–50 years on

FIFTY years ago, the British Governor of then British Guiana ordered the detention of 35 high-ranking political activists without any charges or trial. 
Thirty-two were from the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP); its youth arm, the Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO); and the Sugar Union, now the Guyana Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU). Heading the list

was then Deputy Premier, Brindley Benn.
Those detained and kept at Sibley Hall were (in alphabetical order):
Montaz Ali; Akbar Alli; Neville Annibourne; Desmond Beckles; Samsundar Beepat; Brindley Benn; Moses Bhagwan; Charles Christopher; Manie Copane; Dalchand; George Dipchand; Victor Downer; Nathram Durbeej; Reginald Forde; Rames George; Joseph Albert Gibbs; Eric Gilbert; Maurice Herbert; Robert Jordan; Moneer Khan; Harry Lall; Rufus Low-Chee; Winston Madramootoo; Nasrudeen; Bhola Persaud; Prakash Persaud; Leslie Premdass; Pandit Ramlall; Mohamed Safee; Desmond Shepherd; Leonard (LSH) Singh; Rambarran Singh; Vincent Teekah; Sydney Thompson; and Frank Wills.

The ruling party, last Friday at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre (Red House), held a symposium in observance of the 50th Anniversary (1964-2014) of the detention of Party leaders at Sibley Hall (now the Mazaruni Prison).
Speaking at the symposium, Philomenia Sahoye-Shury, PPP Central Committee Member, the General-Secretary at that time of the Guiana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), narrated her experience as a detainee in prison in 1964.
She expressed her concern that the country could return to the political state of the 1960s.
“Many people will not think so but when you listen to certain dignitaries, that are not Guyanese, you wonder if they are trying once more to put their foot in the business of Guyana and its people,” she contended.

DETERMINATION

According to her, if the women now have the determination she had, Guyana would be a better country. In 1960, the PPP was very strong but the British and the Americans with the help of the People’s National Congress (PNC) wanted to eradicate the PPP leader Dr. Cheddi Jagan. This resulted in reprisal beatings, destruction of property and killings and riots.
Mrs. Shury, the General-Secretary of GAWU in 1964, mentioned that since she lived on a plantation, she knew the plight of the slaves and the indentured workers. Therefore, when she became the General-Secretary of GAWU, like Dr. Jagan, she made a commitment to halt the injustice done upon the plantation labourers.
She recalled that the strike actually started after cane-cutters at Leonora were told on February 6th, 1964 by the management of the estate that there was work for only half of them. The workers begged for work to be provided for all of them, but the management refused their request. As a result, all the workers called a strike on the following day.
On 17 February 1964, GAWU called a countrywide strike to demand recognition as the bargaining agent for the country’s sugar workers. The union, backed by the PPP, was resuscitated in 1960 as the Sugar Workers’ Union before its name was officially changed. The established recognised union was the Man Power Citizens’ Association (MPCA) which was strongly anti-government but which had very little support among the sugar workers who were fiercely supportive of the PPP.
Throughout 1961, 1962 and 1963, GAWU demanded that a poll should be taken among sugar workers to determine which union should represent them, but the employers’ organisation, the Sugar Producers’ Association (SPA), in close alliance with the MPCA, firmly opposed any such action. The MPCA leadership was part and parcel of the leadership of the TUC which naturally opposed a poll among sugar workers.
The strike received overwhelming support from sugar workers and all the sugar estates were seriously affected. The workers showed their total disdain for the MPCA and bluntly refused the pleas of the leaders of that union to return to work.

