workingclasshistory:

On this day, 19 March 1969, British troops and police invaded the Caribbean island of Anguilla, after a British diplomat was forced to flee the island at gunpoint. The British colonial government had put Anguilla in a grouping along with Nevis, under the authority of the government in St Kitts, which was headed by Robert Bradshaw. Bradshaw was open about his hatred of Anguilla, had stated his intention to “reduce… that place to a desert”, and did his best to run the island down, sending telephone repairmen to the island in 1960 to deactivate the telephone system, and preventing the installation of electricity on the island. So 1967, Anguilla seceded from the St Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla body, disarmed the St Kitts police and sent them at home. The British government sent a hapless diplomat, William Whitlock, to try to resolve the situation, but he was dismissive of the Anguillans, so they chased him off the island. He then told reporters that the island was controlled by “gangster” and “Mafia” types, and that local people were wearing “a black power-type uniform” – which turned out to be morning coats with white gloves. So the Labour government sent in 200 paratroopers, along with 40 Metropolitan police officers, expecting to find an army of criminals and black radicals confronting them, but instead only finding a few goats. The incident was so farcical that Britain had to eventually agree for Anguilla to become independent of St Kitts so it became, and remains, a British overseas territory. https://ift.tt/2Tkpckm