She dedicated her entire life to the service of country
Former prime minister Dame Eugenia Charles, who developed a reputation so tough that she was known as the "Iron Lady of the Caribbean," has died. She was 86. Charles, founder of the Dominica Freedom Party, died on Tuesday at a hospital on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, where she had been taken for treatment of a broken hip, Dr Bernard Yankey, a longtime associate, said Wednesday on state-owned radio station DBS. Charles served as prime minister from 1980-95 and became widely known when she stood beside US President Ronald Reagan on the White House steps on October 25, 1983, while he announced the invasion of Grenada. She faced strong criticism for supporting the US invasion, but told The Associated Press in a 1995 interview that "The Grenadians wanted it, and that’s all that counts. I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks." Dominican prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit of the rival Labour Party praised Charles for dedicating her "entire life to the service of the country" as he directed flags to be lowered to half-mast throughout the island. The country would honour her with an official state funeral, he said. Lennox Honeychurch, who had served as her press secretary, said Charles inspired both strong opposition and extreme loyalty. "She was a no nonsense person and this put her very often in conflict with members of her own cabinet," Honeychurch said. Mary Eugenia Charles was born May 15, 1919, in the village of Pointe Michel, the youngest of four children of John-Baptiste and Josephine Charles. Despite humble origins, her father amassed a small fortune buying, cultivating and reselling land. Her father founded a cooperative bank for peasants and eventually became mayor of Roseau, the capital, and a legislator. She graduated from the University of Toronto and studied at the London School of Economics before returning home to become a lawyer in 1949. Charles practised law for a couple of decades before the ruling Labour Party passed a law banning criticism of government, which she labelled the "shut-your-mouth bill." The measure prompted her entry into politics, she said later. After forming the Freedom Party, she was elected an assemblywoman. She retired from politics after her second term in 1995. Charles, who had said she never met anyone she wanted to marry, lived with her father until he died in 1983 at the age of 107. She is survived by two brothers.
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"She dedicated her entire life to the service of country"