Sugar industry pays homage the ‘Leonora Heroine’
–who laid down her life in the name of justice

THE inspiration that was the sacrifice of Kowsilla, who died in peaceful protest 50 years ago, for the recognition of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and political justice, was remembered yesterday.

Many turned out to salute her memory and, braving a brief shower of rain, marched, attired in shirts emblazoned with Kowsilla’s photo, from Leonora Primary School, beginning at 07:00 hrs, to her burial place at the Anna Catherina Cemetery, on West Coast of Demerara.
A simple wreath-laying ceremony followed the march and many tributes were paid to Kowsilla, hailed as a working-class heroine.

GAWU President Komal Chand, one of those who paid tribute to her, said Kowsilla set an example, and that her sacrifice and struggle were not in vain.
According to him, her death was one of many incidents of struggle in the sugar belt for workers’ rights.
“It was a long struggle,” Chand acknowledged, noting that GAWU was, finally, recognised after a fight spanning more than 30 years.
Chairman of Region Three (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), Julius Faeber, in his remarks, pointed out that 50 years later, the stance Kowsilla took for justice still resonates.

Better off
“Our workers are now better off,” he admitted, adding: “They have better pay and better working conditions…we are celebrating the life of a great person.”
Representing the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C), Hydar Ally said commemorating Kowsilla’s 50th death anniversary is a milestone when “brutality and oppression” characterised the nature of the system.
Ally called, too, for Kowsilla’s death to be remembered in the context of both her struggle and the historical perspective.

“The PPP was inspired by her,” he admitted.
Kowsilla was an executive member of the Leonora Branch of the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO) and its General Secretary, Indra Chandarpal reminded the gathering that the late former President, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, described the history of sugar as one of “blood, sacrifice and struggle” for all those in the belt.
“We who inherited her legacy are proud,” Chandarpal said.

Mostly women
On March 6, 1964, Kowsilla, also known as Alice, was among scores of mostly women, who were standing on a bridge of the Leonora Estate sugar factory in protest, when a tractor was driven, by a strike breaking scab, over the mother of four and sole breadwinner of her family.
Born in 1920, she was killed when her body was severed in two. Felix Ross, the driver who drove the tractor, was subsequently acquitted.
The offspring of poor and hardworking parents, this strong-willed woman from Seafield, Leonora, was a huckster but was actively involved in the fight for liberation from colonial oppression and the imposition, by an expatriate, of a company union on the sugar workers.
Kowsilla paid the ultimate price by displaying the highest order of resistance for her belief in adequate wage for adequate work.
Representatives of the Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO), the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG), other fraternal organisations and five of GAWU’s branches were among those who participated in yesterday’s ceremony.

(By Vanessa Narine)