Volumen 30: Table of Contents

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Dr. Aníbal J. Aponte
Director, CISCLA
Inter American University of P.R.
P.O. Box 5100
San Germán, Puerto Rico 00683

Phone: (787) 264-1912, ext. 7229, 7230
Fax: (718) 892-6350, 892-7510
Email: reinter@sg.inter.edu

A Dual Legacy of Antigua’s First Prime Minister
Vere Cornwall Bird (1909-1999)

Lomarsh Roopnarine

Vere Cornwall Bird was to Antigua what George Washington was to the United States or what Cheddi Jagan was to Guyana. But because Antigua is so small and situated among so many other small islands in the Caribbean chain, Bird is virtually unknown outside the Caribbean. He is, however, known in the English-speaking Caribbean and in Guyana, for having been, in 1965, one of the three leaders responsible for the launching of the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), which later became the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) in 1973.¹ Bird was also a founding member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which he later chaired.²

Bird has been, until recently, one of those last surviving individuals that belonged to a “group of grand old men” (Cheddi Jagan, Theophilus Marryshow and Robert Bradshaw) who had sprung from trade union movements in the 1930s and 1940s to become political leaders.³ Bird, who refused to be knighted by the queen but accepted a local knighthood, earned the reputation for lifting his people from the bondage of colonialism, exploitation and illiteracy, and carrying them to the triumph of independence; even though months before Antigua became independent, he argued that the island was too small to become a sovereign state, and called it a “parish.” But alongside his impressive political, economic, and social achievements, there remain ambivalent feelings about Bird’s leadership and governance in Antigua, which covered over forty years.

Had “Papa” Bird, as he is referred to in Antigua, retired soon after leading his people to independence, he would have been hailed as an undisputed national hero and recognized as being one of the most respected Caribbean leaders. But this was not to be. History will also remember Bird for nepotism and corruption in which he first agreed with, then sponsored, and finally participated.

So what really is the dual legacy of V.C. Bird? In Antigua, at Bird’s passing, he was referred to by his son, Lester, now the Prime Minister, as the founding father of Antigua who “raised us and produced us to continue in his footsteps and…he belongs to the Caribbean, he belongs to Antigua, he belongs to us. What he has done to uplift this country is, of course, outstanding, a significant contribution to the development of the country.”⁴ Some Antiguans associated Bird with Antigua and world-renowned cricket icons, Sir Vivian Richards and Curtley Ambrose, while when others “look at this man [Bird], they see the event of Jackie Presser, the head of the Teamsters Union in America who is now serving time in prison for misappropriating his union’s funds.”⁵ Jamaica’s Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson pointed out that Bird was “the last of that band of legendary political leaders emerging from the labor movements who chartered the course for the move towards a collective exercise of sovereignty."⁶ Dr. Kennedy Simmonds, former Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis said that Bird has “left a lasting legacy of caring for people, for the people of Antigua and Barbuda and the people of the Caribbean region. The Caribbean has lost a truly great statesman and a great human being.”⁷ In Guyana, while some reports were quick to pinpoint Bird’s positive contribution in the field of regional cooperation “as the Caribbean son of the soil” who had placed an “indelible mark on the country and the region both as a labor leader and as a statesman”⁸ other reports were less sympathetic. “His own decision to quit political office, resigning in 1994 as Prime Minister and leader of his Antigua labor party, came against the mounting allegations of corruption and of widening dissension in the top echelons of the governing party.”⁹ Other reports in the Caribbean region also “subsequently castigated his style of governance, blaming him for public corruption and cronyism of his ruling Antigua Labor Party (ALP) in the running of Antigua and Barbuda as a ‘family estate’ and ensuring the predominance of the Bird dynasty in the control of political power.”¹⁰ The picture of Bird is on the label of beer bottles and casino chips, his name on the international airport, and his hands, well, on almost everything in Antigua.

The answer as to what really is the dual legacy of V.C. Bird is as confusing as the life and time period of the man himself.

Born on the 7^th of December, 1909, on New Street, a slum area in Antigua’s capital, Bird was an illegitimate son of a penniless father who later committed suicide. Able to acquire only an elementary education because the island’s Anglican-run secondary school did not accept illegitimate children, Bird, at the age of eighteen, enlisted in the Salvation Army. Six months later he was appointed a Cadet Sergeant in the Salvation Army Training College Staff in Trinidad. In 1929, Bird left for Antigua and never returned to the Salvation Army. Why Bird left the Salvation Army remains obscure, but it was alleged that he had faced racial discrimination while in Trinidad. Bird’s political opponents, however, maintained that he left the Army abruptly because he was accused of misappropriating funds, an accusation that was difficult to prove. The controversy surrounding Bird’s Salvation Army career would follow him, when in 1930, he worked as a bookkeeper for the largest merchant-importer baker in Antigua. Young Bird seemed generally prosperous on the salary he earned, and when asked by the owner to see the financial records “he [Bird] took the books and ran with them to the bakery, and, with his incredibly long arms, he threw them into the furnace.”¹¹

The decade from 1929-1939 was a turbulent and mysterious period in the life of V.C. Bird. Except for some writings by union supporters, there have been no reliable accounts of Bird's life in this decade, and his speeches rarely mentioned events in this period. What seemed more certain about Bird in relation to the Army and the missing decade was that he used his experience to deal with Antigua’s internal problems. Consequently, he developed a reputation in Antigua of resorting to physical means when solving disagreements, particularly in the early phase of his leadership.

