St. Kitts – Nevis Youths Get A History Lesson
Bassaterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
June 09, 2009 (CUOPM)
The failed attempt by the People’s Action Movement (PAM) to overthrow the lawfully-elected government of Premier the Hon. Robert L. Bradshaw on June 10th 1967 will be observed here Wednesday.
Young Labour ““ the youth arm of the governing St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party announced Tuesday, it will stage a march through Basseterre on Wednesday 10th June – 42 years to the day.
“We will march under the theme: “Faces Change: Philosophies Remain,” said Keisha Archibald in a press release.
“It is mainly to educate the young people of St. Kitts and Nevis and to bring to their attention the involvement of the People’s Action Movement to seize power by the bullet instead of the ballot,” said Archibald.
“The Youths of the Labour Party view it as our duty to alert our young people and others who were not around at the time, to this dark episode in our political history. We believe strongly that although there are new faces in the People’s Action Movement today the philosophy of the PAM party in introducing violence into our political system remains the same,” said Archibald in the statement.
The March will move off from in front of Masses House at 4:15 P.m. on Wednesday 10th June and travel down Church Street into the Bay Road via College Street, up Fort Street, turn west into Cayon Street and return to Masses House.
Members of the public can join the march and are asked to wear black T- shirts or top.
The Youth Arm said the June 10th 1967 event has been the subject of discussion among young people on Facebook and Hi5.
The June 10th event has been documented by Anguillian authors Nat Hodge and Colville Petty. In their books and other written articles on the Anguilla Revolution they wrote that the attempt to overthrow Bradshaw on June 10th 1967, was the brainchild of Ronald Webster and a prominent Kittitian politician, Political Leader of the People’s Action Movement, Dr. William V. Herbert Jr.
According to their publication: “It (June 10th 1967) had two principal objectives which were interrelated: Firstly, the defence of the Anguilla Revolution. Secondly, the overthrow of Robert Bradshaw’s government and its replacement by one sympathetic to Anguilla’s cause.
Ronald Webster, leader of the Anguilla Revolution, was fearful of an invasion from St. Kitts and reasoned that the best way of preventing it was to attack St Kitts before St Kitts attacked Anguilla. On the other hand, the sole objective of the prominent Kittitian politician was the removal of Premier Bradshaw. To this end, he thought it expedient to use the “˜armed might’ and revolutionary fervour of the Anguillian people to assist him. It was not difficult for him and Webster to join forces because both of them had goals, which, they envisaged, could be accomplished by defeating their common enemy: Bradshaw.
Detailed plans for the attack were worked out in Anguilla, St Kitts and St Thomas, Virgin Islands. They were fine tuned in Anguilla. To quote Clarence Rogers: “[The prominent Kittitian politician] discussed the details . . . with me again in Anguilla around 7th June. He came by mother’s house, in East End, between 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm, where he sat on her bed and drew a plan showing where the men should land and the places to attack.”
Whilst in Anguilla, the prominent Kittitian politician also discussed the plans with Joshua Gumbs who claimed: “At about 10 o’clock one morning in early June 1967 [he] passed by Lewis Haskins machine shop, in Corito, where I was doing repair work on some engines and asked me to captain the boat which was to take the men to carry out the attack on St Kitts.” Joshua declined. In his words: “I said Doc, I am very sorry. What we did, we did it [the Revolution] for Anguilla. If the Kittitians want the Government out they must do it themselves. I am sure that the Kittitians wouldn’t want us up there to shed their blood.”
The plans included capturing Bradshaw and his deputy, Paul Southwell, and taking them to Anguilla; the announcement by Ruby Gumbs, over radio station ZIZ in St Kitts, that the new Premier was the prominent Kittitian politician; the demolition of the Defence Force Camp; the capture of the Police Headquarters; the destruction of the Power Station; the blowing up of the fuel depot and the capture of the Revenue Cutter used by the Police.
As part of their preparations for the attack, several of our men underwent shooting exercises at Junks Hole Bay. United States mercenaries conducted the exercises. According to Ruby Gumbs the prominent Kittitian politician remarked: “If the boys continued to shoot the way they were doing at Junks Hole, with the help of the PAMites in St. Kitts, they can overthrow the Government in St. Kitts.”
The June 10th 1967 event was recently mentioned by prominent Kittitian historian, Sir Probyn Inniss.
He said that despite the armed attack to overthrow the lawfully elected government of then Premier Robert Bradshaw, the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla leader remained strong and resolute.
“I was in awe of the physical and moral courage of this gentleman (Bradshaw). Both his moral and physical courage were tested sorely in the wake of 10th June, 1967. Because when details of the plot were revealed, it turned out that he (Bradshaw) was, to be humiliated, put on trial and eventually killed,” Sir Probyn told a packed congregation at the annual Requiem Mass held in the St. Paul’s Anglican Church to pay tribute to late stalwarts of the Labour Movement.
Sir Probyn, Senior Partner in the Law Firm, Inniss and Inniss, proffered that a crisis of this magnitude would have destroyed a lesser man.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Bradshaw remained strong and resolute. It is the measure of the man that he was able to put all of these traumatic events behind him and chart a course towards Unity in the society,” said Sir Probyn, a former Governor of the State, who served as Permanent Secretary, Crown Counsel and Teacher.