THE Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) is calling on  all Guyanese, especially those of Indian origin, to remember the fifty-six sugar workers comprising indentured and free labourers as well as one policeman, who were shot by members of the then British Guiana Police Force at Rose Hall Estate, East Canje, Berbice on Thursday, March 13, 1913.

The Force was then under the direct command of Inspector General George Castriot De Rinzy (1865-1913).
In the meantime, the IAC is also calling on the PPP/C Government to officially dedicate a monument to these 16 Rose Hall Estate Martyrs of 1913 and also to develop the burial site in Canefield, Canje, into a National Heritage Memorial Park as soon as possible.
The IAC said in a press statement that it recognizes the martyrdom of fifteen slain sugar workers and also the sacrificed life of Corporal James Ramsay, who was opportunistically shot and killed by “friendly fire”, in the largest ever massacre that occurred on a Guianese sugar estate during the twentieth century.
Of the fifteen sugar workers who died, the IAC noted that nine were killed on the spot while six others died in the New Amsterdam hospital, eleven died on March 13, three died on March 14 and one on March 15. The statement added that Corporal James Ramsay died on March 13.
The IAC said further that it recognizes the following fifteen martyred sugar workers:  (1)Sadulla, aged 23, indentured labourer; (2)Sarjoo, aged 21, indentured labourer; (3) Roopan, age 25, indentured labourer; (4) Badri, age 26, indentured labourer; (5)Hulas, age 25, indentured labourer; (6) Motey Khan, aged 26, indentured labourer; (7) Gafur, age 27, indentured labourer; (8) Sohan, aged 33, indentured labourer; (9) Bholay, age 33 indentured labourer; (10) Juggoo, age 37, indentured labourer; (11) Gobindei, age 32, free labourer; (12) Lalji, age 45, free labourer; (13) Jugai, aged 30, free labourer; (14) Durga, aged 52, free labourer; and (15) Nibur, aged 42, free labourer.
According to the IAC, the policemen, who were armed with rifles, brutally and indiscriminately fired their weapons at the large gathering of indentured and free labourers who were lightly armed with stones, bottles and a few sticks and who were massed to defend their leaders for whom arrest warrants were issued.
The IAC stated that it also understands that a hand- to- hand physical struggle between Motey Khan and Corporal James Ramsay resulted in both of them falling into the punt trench where the struggle continued. This was the excuse sought for and used by Colonel De Rinzy to open fire, resulting in the shooting of 57 persons with 100 bullets.
In his magisterial work, “A History of the Guyanese Sugar Working People, 1881-1905”, Dr. Walter Rodney, who was himself martyred during the dictatorship of the PNC, described De Rinzy as one “who was to achieve long–lasting notoriety as a trigger-happy police officer” whose squad had shot and killed five indentured labourers and wounded fifty-four others at Plantation Non Pareil in 1896, the IAC recalled.
Moreover, the IAC noted that it firmly believes that Colonel DeRinzy, a native of Great Britain, in the classic strategy of divide –and-conquer, calculatingly, made the decision to shoot and kill Corporal James Ramsey, a policeman of African origin, and then blame his death on the East Indian workers, as is reflected in the report of the Coroner, Mr. Herbert K. M. Sisnett, which was published in the January-June edition of the Official Gazette of British Guiana for the year 1913.
“In this belief the IAC considers Corporal James Ramsey to be a martyr whose death must be commemorated along with the 15 Rose Hall Estate workers who died in March 1913,” the statement declared.