The situation in which Bird grew up in Antigua in the early twentieth century was barely distinguishable from the days of slavery, which ended a hundred years earlier (1834). Almost everywhere in the Caribbean the laboring population was living below the level of human decency. Overcrowding was common. Wages had improved marginally and working conditions were poor while diseases were widespread in and around the sugar estates.¹² All the institutions overlooking the existence of the sugar industries—government, church and sugar planters—were not genuinely interested in changing such conditions but were more concerned with reaping maximum profits at a time when sugar prices continued to fall. Sugar workers were subjected to a brutal feudalistic work system in which they labored for a pitiable wage of a shilling a day¹³ without any representation or union that could assist them to obtain better wages and improved working conditions. In theory, the Caribbean laboring class was freed from slavery but in practice the coercion of the whip was replaced by the letter of the law.

These appalling working conditions generated a cauldron of discontent in the Caribbean: large-scale riots and disturbances in Trinidad in 1934, St. Kitts in 1935, British Guiana in 1935 and 1936, Barbados and Jamaica in 1938 and 1939.¹⁴ In Antigua, the situation was no different and Bird would be the indefatigable figure for the poor and oppressed. Through Antigua’s Trade Union Movement (ATUM), Bird was able to organize and rally the masses against the British plantocracy, in particular, Moody Stuart, a powerful sugar syndicate. In January 1951, under a tamarind tree, near a remote village of Bethesda, Bird made his legendary speech in which he confronted Antigua Sugar Estates Ltd. In front of a crowd of several hundred poor sugarcane workers; he called for better wages and better working conditions for his people using the slogan “We will eat cockles and the widdy widdy bush. We will drink pond water”¹⁵ instead of toiling in the canefields for a shilling a day. The strike lasted for about a year and was instrumental in breaking the dominance of colonial sugar planters in Antigua. ATUM won the right to negotiate for Antigua’s working class and for contracts to be signed with management.¹⁶ Subsequently, other rights and developments evolved in Antigua: land was distributed to about 70-80 percent of Antiguans, a unique phenomenon within the Caribbean;¹⁷ Antigua became an associated state in 1967 and progressed from “a backward, colonial plantation economy to a thriving tourism economy with the second highest per capita income in the Eastern Caribbean.”¹⁸ But these achievements did not come easy; indeed it was a protracted struggle that took Bird and his people about forty-odd years before they became “free” from Britain in 1981. For a people who had hardly won in their dealings with the British, gaining independence was a momentous victory. Independence marked the beginning of the end to British colonial practice in Antigua, which had deep and heinous dimensions and which had become almost genetically imprinted on the people of Antigua and other Caribbean people. Slavery and colonialism remain as fresh in the minds of many Caribbean people as if it had only happened yesterday.

By the time Antigua achieved its independence, Bird had already fathered many grown children. First, there is Vere Bird, Jr., who is considered not bright but ambitious. He seemed to be devoted to and blended in with his father’s expectations. Vere Junior has been in the Cabinet for a number of years and was at the center of almost every money-dirty plot in Antigua from an 11 million dollar airport scandal to gunrunning for the Colombian drug smugglers. Then there is Lester, the second son, who is considered very bright, a good orator, and by far the most gifted of the Prime Minister’s children. He was also in the Cabinet until 1994, when he became the Prime Minister of Antigua. Ivor, the third son, operates the family-owned radio station. He is dull and has quite a bit of power borrowed from the family. He once tried to sell one of the most historical spots in Antigua to a New York crime family. But Ivor is best known for his excessive drinking and bar fights. Roswald, the fourth son, is a college teacher, who is considered a mystic. He shows up now and again to remind Antiguans that the right to lead belongs to the Bird family.¹⁹ Finally, there is Hazel, a daughter who is a radio evangelist.²⁰

This peculiar mixture of personalities formed the extraordinary clan, the Bird ruling family of Antigua, who, because of V.C. Bird’s commitment and dedication to Antigua’s Trade Union Movement, believed that they have exclusive rights to rule the island. Except for a brief period in 1971-1976, when George Walters was the Premier, the Birds dominated politics in Antigua from the 1950s to the present day. During V.C. Bird’s short absence from power, Antigua has witnessed and experienced strife and tension in varying degrees. The Birds used the family-owned radio station and tainted political techniques to instill fear on the island. Explosive devices were set off systemically causing tension and anxiety throughout Antigua. It was believed that Bird orchestrated bomb campaigns to undermine the political base and credibility of the Walter government.²¹

