Grenada: skills needed to advance ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada — Although exact statistics are un- available, a number of Grena- dians have returned to work in their homeland. They will be working side by side with other technicians and _ professionals who have come to the West In- dian island from all over the world to assist the country’s People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). The PRG has long encouraged Grenadians living abroad — esti- mated by Government officials as approximately four-fifths of all living islanders — to consider coming back and lending a hand. One of the first to return from the more industrialized countries was Michael Kirton, the present Chief Executive of the Grenada Sugar Industry. Kirton, who came back last October after liv- ing 16 years abroad, said that he returned to help the Government reorganize the sugar industry. — “In sugar, our present task is the formation of a company with government and private participa- tion and with representatives from cane-farmers in the de- cision-making part of the com- pany’’, Kirton said. ‘Basically, I’ve come to realize that Grenada before the Revolu- tion had become a rip-off society. The leaders led the rip-off and the people followed,”’ he added. Grenada —-~ pronounced Grey/nay/da — has one large functioning sugar factory and all raw sugar produced goes to satisfy just under half of the is- Jand’s needs for this staple. (To increase the yield, plans are now afoot for the upgrading of the fac- tory machinery and the develop- Seeing eye-to-eye on anti-Sovietism The drift of China’s leader- ship toward ever-closer ties with the United States contin- ued last week with the visit of Chinese Defence Minister and Vice-Premier, Geng Biao to Washington. Geng was repay- ing a visit to China by U.S. Defence Secretary Harold Brown last January. “Chinese-U.S. _ political, economic, scientific and mili- tary relations have developed rapidly in past years, spurred on by their common and oft- states aim: anti-Sovietism. In the latest meeting, this common aim was never stated more clearly: Brown: ‘“‘We agree that a strong NATO alliance and a stable Northeast Asia are es- sential to the security of the United States and China.”’ Geng: ‘‘Soviet aggressor troops are still in Afghanistan. And Vietnam, with all-out Soviet support, is continuing its war of aggression in Kam- puchea.”” Brown: “The United States and China continue to. share a common strategic assessment. (Both countries) are deter- mined to ensure that our con- verging assessment on these and other elements of the global situation are translated into effective responses:...’’ Geng: (The challenges) ‘‘call for a strategic response ... INTERNATIONAL FOCUS ment of new strains of cane). Although they had arrived in the island six months before Gairy’s downfall, John William and English-born wife Margaret, have made up their minds to throw their support behind Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his government. William, who like many Grena- dians emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, operates the West Wind Cafe in Gouyave, a small town about 16 kilometres up the West coast from the Capital. St. George’s. The young Grenadian re- mained in the United States for only a short period. In 1953 he left there for England where he worked for more than 20 years for the large Philips company as a technician. . The Williams admitted that they are impressed with a number of measures the PRG is carrying out. They are particularly pleased with the improvement in the col- lection of garbage. ~ ‘‘Another thing is the discipline in the Police Force. We have noticed a decline in the number of crimes around here,”’ he said. The Williams also pointed out that Grenadian workers appear to be better off even after the one- year period the PRG has been in power. “The plantations used to col- lect levies from workers but now the government has stopped this practice. Also, the workers now get paid on time,”’ Mr. Williams interjected. _In__ addition to these Grenadian-born returnees, the PRG has welcomed qualified people from the West Indian islands and from abroad. Don Rojas, 28, left the editor's chair of the Amsterdam-News, the largest paper serving the Black community in New York to come to the island earlier this year to edit the Free West Indian, a newspaper now unofficially rec- ognized as the organ of the new government. Rojas, who was born in the neighboring island of St. Vincent, was away from the West Indies for 11 years, concedes that read- justing to life in the islands was difficult but ‘‘the revolutionary changes taking place here make the tasks easier.”’ The editor will readily tell you that his staff is eagerly awaiting new printing and typesetting equipment which should result in a better quality newspaper. Rojas and his co-workers have to make do at present with two type- writers. As with the Grenadian-born re- turnees, the exact number and types of skilled people coming from overseas is unavailable to the media, although the PRG has said that more than 200 Cubans are now working at the construc- tion site of the island's new inter- national airport at Point Saline near the Holiday Inn. Last November, a group of Caribbean-born professionals who had come to Grenada issued a proclamation in support of the PRG. The proclamation read in part: ‘‘We, people of the Carib- bean... have come to Grenada to put our various skills and know- ledge to the service of the Grena- dian Revolution’. Most economic analysts in the region will admit that the island can certainly use these people. To build a meaningful economy, they say, not only demands en- thusiasm but engineers. PRG leaders undoubtedly recognize this and plan to con- tinue their appeals for skilled personnel, preferably those sym- pathetic to the Revolution, to come to Grenada and work. In a message appearing in last March’s West Indian Digest, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop said: ; ‘*‘To our nationals abroad we “say come home to see for yourself the progress which we have made and to feel for yourself the strong ,Sense of national unity, national pride, national consciousness and national and collective self-reli- ance prevailing in our country to- day.