The "Babsy" connection

ST GEORGE'S, April 16 -Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell seems to have a penchant for words and images that are as contrasting as night and day and as contradictory as calling an animal a "bull cow.''

Dr. Mitchell, only recently in a national radio and television address, cast himself as the "law and order'' Prime Minister of Grenada. He attempted to berate the parliamentary opposition, and in particular the Member of Parliament for the Town of St. George, for befriending people the PM deemed as criminal elements and other types of misfits.

Yet, the Prime Minister had no qualms about inviting Olivia "Babsy'' Grange, Minister of Information, Youth and Sports in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government, to address the annual women's convention of the ruling New National Party.

Grange, in addressing the convention last month in Tivoli, said she would be ready to return to Grenada to assist the NNP in the upcoming election campaign. However, one wonders which Babsy Grange will show in Grenada if Dr. Mitchell decides to take her up on her offer. Will it be the smooth-talking Babsy Grange that addressed the convention Sunday or the "other'' Babsy, whose name was linked to Oliver Smith, alias 'Bubba?' He was the notorious leader of the powerful 'One Order' gang in Jamaica and lost his life in a violent shooting incident.

After the shooting in Central St. Catherine, police called in Grange for questioning in relation to a Honda Civic motor car that Smith was driving at the time of his death. The lawmen said the car was registered in the names of Grange and Andrew Hope, alias 'Bun Man', who was second in line to Smith.

Glenroy Sinclair and Rasbert Turner, who covered the story for the Jamaica Gleaner, said that Grange denied that she was the owner of the vehicle, pointing out that she only assisted by guaranteeing a loan for one of her constituents to acquire the motor car.

The reporters added: "Preliminary investigations have revealed that Ms. Grange's name was on supporting documents as the part-owner of the vehicle that she allegedly purchased for $704,000 on December 24, 2003, from a car dealer on Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew.''

Grange, in a press release at the time, said that as guarantor for the car loan she was required to include her name on the motor vehicle documents.

However, the Gleaner said its investigation revealed that it is not mandatory, though optional, for guarantors of motor vehicle loans to display their names on official documents. The Gleaner said that although Grange denied that the $704,000 was paid by her, she was also "unable to explain how Smith got possession of the car, but confirmed that she, in fact, stood as a guarantor for Mr. Hope.''

Prior to this incident, police said Hope had been implicated in a case of shooting. And they allege that Smith was the mastermind behind a $3-million robbery of a supermarket. Grenada could also do without the kind of shooting incident that marred Grange's JLP election campaign last year.

One evening at around 6:30 in Spanish Town, the car in which Grange was travelling was riddled with bullets, leaving two men hospitalized.

Grange, who escaped unhurt but was visibly shaken, said afterwards: "I can't believe I'm alive as I was sitting in the back of the car. When I heard the explosions the only thing I could do was tell the driver to drive."

Police said the convoy with Grange was proceeding along Church Street when upon reaching the corner of Wellingston Street, a man on foot started firing shots at the vehicle in which she was travelling.

Dr. Mitchell was also responsible for bringing Grange's JLP colleague, Joan Gordon Webley, into Grenada to work as one his advisors and campaign strategists.

Webley, who was implicated in the suspicious death of her husband in Jamaica a few years ago, has been blamed for what many Grenadians now consider the overdone and overused "colour divide in the island,'' in which ties to political organizations are made by associating certain colours with particular political parties.