The Enmore Martyrs
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
June 16, 2004
GUYANESE are commemorating Enmore Martyrs’ Day today, reflecting on the shooting to death of five sugar workers after police opened fire on a crowd of 500 plus workers approaching the locked premises of Enmore Sugar Factory on Wednesday, June 16, 1948.
There are conflicting accounts of the fatal incident in that East Coast Demerara village, 24 kilometers or 15 miles east of Georgetown.
One is that the workers were shot upon on the orders of the estate management as they approached the factor, peacefully demonstrating their objection to a condition that had been imposed on cane cutters, or cane harvesters, three years earlier.
The other account is that the workers, armed with weapons, were storming the estate against the warnings of the six police officers who had been brought from Georgetown and that the police, fearing for their lives, opened fire in self-defence.
Trade unionists and politicians alike wouldn’t be drawn into an argument about which account is plausible. What is significant, they contend, is what brought about the strike and demonstration in the first place – the unnecessarily harsh working conditions under which the cane cutters were forced to toil – and how that incident kindled the struggle for humane labour conditions on the country’s sugar plantations and all workplaces in general.
According to career diplomat and historian, Dr. Odeen Ishmael, that single event – the deaths of Lallabagee Kissoon, 30, shot in the back; 19-year-old Pooran, shot in the leg and pelvis; Rambarran, who died from bullet wounds in his leg; Dookhie, who died in hospital later that day; and Harry, who died the following day from severe spinal injuries – changed Guyana’s sociopolitical destiny forever.
“The tragedy and the ultimate sacrifice of these sugar workers greatly influenced Dr. (Cheddi) Jagan’s political philosophy and outlook. On the grave side of the Enmore Martyrs surrounded by thousands of mourners, he made a silent pledge that he would dedicate his entire life to the cause of the struggle of the Guyanese people against bondage and exploitation.”
That Dr. Jagan did. And Guyanese workers are the better for it.
Dr. Jagan, wife Janet and other leaders of the Political Affairs Committee and of Guyana Industrial Workers’ Union, precursor of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), formed the People’s Progressive Party in January of 1950 and set about transforming conditions in the Guyanese labour force.
The struggle isn’t over, of course. On-going union/employer conflicts underscore employee discontent with conditions in the workplace, prompting trade unions to agitate for higher wages and salaries and other work-related remuneration and better safety and health conditions for their members.
But we have come a mighty long way from what obtained in 1948 and we owe it to the Enmore Martyrs, the 14 other workers who were injured in that June 16 shooting, and the 500 to 600 workers who showed up at the factory gate against all odds, for making the ultimate sacrifice from we are all benefiting today.