White Supremacists: The Bayou of Pigs

It is a story that reads like a bad Hollywood screenplay. A group of white supremacists hailing from both the United States and Canada team up with the ousted prime minister of a small Caribbean nation to orchestrate a coup and set up lucrative (and illicit) business operations. This is the story of the failed overthrow which has become dubbed the "Bayou of Pigs."

The plot came to a head on April 27^th, 1981. This was the day that Don Black, Grand Wizard of the US Ku Klux Klan and Wolfgang Droege, his Canadian counterpart (who had also been the first to bring the Klan to Canada), were to head off in a boat along with numerous automatic weapons, shotguns and plastic explosives to sail to the tiny island of Dominica. On they way they would meet up with Patrick John, the former prime minister of Dominica, along with a makeshift army of fellow Dominicans to overthrow the government. However the Feds had been tipped off and agents arrested them as they were attempting to board the boat.

Plans to overthrow a tiny Caribbean nation had been in the works since 1979. This is the year that Wolfgang Droege first met Mike Purdue, a longtime Klansman whose brainchild it was to overthrow the nation of Grenada and use it for their own interests. They met through then Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, who would also play a major role in orchestrating the failed "Bayou of Pigs" although he was never charged.

By 1980 the target had moved from Grenada to the island of Dominica, and former prime minister Patrick John had become involved. John had been defeated in 1979 by Eugenia Charles, primarily due to charges that he was planning to build an oil refinery which would be a boondoggle for South African economic interests.

David Duke arranged for a boat to take the would be revolutionaries to Dominica. In February of 1981, however, the captain and crew of the boat backed out. In desperation Purdue turned to Viet Nam war veteran Michael Howell, informing the boat captain that his vessel was need for a covert CIA operation.

Suspicious, Howell notified the ATF, putting into motion the sequence of events that would ultimately lead to the arrest of the group. ATF agents embedded themselves with the group and when the mercenaries loaded up in their van to head to the New Orleans marina on the 27^th of April three ATF agents were among them.

The operation was in jeopardy even before the arrest of the 10 on April 27^th, 1981. Patrick John had travelled to Dominica ahead of the others in hopes of raising up resistance forces. They would then rendevous with the others on the 27^th before invading the island. On the 25^th of April, though, John was arrested.

Duke, Purdue and the others knew of John's arrest but insisted that the invasion go on as planned. By this time, though, the entire plan had been exposed and the expedition was a disaster.

Don Black, Wolfgang Droege and the other mercenaries all received prison sentences between one and three years. Droege's time in prison led to the collapse of the white supremacist movement in Canada. The only other major supremacist in Canada following his arrest was Don Andrews, who had initially been involved in the plot but had dropped out when the target changed from Grenada to Dominica, and his own group withered in its already minimal position. Andrews was also the first person in Canada to be convicted for spreading hate speech.

Several other men and women associated with the plot were also arrested, including four Canadians. David Duke was brought before a grand jury, plead the 5^th amendment and was never charged. He continues to spread his racial vision on the Internet, as does Don Black who is co-founder and webmaster of white supremacist web site Stormfront (which features the writings of Duke, among others).

Wolfgang Droege continued working with many racist and white supremacist groups, including the Aryan Nation. He became involved with the Reform Party of Canada but was kicked out in 1993 due to revelations of his ties with racist organizations. In 2005 he was found shot dead in his apartment in a Toronto suburb. He was killed by Keith Deroux, who was sentenced with ten years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.