– Donald Ramotar
GENERAL Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Mr. Donald Ramotar has said, in light of the new challenges facing sugar, sacrifices must be made by all involved in the industry.

Speaking to the Guyana Chronicle, during an interview at the party’s Freedom House headquarters, in Robb Street, Georgetown, last week Monday, he observed that it is already 61 years since the June 16, 1948 incident at Enmore, when five young sugar workers were shot and killed.

“I think they have become martyrs in our struggles because what occurred on June 16, 1948 represented a junction in the history of our country in the sense that there were many struggles of workers that were taking shape,” Ramotar said.

He mentioned the strikes by bauxite workers at Mackenzie and transport workers and added: “Then the sugar workers, who started their struggle first, as an economic struggle to protest against the changing of the system of work from ‘cut and drop’ to ‘cut and load’.”

Ramotar said that latter struggle developed into one for industrial democracy, to have a union of their choice and further on it became a struggle for independence.

He said the call for independence was because the attitude of the colonial powers at that time forced to the forefront the question of political independence.

Ramotar said it is one of the most significant as the independence struggle can possibly be dated back to that period of time when it really started in earnest for independence of this country.

According to him, sugar workers have had many other epic struggles:

“Many of the demands that the Enmore Martyrs struck for and died for have been achieved, not all at once, but through other struggles of the workers,” he stated.

Ramotar pointed out that Guyana attained Independence some 18 years after the Enmore incident, adding: “The workers now have, in law, the right to elect a union of their choice to represent them.”

Maintaining that industrial democracy has advanced, he said: “The nature of the industry has changed generally. It is no longer owned by foreign private capitalists. It is State owned, owned by the people of our country and many of the other struggles that they have carried out have been achieved.”

“Therefore, I think, today in commemorating the memory of those who died at that time, I think that we should all struggle to further entrench our democratic process that we have had in this country. To entrench it and make it irreversible,” he said.

Ramotar said most of what the workers fought for then have been achieved but the industry is now facing new challenges.

“From the price cuts aboard next year, the industry would lose about $9 billion, because of the price cuts outside of our country and, therefore, I do not think that this could be ignored and, in order to try to improve and strengthen the industry, sacrifices have to be made by all involved in it,” he reiterated.

“I would think that the sugar workers, who would also be asked to make sacrifices like everyone else in the industry, should also call for more say in the management of the industry, to be more aware, at every level, to have a presence in the management of the industry.

“So that they can advance their cause and they can have all the information necessary of what is taking place in the industry… so that they can be aware and be rational and reasonable in some of the demands that they will make,” he emphasised.

On June 16, 1948 Colonial Police shot and killed five sugar workers – Lallabajee, Pooran, Harry, Surujballi and Rambarran – while 14 others were wounded.

The five brave sugar workers who made the supreme sacrifice to secure better conditions of work from their employers were also fighting for recognition of Guyana Industrial Workers Union (GIWU), the forerunner of Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU).