Dear Editor
THE Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) salutes the fifteen (15) sugar workers who met their deaths one hundred and three (103) years ago, on March 13, 1913, at Rose Hall Estate, and who have today become known as the Rose Hall Martyrs.The horrific incident is one of the ugliest reminders of British colonialism, and is another manifestation of the brutal conditions our forefathers had to contend with. Removed from this landmark event by over 100 years, we nevertheless get a grasp of what was at the root of the riot and killing from the work of researcher and author Basdeo Mangru. The turn of the 20th century saw a spike of work stoppages and strikes in the estates, as workers grew more active in resisting their oppressive conditions or in attempts by Managers to deprive them of things they were already receiving; which in those times seriously impacted their lives.

The problems and issues on the Estates were accumulating, and resistance, as a consequence, was increasing. Ten (10) years before the Rose Hall incident, Mangru wrote, another major incident took place at Friends Estate, where several workers were killed. The issue was a demand for a wage increase.

At Rose Hall in 1913, we learn what triggered off the workers’ protests was the reneging by Manager James Smith of a promise of four days of additional holidays to workers, due to their positive and encouraging work performance. This retreat, it seems, came at a time when discontent was rife. It ignited an obviously combustible situation, which quickly deteriorated. One action led to a counter-action, eventually leading to the shooting of the workers by the State’s police.

Fifteen (15) persons lost their lives, including a woman, Gobindei, and a police corporal. Significantly, too, researcher Mangru wrote that this riot was raised in the Legislature of India by the Indian nationalists, who used this horrifying act to strengthen the call to end the indentureship system.

The GAWU, though established much later after this barbaric event, recognises the struggles and sacrifices of generations of sugar workers, whose contribution have brought about many changes in workers’ living and working conditions.

At this time, we, of GAWU, specifically give recognition and pay tribute to those who fell at Plantation Rose Hall. They left a legacy which runs through the veins of the contemporary workforce of the sugar industry.

This anniversary, furthermore, affords us the platform to remember with fondness and pride those who also courageously fought and heroically fell in the struggles in other plantations in other parts of the country.

These fallen workers remind us that sugar’s history is enriched by the struggles, sacrifices, and the sweat and blood of the working class. That spirit has been kept alive over decades, and survives to this day in the industry.

We accuse colonialism and the plantocracy system it sustained for these brutal deaths. In this event, we see that the owner class will stop at no crime to protect its property and profit. But the workers sacrifices were not in vain. In the time that has elapsed since this historic event at Rose Hall Estate, the workers in the industry, and the industry itself, have advanced in several ways. It is therefore regrettable that attempts are constantly being made to roll back hard won gains in the industry.

Increasingly, sugar workers find themselves engaged in actions to defend their rights and interests against our homegrown bureaucrats and their hirelings.
Our times, in many ways, differ from the era in which the Rose Hall Martyrs lived. Conditions are not the same, and the demands we make are different, yet continue to revolve around the fight for decent and rising wages and better working conditions. Indeed, such is the struggle before the workers in Guyana and the world over.
And while demanding on one hand, these class struggles hold out the promise of further achievements, and significant social changes in the future.

Many years have gone by since that fateful period when the workers from Rose Hall were killed. We pay respect 103 years later to their memory. They dared to challenge the existing socio-economic order for a better day. But improvement is a constant feature of our existence; and in our day, a new generation continues to raise its voice and make fresh demands for all-round improvements.

In our fight of today, we also remember past battles and those like the Rose Hall Martyrs, who have been the victims of colonial plunder and exploitation.
History’s lessons should not be forgotten, lest workers lower their vigilance and succumb to disunity, to their detriment. Workers’ struggles have not come to a close. Indeed, their struggles continue, but in a different context and in different circumstances than what faced the Rose Hall Martyrs.
Regards,
GUYANA AGRICULTURAL AND GENERAL WORKERS UNION (GAWU)