Terrible economic problems in the 1970s overwhelmed Antigua, and the Walter government was forced to close down several sugar industries and oil refineries. Tourism was also hit hard and almost disappeared, which caused high unemployment. These situations played into Bird’s hand in that they pushed him aside long enough for someone else to take the blame for Antigua’s problems.²² In 1976, in a dramatic turnaround, the people of Antigua voted Bird back into power. Bird’s return to political office was marked with nepotism and corruption as he tried to silence any appearance of restraint. Jamaica Kincaid, one of Antigua’s finest novelists, in her book, A Small Place, compared the Birds of Antigua to the Duvaliers of Haiti. She said that V.C. Bird “is old and weak and needs daily doses of powerful things in order to keep him going.” Vere Junior is the “Papa Doc figure who is ruthless and he is not afraid of anything.” Baby Doc is Lester Bird who fancies richness and fun.²³

It was only a matter of time for the Birds to introduce themselves to the international arena. They did so in the late 1970s in a spectacular fashion. An almost unknown family in an almost unknown island became the center of an international scandal. The other villain in the scandal was Gerald Bull, owner of the Canadian-American company called the Space Research Corporation.²⁴ Bull was an artillery genius who had the reputation for building the most powerful and most accurate artillery weapon in the world. He went to Antigua in 1977 after he was asked by Barbados’ former Prime Minister Tom Adams to abandon his operation and leave the island.²⁵ Bull’s mission in Antigua was to develop the “Supergun.” The agreement between the Birds and Bull was that the Space Research would not subject observers to customs and immigration laws when leaving or entering Antigua. In return, the U.S.-trained Antiguan and Barbudan Defense Force would guarantee the Birds would remain in office. Observers from the world over came and visited Bull’s research without any way to trace their background. It is not certain how many countries took advantage of this deal but there was evidence that officials from the former apartheid government of South Africa and Iraq went to Antigua, inspected and bought arms.²⁶

The secret agreement between the Birds and Gerald Bull broke out when a crane trying to load containers on a vessel “Tugelaland”²⁷ crashed causing the container to break open. Inside the containers were artillery barrels for 155-millimeter howitzers. The Birds desperately tried to conceal this secret but the news was already leaked out to Antiguans and the world. It was difficult to confirm whether the CIA used Gerald Bull’s company to ship arms to the former South Africa through Antigua.²⁸ What was certain was that arms continued to flow to Antigua and somehow ended up in South Africa when there was a United Nations embargo against arms-trading with the former apartheid government of that country. It seemed plausible that “Antigua was the nexus that made the South African connection possible”²⁹

The Bird and Bull affair was only the first of a series of scandals that would unravel from Antigua in the 1980s. Robert Vesco, an American financier who defrauded American investors of 224 million dollars and who was wanted for an illegal donation of 200,000 dollars to the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon, was hiding out in Antigua. When the U.S. government closed in on Vesco, it was believed that Bird Junior misled and deceived the State Department until Vesco escaped to Cuba.³⁰

Strange as it may sound, there was also an attempt by the Sovereign Order of New Oragon, a mysterious group comprised of con-men, ex-movie stars and celebrities, to establish a principality on Barbuda. Barbuda was chosen because they believed that the government there would be most receptive to their ideas, “The Return of the Visigoths.” The plan was later dismissed as bizarre, but if it had materialized, then diplomatic passports could have been issued to fugitives making Barbuda into a sanctuary for felons and con artists.³¹

Corruption in Antigua during V.C. Bird's term in office, was also perpetuated by the United States. The U.S. government has spent almost 200 million dollars since 1979 to help and defend the Bird government. The reason was obvious: the United States should have the privilege of using Antigua as a base to fight the spread of communism in the Caribbean, and the right to use the two military bases the U.S. has in Antigua for strategic purposes, as for example, in Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983.³²

Meanwhile, efforts to stop drug trafficking in and through Antigua were relaxed. Antigua was the only country in the Eastern Caribbean that refused to share information about narcotics trafficking and money laundering with the United States. But in 1991, Antigua softened up to the U.S. mainly due to substantial financial aid it was given. With the scandals that began in Antigua in the late 1970s and continued in the 1980s and 1990s, it is almost certain that the carnival of corruption will continue into the future, despite the fact that V.C. Bird is no longer in office. Milton Benjamin has concluded that “the style of politics [in Antigua] will continue as it has in the past. Lester Bird, his son and present Prime Minister, is making sure of that. Patronage and deceitfulness will reign supreme.”³³

Conclusion

With the passing of Vere Bird on June 28, 1999, Antigua and the Caribbean community have lost the last surviving member of distinguished union leaders, who sprang from organized labor more than fifty years ago to become political leaders. V.C. Bird was a national leader longer than anyone else in the Caribbean, longer even than Forbes Burnham in Guyana or Fidel Castro in Cuba. Honors have come Bird’s way. He is revered, even among his critics, for his contributions against British colonialism, exploitation, poverty, and illiteracy in Antigua. His vision for regional unity in the Caribbean led to the formation of Caricom and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); the former will commence its 20th summit soon.

