THE future of a nation is circumscribed, to a large extent, by incidents of the past, but it is the will and the spirit of the people that determine whether they will allow their past to constrain and constrict their development trajectory, or whether to let the historic synergies of struggle impel an impetus of cataclysmic ferocity in their upward mobility that will optimize and ultimately culminate in a peaceful and prosperous nation.
It is within this context that the saga of the Enmore Martyrs should be viewed.  Circumstances dictate the imperatives of the day, and it was man-driven circumstances that constrained 1200 labourers from the sugar plantations of Enmore, Non Pariel, Lusignan, Mon Repos, La Bonne Intention, Vryheid’s Lust, and Ogle to collaborate in fighting to change the subjective and oppressive construct of their working environment on April 22, 1948, initially through strikes, subsequently through passive resistance to domineering forces, which culminated in Guyanese policemen, heeding the directive of the Colonial authorities, firing on the striking workers on June 15, 1948, killing five and injuring several others.
On June 16, 1948, Lance Corporal 4403 James led his six-man party of policemen to the Enmore Estate at 04:00 hrs (4 am), where he reported to the factory manager, B.H. Payne.
At 05:00 hrs (5 am) striking sugar workers, including the five who were later killed, arrived and blocked scabs from entering the working sites of the estate.
Payne’s contingent was joined at 07:00 hrs (7 am) by Superintendent Roberts and a lorry-load of police reinforcements.  At 10 am, when the orders of the police for the crowd to disperse was ignored, but instead prompted a convergence into the compound, one Corporal James gave the command to shoot, with dire consequences, leaving a blot on his name in the history of our country for all time to come.
In their defence, the police claimed that only ten shots were fired, yet five men were killed, with another fourteen wounded.  The police claimed they shot at an advancing crowd, yet most of the men received injuries in their backs, including one who died.  Several eyewitnesses testified to men and women being shot at while they were fleeing, with one receiving a bullet while he was scaling a fence to escape the police.
The pro-Colonial Boland Commission of Enquiry, which attempted to downplay the incident, was forced to conclude “…We are, however, of the opinion that the evidence has established that, after the first few shots, there was firing which went beyond the requirements of the situation, with the result that Pooran noticeably, and some others received bullets when in actual flight….”
In honour of their resilience and courage in the face of imperialist domination and oppression, the five slain sugar workers were given the status of the ‘Enmore Martyrs’ by the Continental Conference of the National Affiliates of the World Peace council, which was held in Bogota, Colombia from 4 – 7 June, 1976.
Subsequently, a monument honouring the sacrifice of the Enmore martyrs – Rambarran, Pooran, Lallabagee Kissoon, Surujballi and Harri, was erected at Plantation Enmore on the East Coast of Demerara, to which, in symbolic homage to all Guyana’s struggles by national heroes and martyrs, an annual commemorative event is held, with wide participation by several heads of organizations, trade union bodies, and Government functionaries, as well as relatives and other stakeholders.  This year’s commemorative activity will commence this afternoon from around 16:00 hrs with a packed programme that includes an address by President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The heroic Enmore five had joined a long line of martyrs who had opposed the tyrannical overlords in their quest for justice and equity in their working environment.  In 1872, five workers were killed at Devonshire Castle; in 1879 five more were slain at Non Pariel, eight were killed at Friends in 1903; two more, one at Friends and one at Lusignan, were killed in 1912; fifteen were killed at Rose Hall in 1913; thirteen were slain at Ruimveldt in 1924, while four were killed at Leonora in 1939.
These murders were preceded by horrifying slaying of slaves who sought their freedom from forced labour by the colonials; but what made the Enmore tragedy stand out in stark delineation in Guyana’s history is that the struggle that precipitated the killing of the five had been joined by the young and idealistic couple, Dr. Cheddi and Mrs. Janet Jagan, and the horror of the heedless and wanton slaying of poor workers who were merely agitating for their rights was the catalyst for Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s promise to dedicate his entire life to the struggles of the Guyanese people for justice and equity.
Dr. Jagan’s militancy for the rights of the working class, his subsequent entry into the Legislative Council, and the formation of the Political Affairs Committee, which was the forerunner of the People’s Progressive Party, led to a cessation of slayings of the workforce by the plantocracy. The Guiana Industrial Workers’ Union (GIWU), which was formed in 1947, and which provided dynamic representation for the workforce, also contributed to the changing dynamics of the industrial climate.
The Guyana Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) massively defeated the toothless poodle of the colonials, the Man Power Citizen’s Association (MPCA), in 1975 and since then sugar workers’ representation has assumed a dynamic that has enshrined over the years rights and privileges of the sugar workers consistent, and sometimes superseding, with working class people worldwide.
Those who seek to re-write the history of this country and belittle the contributions of the Father and Mother of this nation deserve to be despised for the scum that they are, because the Jagans provided the dynamism in leadership that transformed an entire nation, because they fought from the frontlines – and suffered the consequences; but they persevered and endured indignities, imprisonment, injustice of every kind.
They never gave up and, true to his promise, Dr. Jagan fought his entire life, with his loyal lifelong partner at his side, against all the oppressive forces to finally put Guyana and Guyanese on a road that they can travel toward a goal of eventual prosperity.