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Caribbean Matters: Have you heard of the failed 'Bayou of Pigs' coup attempt? [1]

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Date: 2023-04-27  

This video, made by YouTuber Jabsy Joe, is a pretty thorough review of the history of the failed invasion and its bizarre cast of characters. My only quibble with it is the narrator can’t pronounce “Dominica” correctly. (it’s DOM-in-EE-ka).

I’ve queued the video past its opening ad for your convenience.

YouTube channel “Dive in Canada” details the long history of various Canadians’ interest in the annexation of a Caribbean territory going back to the 1800s and into the 2010s, as well as the growth of the Canadian Klu Klux Klan leading up to Operation Red Dog.

The roots of the fiasco stretch back to last July, when Eugenia Charles, 61, was elected Prime Minister of all-black Dominica. Among those she defeated was a predecessor, Patrick John, 44, driven from office in 1979 after a BBC documentary charged that his plans for island industrialization included an oil refinery that would benefit South Africa. John's go-between was said to be Burnett-Alleyne, a convicted smuggler who once recruited mercenaries to invade Barbados. The Charles administration believes the ten Americans, who were apprehended with an arsenal of automatic weapons and plastic explosives, were to enforce a government takeover by John—in cahoots, perhaps, with the island's marijuana growers.

The cast of characters in the plot was, well, odd. The conspirators included a gay vigilante, a mystery-man gunrunner with the novelish name of Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, a nurse cum spy with Irish Republican Army connections, and an ousted Prime Minister with alleged ties to South African industrialists. The gang, it appears, was intent on a coup to capture the impoverished Caribbean island of Dominica (pop. 81,000), a true banana republic (70% of exports) that is physically no bigger than Lexington, Ky.

It sounded like a sitcom version of The Dogs of War, after rewrites by V.S. Naipaul and Woody Allen. Even the feds joked about a "Bayou of Pigs." Ten men, mostly Southerners and mostly Ku Klux Klan members, were arrested last week by federal agents at a marina near New Orleans and charged with organizing an expedition against a friendly nation.

The invaders had automatic weapons, a Nazi flag, a rubber raft and bad luck: A Dominica army officer inadvertently gave away the plot in a note he tried to smuggle out of jail, and a disabled Vietnam veteran, the only hero of this story, helped Federal agents trap the invaders before they left Louisiana.

Rightist white mercenaries drawn from the Ku Klux Klan in the United States and Canada planned to join black terrorists and disgruntled soldiers in taking over the small, poor Caribbean island of Dominica and setting up what investigators have described as a drug, gambling and offshore banking empire under a left-of-center prime minister.

The plot was so bizarre and the conspirators so ill-assorted that the newspaper here called it a ''comic-book escapade.'' In New Orleans, where even the Federal judge hearing the case isn't sure how to pronounce ''Dominica,'' they call the affair the ''Bayou of Pigs.''

From the You Tube notes:

The plan was to charter a boat to Dominica and rendezvous via rubber boats with Patrick John and his makeshift army. The genesis of the idea came from long-time Klan member Perdue, who was introduced in 1979 to Droege. That summer, Perdue outlined his plan to overthrow the government of Grenada and set up several lucrative businesses. After their meeting, it was established that Droege would locate funds and resources. Croatian-Canadian Don Andrews was initially involved, but after Perdue changed the target island to Dominica, Andrews withdrew. Klansmen Arnie Polli and Roger Dermee were paid US$3,000 to visit Dominica and make a preliminary reconnaissance. German-Canadian neo-Nazi Martin K. Weiche was allegedly a financial backer of the plot along with James White of Houston and L. E. Matthews of Jackson, Mississippi.[5]

In February 1981, the captain and crew backed out. Perdue then approached a local boat captain and Vietnam War veteran, Michael S. Howell. Perdue said that the Central Intelligence Agency needed his boat for a covert operation. Howell then contacted the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). On April 25, John was arrested in Dominica. When Perdue learned of the arrest and that their plans were no longer secret, he insisted that the mission should continue. On April 27, the group, including three ATF agents, met at the predetermined location, loaded the van and proceeded to the marina. Local police were waiting for them at the marina.

In 1984, during an interview by Barbados's daily Nation Newspaper, Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, one of the leaders of the plot, was asked if the group had planned to overthrow the government of Barbados and install John as prime minister there as well.

He responded: He could have become prime minister, although that was not the real reason behind my plan of action. I wanted to add the land mass of Dominica to that of Barbados and also to be able to undertake an industrial project of considerable size. South African resources, millions of dollars, were available to me to be used for such a project. But Patrick John didn't do what was supposed to have been done. But more than that, I became incensed when I found out he was giving away Dominican land to Americans. He lost an important opportunity to be a central figure in the history of the Caribbean.[6]

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/27/2164191/-Caribbean-Matters-Have-you-heard-of-the-failed-Bayou-of-Pigs-coup-attempt

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