In a message to mark Enmore Martyrs Day, the IAC said the martyrs have “gained immortality by resisting their oppressors and have denounced all those who peddle the pernicious myth of Indian docility.”

The full text of the message is published below:

“The Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) salutes the memory of the Enmore Martyrs who were brutally murdered by the Colonial Police Force on June 16, 1948.

The IAC wishes to remind all Guyanese that in early 1948, the plantocracy unilaterally changed the system of work from cut-and-drop to cut-and-load in an attempt to speed up the cane cutters and make redundant the punt loaders.

This action led to a four-and-a-half month strike affecting eight sugar estates on the East Coast of Demerara and resulted in the shooting of sugar workers at the rear of the sugar factory at Plantation Enmore in which Hari, Lallabagee, Pooran, Rambarran and Surujballi were killed and 12 others injured.

The IAC recognises that the struggle waged by the Enmore Martyrs and their comrades really highlighted the extreme levels of exploitation and oppression accompanied by violence and brutality which persisted after the abolition of the indentureship system in 1920 and which were perpetrated by the planter class which had as its ally, the Colonial Administration and its coercive arm the Colonial Police Force which was led by the white officers and which was created in 1839 to suppress not only the freed slaves but also the newly arrived indentured labourers.

The IAC recognises also that the Enmore incident was a landmark event in the history of Guyana for out of it emanated the graveside pledge by Dr. Cheddi Bharat Jagan, who was personally acquainted with all the martyrs and the injured and who led the massive funeral procession for 16 miles from Enmore to Georgetown, that he would dedicate his entire life to the struggle of the Guyanese people against bondage and exploitation.