Today, observances are being held to commemorate the death of the Enmore Martyrs and sometime later this month the usual inter-faith service will be held to mark the anniversary of the death of world-renowned historian and political activist Dr Walter Rodney.
Earlier in the day, there was a march to Le Repentir Cemetery to the grave sites of the five sugar workers whom the colonial police gunned down, some even while they were fleeing the scene at Enmore Estate on June 16, 1948. The slain workers were Rambarran, Lall called Pooran, Lallabagie, Surujbally and Harry.
The death anniversary of these "martyrs" passes relatively unnoticed these days. Whatever the motive behind their action, the PNC administration mobilised for the event at which presentations were made by leading members of the government, some of whom had crossed the floor to join it such as Ranji Chandisingh and Vincent Teekah. Of course, their activities were mirrored by the PPP and Current Affairs has learnt that a former PPP trade union stalwart who had also deserted the ranks of the PPP was relied on by the PNC to identify and motivate relatives of the "martyrs" to participate in their observations.
For five men who had given so much in the struggle for the improvement of the conditions of workers, Working People's Alliance member Desmond Trotman believes that enough is not being done to perpetuate their memory.
And with respect to Rodney, he said that unless his party paid for an advertisement of its annual church service, no mention is made of the event either in the Stabroek News or the Guyana Chronicle. But he said that both newspapers did carry special articles to mark the twentieth anniversary of his death in 2000.
In 1993, a fund was started to carry out activities that would perpetuate his work and memory but according to Trotman the response from the public was not as expected. However, he said that the Walter Rodney Institute has been providing bursaries to school children and has given $25,000 annually to 12 secondary school children in the two years since the scheme was started to assist with the purchase of text books and school uniforms. The awardees are students at secondary schools around the country including those at Cove and John, Leonora, Stewartville, Aishalton and Buxton.
He explained that the parents of the recipients are required to submit their annual reports in a timely manner and to monitor the performance of their children at school and the children are required to maintain a fairly high standard of performance. However, he says that the Institute does take into consideration factors beyond the control of the students that impact negatively on their performance.
Trotman said the Walter Rodney Chair of History which the present government established at the University of Guyana was to assist in the perpetuation of Rodney's scholarship and since he was appointed to it Dr Winston McGowan has been engaged in a series of lectures.
Trotman said too that the struggle of the Enmore Martyrs cannot be confined to the sugar industry and the best tribute that could be paid to them would be to provide the sugar workers and workers in general their just rewards. He said the interests of the sugar workers, for which the five paid the ultimate sacrifice, have fallen by the wayside and the government engages in a cosmetic exercise while denying real protection to the rights of workers throughout the country.
Komal Chand, the president of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers' Union (GAWU), however, is of the view that the conditions of the 1940s, especially for sugar workers, have changed tremendously for the better even though more needs to be done to improve wages and salaries. GAWU is the bargaining agent for most of the sugar workers having gained bargaining rights at a poll conducted in December 1975.
Ravi Dev, the leader of the ROAR Guyana Movement, attributes the lacklustre observance of the death anniversaries to the cynicism of the political leadership of both PPP and PNCR about death and sacrifice. He said they have used the noble of aspirations of the ordinary to improve their lot against tremendous odds to their own political advantage.
He explained that following the 1948 strike, the colonial police set up a special unit to monitor the activities of the militant unionists, which is the predecessor organisation of the 'Black Clothes' police and the 'Death Squads.' The use of every coercive measure by the present day organisations is the same as that used by the unit established immediately after the strike.
He observed too that in relation to Rodney, who was motivated by idealism, the cynicism of the leaders of the two major political parties had killed all notions of idealism he represented including that of a government of national unity and reconciliation.
However, Dev said now that the PNCR seems to have finally come around to the necessity of having such a government, it has put forward proposals which the PPP cannot just simply dismiss out of hand.
Current Affairs, in a random and unscientific poll of young people who have left school within the past ten years found that they either knew nothing or remembered very little of what they had been taught at school about the Enmore Martyrs or about Walter Rodney. Among those who remembered something about the Enmore Martyrs, very few could name at least three of them.
Their knowledge of Rodney was not much better. Even though most said he was assassinated they were unclear about the circumstances in which he died. Most did not know that he was a renowned historian, one had heard of his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and not a few recalled with certainty that he was the leader of the Working People's Alliance.
The five sugar workers, according to Tota Mangar in the History Today series, published in Stabroek News on June 12, 2003, "sacrificed their precious lives in their determined struggle to win respect from the powerful sugar bosses of the day and at the same time in the pursuance of their just efforts to obtain improved working conditions and socio-economic benefits in general."
According Mangar too, the five were slain during a strike which started on April 22, 1948 at Enmore Estate and quickly spread to all the neighbouring East Coast Demerara sugar plantations including Non Pariel, Lusignan, Mon Repos, La Bonne Intention, Vryheid's Lust, Mon Repos, and Ogle.
As the strike progressed, more workers joined it as it gained momentum.
They were killed when the police opened fire on the sugar workers who attempted to enter the estate compound. The action of the police was described by the Venn Commission, which was set up to inquire into the incident, as callous and unwarranted as it was clear that some of the workers were shot while running away and were defenceless.
Some specific conditions which they were trying to change was the "cut and load", which had replaced the "cut and drop" and made the work of the cane cutters more demanding, while at the same making the punt loaders redundant.
According to Mangar, the cut-and-load system "proved to be an extremely strenuous and hazardous operation, especially during the rainy seasons and there were cases where labourers were seriously injured."
Among other conditions, they were struggling to change were their housing accommodations, which Mangar describes as barrack-type logies that were in a state of advanced decay and dilapidation and general disrepair.
Also, he said, there was growing disenchantment with the recognised union of the day - The Man Power Citizens' Association (MPCA) led by Ayube Edun - which the workers felt was not doing enough for them and had betrayed them.
The strike was called by a relatively new union, the Guyana Industrial Workers Union (GIWU) the forerunner of GAWU, and led by Dr J P Lachmansingh, Jane Phillips-Gay and Amos Rangela. The first two were to become leading members of the Burnhamite faction of the PPP after the 1955 split; the PNC, which it was later named.
Chand said that while the strike did not bring about recognition for the GIWU or any adjustment in the working and social conditions of the workers, the commission which was set up to inquire into the shootings made a number of recommendations related to their housing and working conditions especially as regards safety; advising that there was the need for machines to be properly guarded, the provision of fresh drinking water and for protection of the women working in the back dam.
He said over the years, particularly after nationalization there have been progressive changes in the conditions of the workers, explaining that while there were some rough spots when the economy was in decline, nationalization offered better benefits to the workers. He said it was a catalyst for change in the industry as it brought a focus at the national level on the plight of the sugar workers.
However, he pointed out that sugar workers are now transported to the back dam, are provided with tools - cutlasses, files and shovels, they enjoy incentives based on production, out of crop work is provided for qualified and permanent workers and women are transported across trenches whereas before they were required to wade through.