This is influenced by the just – concluded annual June 16 pilgrimage to the Georgetown Cemetery gravesite of and the Monument to the Enmore Martyrs by Guyana’s labour leaders, politicians and workers (in the sugar sector, especially).
Enmore Martyrs? Enmore is the former Sugar Plantation village on the East Coast, sixteen miles from Guyana’s capital, Georgetown. It is now a thriving hub of mainly Guyanese of Indian descent, boasting much commercial activity inclusive of the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s new Packaging Plant, but it is also home to a monument honoring the fallen five sugar workers gunned down by colonial police during the now historic June 1948 protest.
Martyrs? Now just who are “martyrs”? Definitions abound for the word “martyr”. But in Guyana, as with many other sensitive and politicized, historical issues and contexts, the word, the description has been made to suit respective groups’ causes and preferences. So if you have “Enmore” and “Ballot Box” Martyrs, there must be (Afro-Guyana’s) “1823” and “Son Chapman” martyrs too. After all, Al Queda and The Taliban describe their fallen rebel-dead as “martyrs” also.
So were the five striking sugar-workers of Enmore, engaged in aggressive industrial protest on 16th June 1948, truly martyrs? As they are now deemed historically in the Guyana context?
Do LALLABAGEE, SURUJBALLIE, RAMBARRAN AND POORAN qualify to be martyrs against all the foregoing contexts and meanings?
I use only these criteria to justify their status: “refusing to renounce a belief or cause” – they rejected the Sugar Barons’ and Plantation managers’ policy and instructions about the new cut-and-load system in the cane fields; they refused to abandon their cause(s) in terms of general working conditions and clung to their belief that they were not being represented in a fair and just manner; “one who brings a witness or testimony, whether or not death followed” – by their withdrawal of their labour, their demonstrations and demands, these criteria support their after-life status; as “heroes”, “killed by their opponents” the Enmore Five who suffered death must have their ultimate sacrifice recognized as martyrdom.
There are now reasonable reminders that the Enmore Five: Lallabagee, Surujballie, Rambarran, Harry and Pooran, were not the only Sugar workers gunned down by the British (Guyana) plantocracy during demonstrations for their rights.
Indeed, in 1872, five workers were killed at Devonshire Castle; in 1879, five at Non-Pariel; in 1903, eight at Friends: in 1912, one at Friends and one at Lusignan; in 1913, fifteen at Rose Hall. After indentureship, thirteen were killed at Ruimveldt in 1924 and four at Lenora in 1939. Their sacrifice was no less than the Enmore Five.
But Enmore has held historic centre stage simply because of what Dr. Cheddi Jagan decided at the Enmore grave site. Comrade Komal Chand, President of the GAWU likes to remind the Guyanese nation that “Dr. Cheddi Jagan in writing about the incident said that “The Enmore tragedy affected me greatly. I was personally acquainted with all the young men killed and injured. The funeral procession, which was led by my wife, other leaders and myself to the city 16 miles away, became a tremendous mass protest demonstration. At the graveside the emotional outbursts of the widows and relatives of the deceased had been intensely distressing, and I could only with difficulty restrain my tears. There was to be no turning back. There and then I made a silent pledge – I would dedicate my entire life to the cause of the struggle of the Guyanese people against bondage and exploitation.”
Reverend Dale Bisnauth, a former Minister of Labour, wrote: “the fingers that triggered the deaths of Harry, Lallbagee, Surujballi, Rambarran and Pooran unwittingly triggered the movement for the country’s independence from imperial rule and colonial exploitation.”
That is the significance of Enmore!
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