The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop: ‘We all had great expectations’
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2023
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How does a revolution implode? Martine Powers traces the rise and fall of Maurice Bishop and the origin of the mystery left behind.
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Maurice Bishop was a charismatic leader who captured the imagination of many Grenadians. But the revolution he helped spark began to buckle under pressure within his party. Martine Powers tries to understand the life of Bishop and what propelled him into the position of prime minister, the promise of the beginning of the revolution and the events that led to his brutal death. That history reveals why the mystery of the missing remains haunts Grenada to this day.
Martine speaks with Bishop’s sister, his fellow revolutionaries and the family members of some of the other victims killed on Oct. 19, 1983. They tell harrowing stories of having their own lives endangered, the last moments they saw their loved ones alive and what it’s been like to not be able to give them a proper funeral.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey Post Reports listeners, it's Martin. So yesterday we dropped episode one of my new |
| 0:08.5 | podcast, The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop, here in the Post Reports Feed. |
| 0:13.2 | If you haven't heard it, go back and listen. |
| 0:15.6 | If you have, then you are ready. |
| 0:17.7 | Here is episode two. |
| 0:19.4 | After you listen, follow the link in the show notes |
| 0:22.0 | to hear more. |
| 0:23.0 | Okay, here it is, episode two of the empty grave of Comrade Bishop. |
| 0:30.0 | It's always weird showing up to somebody's house without an invitation or when the invitation |
| 0:35.2 | didn't come from the person you want to see. |
| 0:37.0 | I can't wait to not have any idea where we are. |
| 0:42.0 | Not actually know. where we are and not actually |
| 0:42.8 | now. |
| 0:43.8 | Oh, right, because we don't know what our address is. |
| 0:48.4 | In October of 2022, I was driving up the eastern coast of Grenada |
| 0:52.3 | with senior producer Ted Muldoon. |
| 0:54.0 | Where we came down before. |
| 0:59.4 | We were trying to find the house of a woman named Annie Bain. A year earlier I had actually tried talking to |
| 1:06.4 | Annie on the phone. I wanted to know about her husband. He had been a cabinet member |
| 1:11.5 | in Maurice Bishop's government and he was one of the people executed |
| 1:15.5 | by firing squad alongside Bishop in 1983. |
| 1:18.9 | The remains of Annie's husband have also been missing for 40 years. |
... |
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