in the
little local hospital instead of less expensive brown sugar. He wrote back and
said he could buy white sugar cheaper in
Puerto Rico
than brown sugar in St. Kitts, and where are the medical supplies? No answer.

Things were obviously building to a
climax. Obvious in
Anguilla
, that is; not so obvious in
London
,
where the Government was still pleased to report that everything was just fine.
Hundreds of shots had been fired but—possibly because no one had been
killed—the British Government hadn't heard a one of them. How would
Anguilla
manage to fire her shot heard round the world?

The boom came on May 29. After the
customs building was shot up, Peter Adams called a meeting at which it was
decided to order the Kittitian police off the island.

It seems not to have occurred to
anybody at this point-passions were high—that in throwing the police off the
island they were doing anything
more
than throwing the police off the
island; that is, that they were mounting a rebellion. They were still operating
from the donkey-trainer theory:
something
is going to attract the
British Government's attention.

The entire crowd of three hundred
people from the meeting in the park went over in a body to the police station
to tell the police their services were no longer required. They found Acting
Assistant Superintendent Edgings, the officer in charge, and told him their
decision. Edgings, understandably edgy, said anything that was all right with
the Anguillans was all right with him. They gave him till ten in the morning to
vacate the premises. Fine, he said. Fine.

By seven the next morning, a lot of
Anguillans were waiting outside the police station to wish the Kittitians a
brisk farewell. Nothing happened, no policemen emerged, and after a while two
or three Anguillans began to take pot shots at the wall of the station.

At nine-fifteen, Acting Assistant
Superintendent Edgings emerged to talk things over with Peter Adams and Ronald
Webster. He told them he was waiting for a plane to land from St. Kitts to take
himself and his sixteen men away. The Anguillans, not wanting to be disturbed
by any more police from St. Kitts while getting rid of the ones they already
had, said No to that. They'd already blocked the airport's one runway by
parking cars and oil drums on it.

A plane was at that time circling
the island, trying to land. It contained Kittitian policemen, but it is no
longer possible to say for sure how many or exactly who they were. One report
stated it was a "planeload" of policemen, intended as reinforcements.
Another said there was only one policeman, John Lynch-Wade, the Kittitian chief
of police, who had decided to come up by himself to find out what was going on.

The plane never got to land.
Instead, Ronald Webster went to the airport and more or less commandeered a
small plane to take the policemen off the island. Over the rest of the daylight
hours, the police departed in dribs and drabs.

Leaving their weapons. They had
originally planned on taking their armament with them, but the Anguillans told
them, "No guns at all, they belong to us." As the Wooding Report puts
it, "The policemen were surrounded by armed men who took away all the arms
and ammunition, including an automatic rifle, and forced them to enter the
plane under duress."

All the police eventually left, but
not before dismantling the radio at the police station. This radio was not only
An-guilla's only means of contacting the outside world, but was also the
outside world's only means of contacting
Anguilla
. It
was also the only means of contacting the lighthouse up on
Sombrero
Island
. Under the circumstances,
the reasoning of the Kittitian police seems obscure.

Now the Anguillans had the island
to themselves. A group of them who had formed a Peacekeeping Committee put
Ronald Webster in charge of island defense, since he had at one time been a
corporal in the Netherlands Antilles Army. Webster posted guards at the
airport, where the runway was blocked by cars and oil drums and grazing goats,
and also set guards to patrolling the coast at night. Most of them were armed
with conch shells with which to sound a warning if necessary; conch shells have
been used for this purpose on
Anguilla
since the
earliest settlement. A few of the guards also had walkie-talkies, of the kind
found in toy stores, with which to make contact directly with Ronald Webster at
his command post in the police station.

With the Kittitians gone and guards
posted, the Anguillans settled back to see what would happen next. This was the
same day,
May 30, 1967
,
that
Biafra
declared her own independence from the
Federation of Nigeria.

The following day, Robert Bradshaw
sent telegrams to the Prime Ministers of Barbados,
Guyana
,
Jamaica
and
Trini-dad-Tobago asking for the loan of armed forces—and ships to transport
them in—so he could put down the insurrection on
Anguilla
.
He also made the same request of
Great Britain
.
Everyone regretfully refused to take part in the affair.

But Bradshaw's actions weren't
confined to asking everybody else for help; he also counterattacked. Mail
delivery to
Anguilla
had virtually ceased back at the
beginning of the year, but now Bradshaw ordered that all mail of any kind
addressed to
Anguilla
should be held in the Basseterre
Post Office. He froze all Anguillan accounts in St. Kitts banks and declared an
embargo on all financial transactions with Anguillans—no selling, no buying, no
lending.

Finally—all this on the thirtieth
of May—Bradshaw declared a state of emergency; not on
Anguilla
,
on
St. Kitts
. The declaration gave him many extraordinary powers, the
most unusual of which permitted burial without inquest or autopsy of anyone
dying during the time of the emergency, which is to say, during the period that
the Emergency Regulations were in force. All the Emergency Regulations would be
found useful by the St. Kitts Government in the days ahead—including this one.
•

Meanwhile, the Anguillans were
gradually beginning to understand that the last swing of the bat had killed the
donkey. Throwing the Kittitian police off the island had not after all been a
simple difference in degree from shooting up the police station; it was a
difference in kind. Bradshaw's actions of May 30 demonstrated this in Anguillan
eyes much more than their own actions of the day before.

Anguilla
,
without thinking about it or planning it, had stumbled into open revolt.

But in spite of all
temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman!

—W. S. Gilbert,
H.M.S.
Pinafore