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Good evening, dear Roberts. Welcome to Sevens News World.
The Australian government today criticised the US invasion of Grenada,
and federal cabinet virtually ruled out any possibility of joining a Commonwealth peacekeeping force.
This hard-line stance on the invasion came as leading American officials began openly chastising their so-called allies.
Marvin Kalb reports.
It's hardly what senior officials stress in public,
but in fact they are fuming about the lack of allied support for the invasion,
claiming that many allied diplomats privately praised the action only to condemn it later in international forums such as the United Nations.
For example, the US ambassador to the UN, Gene Kirkpatrick, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press,
criticised the allies for setting limits to their support for the United States.
Our European allies are principally, I believe, allied with us on matters that concern the defence of Europe.
They do not necessarily show very much sensitivity to US security in other regions.
She seemed particularly frustrated about Great Britain's refusal to back the US action.
Well frankly, I find that rather difficult to explain.
This is in fact a festering frustration.
When the US was involved in Vietnam, many allies held back on support and even criticised the US.
When recent administrations have tried to engage European help in setting up a rapid deployment force to protect the oil in the Persian Gulf,
the allies again held back.
Same for recent US policy in Central America and now the Caribbean.
British, French and Italian troops do help the Marines in Lebanon,
but their governments show increasing impatience and may pull out if there is no political reconciliation soon.
And so as a result of the US military move into Grenada, new strains are surfacing in the NATO alliance.
At just the time when the deployment of new US missiles in Western Europe has already aggravated the old partnership.
In Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is still refusing to support the invasion
and the government is said to be very reluctant to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force.
Mrs Thatcher was speaking on the BBC World Service.
The Prime Minister was speaking on a worldwide phoneme programme broadcast by the BBC's World Service.
The first question came from a caller in Barbados who asked her why, as a fierce opponent of communism,
she had not been willing to act decisively in Grenada.
First, I think it's a general rule, we in the Western countries, the Western democracies,
use our force to defend our way of life.
We do not use it to walk into other people's countries, independent sovereign territories.
We try to extend our beliefs not by force, but by persuasion.
So there is a general rule that you do not cross into an independent sovereign country.
It's not an inviolate rule, but it's a very, very good one.
It's quite clear that the Eastern Caribbean states and Jamaica and Barbados and the present United States
took one view and some of the other Caribbean countries took another.
Under those circumstances, and with my beliefs, I did counsel caution before an irrevocable decision was taken
to cross into the country of an independent sovereign territory.
You mentioned oppression, communism.
Yes, I hate it.
There are many, many peoples in countries in the world who would love to be free of it, love to be free of it.
That doesn't mean to say that we can just walk into them and say, now you're free.
Now for the latest on military and diplomatic maneuvers on and off Grenada,
we have two reports from Mike Siemens and Richard Valeru-Ariani.
Marines are rounding up suspected members of Grenada's People's Revolutionary Army,
the Marxist group trained by Cubans.
These men were turned in by an angry crowd.
Yesterday, acting on a tip, the Marines made the biggest catch of all.
Sergeant Michael Schlussel found Bernard Cord, the leader of the coup that touched off the fighting.
We told him three times to come out of the house.
He didn't come out the first few times.
The third time we said, if you don't come out of the house, we're going to blow it up.
Task Force Commander Admiral Joseph Medcalf says, despite capturing many leftist Grenadians and Cubans,
there are still a lot on the loose.
How many are still out?
We don't know.
This is a, you know, this is a small country, but it's a big jungle.
American soldiers continue to find large quantities of Russian-made weapons on this island of just 110,000 persons.
This island is absolutely an arsenal.
Everywhere you look around you, everywhere around you, there's stores of ammunition.
There's enough arms and ammunition on this island to issue more than one weapon to every man, woman, and child on the entire island.
Refugees continue to leave Grenada because it's still a combat zone.
Cuban prisoners, along with their dead and wounded, may also be leaving soon.
Tonight, the International Red Cross is sending a plane from Geneva.
It will fly the Cubans to Havana when American military authorities say the plane can safely land here.
Now that St. George's, the capital of Grenada, is secure, the island's Governor General, Sir Paul Schoon,
has called for the reopening of schools and businesses tomorrow.
Meanwhile, for your own safety and protection, I urge you to stay indoors from 8 o'clock in the evening
to 5 o'clock in the morning until further notice.
Here in Bridgetown last night, the Prime Ministers of Barbados, Jamaica, and the six members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
agreed to lift the economic sanctions they had imposed against Grenada when it had a military government.
And they urged the immediate establishment of a local police force in Grenada.
They also wanted to know how long the American forces would remain there.
An answer came from the task force commander, Vice Admiral Joseph...