RACIAL DISTURBANCES

Mrs. Sahoye-Shury explained that when faced with the serious problem of no production of sugar, the SPA began to hire scabs in the effort to break the strike. In doing so, the employers’ organisation disregarded the existing political and racial sensitivities in the sugar estates.
“At that period, the overwhelming majority of sugar workers were Indians, and supporters of the PPP. What the SPA did was to hire mainly inexperienced African cane-cutters who were generally supporters of the PNC,” she recalled.
Many of the Africans recruited to break the strike were also employed by the management of the sugar estates as “vigilantes” to protect the property of the estates from sabotage. Inevitably, violent racial clashes took place between these “vigilantes” and the Indian population residing on or near the sugar estates. Soon after, these clashes extended to other areas as well.
Violent attacks involving beatings and murders occurred mainly on the East Coast Demerara, Mahaicony, West Demerara, Wismar-Mackenzie and Georgetown, and the entire country was in a state of tension. In Georgetown, the people were brutally beaten on the streets, and some business places were looted and set on fire while government and privately-owned buildings were bombed.
She noted that while the violence was escalating, the sugar industry strike continued. Philomenia, being her feisty self, noted that then she wasn’t a good girl. “I was a bad girl… I decided that I would stop this thing from going on so I went and I found a way… as the saying goes ‘where there is will there is a way’,” she said.
One very notable incident occurred at Leonora Estate on March 6th, 1964 when a female sugar worker, Kowsilia, was killed by an African strike breaker. She and other women workers on strike were squatting on a bridge near to the factory to prevent strike breakers from crossing when the incident occurred. Fourteen other women were seriously injured. In the ensuing fracas, the police arrived on the scene and used tear gas to break up the demonstration. Kowsilia became an immediate martyr for the cause of sugar workers in their struggle for democracy in the trade union movement in Guyana.

CRITICS

The PPP Central Committee member noted that the critics of the PPP government felt that the leadership and members of GAWU were essentially PPP members and supporters, and by prolonging the strike, the PPP, through the union, was flexing its muscles against the British Government. However, it was known that the PPP could not gain political benefit from any violence in the country since such violence was destabilizing the government itself.
Mrs. Sahoye-Shury recounted the hardships she went through as a detainee. Due to the detention she was removed from her children and labeled a terrorist. She was once held at the New Amsterdam Prison for five months while facing a charge at the Springlands Court. She was later charged with three counts of sedition for alleged utterances directed at the Queen.

PPP ELECTION MACHINERY

PPP General-Secretary Clement Rohee said that Dr. Jagan’s description of the set of actions by the British Government pointed to the fact that the PPP Government was being crippled ahead of the holding of the elections later that year in December. At the same time, the objective was to cripple the election machinery of the PPP as a Party by detaining many key activists.
When the elections were held in December, the activists were still in detention, except for a few who were released earlier. The manipulations led to the imposition of the PNC-UF Coalition and the dictatorship and decay which characterised the first quarter century of Guyana’s existence as an independent country.
According to the General-Secretary, the enemy of the PPP is the same – the PNC wanted to see the back of the PPP. He questioned, “What has this party done to make the kind of enemies it continues to have?”
He recalled that in 1953, when the PPP won the elections, they were ousted from office. During those 100 days in office, the progress made in Guyana was tremendous. At that time, the party’s main focus was mainly on educational reforms since they felt that it was fundamental in order for the removal of the citizens from poverty.
“It was also geared to remove the people from the backwardness that the colonial people had the country in,” he said.
The ruling party’s general-secretary pointed out at that time the Minister of Education was Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, who became the leader of PNC.
“He was the man that was responsible to carry out those reforms and he did so because in those days everyone was progressive, everyone wanted to do something for Guyana,” he stressed.
After PPP government was ousted from office after 100 days, the party returned to office in 1957-1964.
General-Secretary Rohee pointed out that, going back into the history of the party, “we see the tremendous progress that was made in Guyana for the seven years in power.
“For those people who say that the country is not making any progress, we only have to compare where we were in the 70s and 80s to now; and recognize the progress that was being made in this country.

PROGRESS BREEDS ENEMIES

“The PPP party was founded by Dr. Cheddi Jagan to transform Guyana in order to take it forward. It is because of this the PPP has many enemies…as we all know ‘Progress breeds enemies’,” he said. Yesterday’s terrorists are today’s heroes.
From early in 1964, the British Government began a process to reduce the powers of the Guyana Government. In effect, these acts reduced the constitutional authority of the Guyana Government since they removed the powers held by the Ministers and placed them in the hands of the Governor, who by mid-1964 had become a virtual dictator.
Armed with these dictatorial powers, the Governor ordered the detention of 32 members of the PPP after accusing them of instigating the racial disturbances. Only two PNC members were put into detention, even though there was clear evidence of PNC involvement in the reign of terror, as was clearly indicated in the secret police report on the PNC Terrorist Organisation which the Governor had in his possession.

MAYHEM

According to the police records, the disturbances resulted in 176 persons killed and more than 900 persons seriously injured. More than 1,425 buildings were destroyed by arson, and about 15,000 persons (from 2,600 families) were displaced and they subsequently re-settled in areas where their race group was in the majority. The long-term result of these disturbances was that they increased racial polarisation in the country.

( By Sandy Agasen)