Herbert Blaize; Led Grenada After Invasion

Prime Minister Herbert Blaize, Grenada’s first elected prime minister after the U.S.-led invasion of the Caribbean nation in 1983, died Tuesday after a long battle with prostate cancer.

Governor General Sir Paul Scoon said Blaize was 71 and died in his official residence at Mt. Royal, just outside this capital city.

He had been working there for about a year because of his illness.

U.S. troops landed in Grenada in October, 1983, after Marxist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was arrested in a coup led by even more radical politicians.

That month Bishop had established a socialist government with close ties to Cuba, but was executed by hard-liners within his own movement who set up a military council and imposed a 24-hour curfew.

After the successful invasion, in which 19 American servicemen were killed, an interim government was established in the island nation of 95,000 residents, and it ruled until 1984 elections brought Blaize to power at the head of the New National Party, an uneasy coalition of former rivals.

Blaize, who had been confined to a wheelchair for several years, had presided over the division of his ruling party in the last year and had faced calls for early elections and a vote of no confidence on his five-year rule.

Scoon named Deputy Prime Minister Ben Jones to succeed Blaize until general elections are held. Scoon appealed for calm and asked the nation to lend the new prime minister their support. He noted that elections for a new government will be held shortly, but set no date.