1967 - St. Kitts and Nevis Defence Force
The focus of security concerns on the islands has changed over the years. During the Labour administration, which ended in 1980, the possible secession of Nevis and Anguilla was considered the primary threat to security. British paratroopers had to be dispatched to Anguilla in 1969 to keep order during a period of secessionist unrest; nevertheless, Anguilla did secede that year. Kittitian forces were more successful at discouraging such activity on Nevis because of its geographical proximity.
During the 1960s St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, as a colony, was moving towards associated statehood status with the United Kingdom, but the Anguillians resented the fact that they would be administered from St. Kitts and opted to remain as a crown colony. Anguillians and American mercenaries, along with local political dissidents who supported their cause, invaded St. Kitts on 10 July 1967. They were repulsed by the St. Kitts-Nevis Defence Force and the then Premier, Robert Bradshaw. He decided that the state must have a professional body to secure its internal defence.
According to some members of the PAM, personnel of the regular Defence Force and police were routinely employed by the Labour government to intimidate political opponents on Nevis. Personnel from the defence force and police were routinely employed by the Labor government to intimidate political opponents on both St. Kitts and Nevis in view of the growing support for PAM.
The regular section of the St. Kitts and Nevis Defence Force was started in 1967. In the eyes of the Bradshaw administration, the creation of a regular force seemed justifiable because the police as well as the volunteers in the pre-existing defence force, who were deemed to be inadequately trained and poorly armed, were incapable of containing the unrest which was bent on breaking the union between St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. The establishment of a regular force gave St. Kitts and Nevis the distinction of being the first Commonwealth Caribbean country in the Leeward Islands to institute a "regular core" of full time soldiers.
The major political parties in St. Kitts and Nevis - the Labor Party and the People Action Movement (PAM) - long had opposing views concerning the need for a defence force. The Bradshaw-led Labor party in 1967 saw the need of a force to assist the police. A regular force remained in existence when Premier Bradshaw died on 23 May 1978, when his deputy Paul Southwell replaced him. The opposition, which emanated mostly from PAM, claimed that the islands were too small for a defence force and that financial allocations given to it were wasted funds. PAM was of the opinion that an army was not needed rather the police force of over 400 should be strengthened to carry out needed duties which are clearly part of their job.
After the advent of the PAM/NRP government and the movement toward independence as a two-island federation, secession became regarded as less of a threat to security. Given Bradshaw's personalistic relationship with the SKNDF and the ensuing perception that it was largely controlled by the Labor party, when PAM assumed power in February 1980, efforts were made to find party loyalists to put in top positions in the force. However, when these failed the new government felt that, in the interest of its own political self-preservation, it was left with little choice and disbanded the regular force though it retained the reserve arm. Accordingly, the regular Defence Force maintained by the Labour government was abolished on 23 September 1981.
The Volunteer Defence Force was retained, but it did not appear to be active because of the lack of any serious external threat to the islands. Some former Defence Force personnel were absorbed into the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force (RSCNPF); Defence Force weaponry and other equipment were transferred to the RSCNPF. Weaponry unsuited to day-to-day police work, such as semiautomatic small arms, was adopted for use mainly by the RSCNPF's Tactical Unit and, later, the Special Service Unit (SSU).
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