Paying tribute to the Enmore Martyrs holds a special place in the yearly calendar of events of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU). Sugar workers, Rambarran, Lall known as Pooran, Lallabagee Kissoon, Surujballi and Harry were cut down mercilessly by the Colonial State’s agents in a struggle to improve their working conditions and better their lives. There killing is another reminder of colonial repression of those who stood up against injustices and to bring some relief to their exploitation by the foreign owners of the plantations.
This history making struggle which took place seventy (70) years ago was another major landmark in a list of several major struggles in the sugar industry whose workers were violently suppressed. Such is the sordid history of foreign colonial ownership in the industry whose primary concern was profits made by the labourers who lived a life of misery and had to face mercilessly brutality in their many-sided struggles. Though the Enmore workers were specific, it cannot be delinked from the workers need for deep-seated changes to their abominable working conditions, their poor wages, their cramped inhuman living quarters, and the miserable environmental conditions that were then prevalent in those days.
The brutal killing of the Enmore Martyrs stirred indignation among many patriotic Guyanese. The incident inspired young Cheddi Jagan and others to form the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) out of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) which was established in 1946. Dr Jagan himself who was deeply moved by the massacre that took place pledged that he would dedicate his entire life to the cause of the struggle of the Guyanese people against bondage and exploitation.
We mark with deep reverence the Enmore Martyrs and that significant workers’ struggle so that we are ever reminded that every achievement was the result of workers struggles and have not come from charitable offerings by the foreign owners. Indeed, the days of the rule of the plantocracy are gone but our vigilance must remain as new challenges and threats are today before us.
As we pay tribute to the Martyrs we cannot fail to reflect on the sugar industry and the anxieties and despair that hover over the heads of workers throughout the sugar belt. It is disheartening for us in spite of the very good prospects for the industry’s viability, the Administration stubbornly pressed ahead, disregarding the dire consequences, with its plans to minimize the industry. The sad and disturbing reality, at this time, is that the Government has pushed thousands of ordinary, hardworking, decent Guyanese into a life of desperation and, possibly, depravity. The cutting down of the industry is not the direction that our country should be pursuing. This is a path that will lead to greater hardships for our people and country.
At this time, the plight that has befallen many of our colleague workers and their families with the closure of Skeldon, Rose Hall, East Demerara and Wales Estates should be recalled. We are sure that those who go heartlessly brought untold hardships to their lives will not be forgotten or forgiven now or in history. The sugar industry and its workforce have a pivotal place in our country’s economic life. We urge the authorities not to disregard this. We urge them not to continue letting down the working people.
As we face new challenges today, new workers struggles are taking place. It is fitting, therefore, in such circumstances to reflect on and draw inspiration from the 1948 Enmore workers struggles.
