Curfoo – featuring Patrick Delves (w/voice of General Hudson Austin)
Produced by Eugene Gittens, with additional effects by Gary (Mr Smooth) Roberts
With the powerful lyrics of Bob Marley, the actual voice of General Hudson Austin and the passionate vocals of Patrick Delves, this song tried to capture the trauma that Grenadians felt on 19 October 1983, with the killing of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and the subsequent imposition of a 24-hour, shoot-on-sight curfew.
It uses excerpts from the now infamous “Curfoo speech” which was read on Radio Free Grenada by General Hudson Austin on behalf of the Revolutionary Military Council.
In part the speech stated:
The People’s Revolutionary Armed Forces has, as of 3:00 p.m. today, established a Revolutionary Military Council which will form the government of the country until normality is restored.
Let it be clearly understood that the Revolutionary Armed Forces will govern with absolute strictness. Anyone who seeks to demonstrate or disturb the peace will be shot.
An all day and all night curfoo will be established for the next four days, from now until next Monday at 6:00 p.m.
No one is to leave their house. Anyone violating this curfoo will be shot on sight.
All schools are closed and all workplaces, except for the essential services until further notice.
World Class Entertainment
This whole issue brings back lots of pain to those of us who were present from the freeing of our comrade leader brother Maurice Bishop, the boss, then onto fort george, i was a for three student attending the best secondary school at the time,[GBSS]
I was standing on the fort only to see those three armoured car makinking their way up the hill, as the one at the front got to the top of the hill bullets started reigning down on our people, the first thing that i saw was someone hand been shot out of their shoulder, this is when i realize it was serious, i started running down the hill there were many people jumping off wall, it wasn’t a good scene at all
This gave me goose bumps because I lived it!!! Yet ppl still calling the arrival of the Caribbean and US Forces an invasion??? Please!!! God bless America and Eugenia Charles for that timely intervention!
This bring back chills. I was a little boy at the time and did not understand the seriousness of the events.
I live close to and view of the fort where the sound of gun fire can be heard. There were adults with injuries, and shared their stories of how they escaped the fort.
Years after, there several versions of what actually happened. To date, I am still yearning for a true account of those events.