Historians and critics will also remember Bird as someone who committed a lot of mistakes. After defying the British colonial planters and bringing independence to Antigua, Bird engaged in bribery, money laundering and corruption. Bird often ruled Antigua through muscle and intimidation, a characteristic so commonly found among leaders of his time. “Behind the façade of simplicity and gentility there is a ruthless, hardened, self-preserving character [of] which the public is little aware. Forbes Burnham, Eric Williams, Ebeneezer Joshua, Eric Gairy, Alexander Bustamante, Llewellyn Robert Bradshaw and [Bird] all shared this trait.”³⁴

But despite the deficiencies in his style of governance, this cannot tarnish Bird’s overall achievements in Antigua. History will remember Bird as a champion and a fighter for the poor and oppressed, who has brought Antigua from a backward sugar colony to a prosperous country within the Eastern Caribbean states.

About the Author:

Lomarsh Roopnarine is a doctoral student in Caribbean History at the State University of New York at Albany, where he also received his Master’s degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies in May 1997. His scholarly interests include the East Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean.

¹“A Rather Unique Politician,” editorial, Guyana Chronicle (Georgetown), Thursday, July 1, 1999.

²“Caricom mourns Bird’s passing,” Stabroek News (Georgetown), Friday, July 2, 1999.

³“Former Antigua and Barbuda PM is dead,”Caribbean News Agency (CANA) (Bridgetown), Tuesday, June 29, 1999.

⁴Caribbean News Agency (CANA), Tuesday, June 29, 1999.

⁵Jamaica Kincaid, “A Small Place” (USA: Penguin Books, 1988), 70.

⁶“PM sends condolences to Antigua Wednesday,” Jamaican Gleaner (Kingston), June 30, 1999.

⁷“Antiguan leader Bird’s funeral set for July 11,” Reuters, Wednesday, June 30, 1999.

⁸“Labor movement mourns the passing of Vere Bird,” Stabroek News, Tuesday, July 7, 1999.

⁹“A rather unique politician,” editorial, Guyana Chronicle, Thursday, July 1, 1999.

¹⁰Rickey Singh, “Vere Bird: Passing of a Legend,” Jamaican Gleaner, Wednesday, June 30, 1999.

¹¹Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (New York, NY: Penguin, 1988), 71.

¹²Cheddi Jagan, The West on Trail (Berlin, Germany: Seven Seas Publishers, 1975), 67.

¹³Gordon Lewis, Growth of the Modern West Indies (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), 133.

¹⁴Cary Fraser, “The Twilight of Colonial Rule in the British West Indies: Nationalist Assertion vs. Imperial Hubris in the 1930s,” The Journal of Caribbean History, Vol. 30/1&2 (1996): 27.

¹⁵Robert Coram, Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993), 17.

¹⁶The New Caribe News, July 6, 1999.

¹⁷Rickey Singh, Jamaican Gleaner, June 30, 1999.

¹⁸Editorial, “Farewell to Antigua's Great ‘Papa’,” Barbados Nation, Thursday, July 1, 1999.

¹⁹Coram, op. cit., 5-6.

²⁰Bird had not lived with his wife (Lydia) since the 1950s, and it is believed that he had fathered about a dozen illegitimate children. Hazel is one of them.

²¹Coram, op. cit., 39-40.

²²Ibid., 41.

²³Kincaid, op. cit., 73.

²⁴The expense for this research project by the U.S. Army and by Canadian scientists; the scientists were interested in using the space program for weather research and communication. The role of the U.S. Army was not clear.

²⁵Since 1961, Gerald Bull’s operation was located in Barbados where he was conducting research on HARP (High Altitude Research Project). His goal in Barbados was to develop a powerful weapon that could launch an artillery shell into space. When the government in Barbados changed hands, the new Prime Minister, Tom Adams, asked him to leave the island.

²⁶Tugela is a river in South Africa and Tugelaland was registered to a firm in the former West Germany and was controlled by the former South African government.

²⁷Kincaid, op. cit., 61.

²⁸Gerald Bull was tried and convicted (a year in jail, but he was released after serving four months) for selling more than 30 million dollars worth of howitzers and radar systems to South Africa.

²⁹Coram, op. cit., 44-53.

³⁰Ibid., 8..