A GINA news bulletin said wreaths were laid and tributes paid to the fallen sugar workers who had their lives snuffed out by the bullets of colonial Police, while agitating for better working conditions for themselves and others.

Prime Minister Sam Hinds laid the first wreath on behalf of the State and was followed by relatives of the slain and representatives of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and its Enmore branch, Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO), Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO) and Rice Producers’ Association (RPA).

GINA said, despite the heavy downpour of rain, the ceremony in the Georgetown burial ground was well attended.

The day’s programme at the graveside began after a procession from Square of the Revolution and included religious prayers, a minute of silence in honour of the dead and addresses by Mr Seepaul Narine of GAWU and Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Ms Bibi Shadick.

Narine said GAWU regarded the deaths of the martyrs as the ultimate sacrifice.

While the union, as the major representative of a recognised bargaining agent for the nation’s sugar workers, does not wish to impose the concept and virtue of sacrifice on people who have endured struggle for most of their lives, he noted that “our forefathers suffered on our plantations”.

“Our grandparents endured the ignominies of colonialism and imperialism,” he lamented.

Narine said, even after independence, Guyanese did not enjoy the good life, despite all the country’s resources and human potential.

He pointed to the sacrifices of Cuffy, Damon, heroes of numerous other sugar disputes, Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, Kowsilla and Dr Cheddi Jagan, saying they have imbued the workers with a sense of resilience and determination to overcome.

Shadick, in the feature address, said it is sad to see the seeds of disunity being sown by selfish interest groups, seeds of unreasonable dissension to undermine national cohesion and attempt to destabilise the Government.

She said the escalation of crime and the holding up of bandits as heroes can have “a negative and deadening effect on the young impressionable minds” and threats, intimidation and callous attacks on innocent, hard-working, law-abiding workers would seriously disrupt normal productive relations among various groups.