THE People’s Progressive Party (PPP), in collaboration with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), held a wreath-laying ceremony on Friday in memory of the five Enmore Martyrs, who were killed 75 years ago.

Rambarran, Pooran, Lallabagee, Surajballi, and Harry lost their lives at Plantation Enmore, East Coast Demerara, on June 16, 1948, while fighting for better wages and working and living conditions.

The simple but significant wreath-laying ceremony was held in the Le Repentir Cemetery where their remains are buried. Their relatives were among those in attendance.

GAWU Vice-President Harvey Tambron, in his remarks, said: “This history-making struggle which took place 75 years ago was another major landmark in a list of several major struggles in the sugar industry, whose workers were violently suppressed.

“Such is the sordid history of foreign colonial ownership in the industry whose primary concern was profits made by the labourers who lived a life of misery and had to face mercilessly brutality in their many-sided struggles. Though the Enmore workers were specific, it cannot be delinked from the workers need for deep-seated changes to their abominable working conditions, their poor wages, their cramped inhuman living quarters, and the miserable environmental conditions that were then prevalent in those days.”

Further, he said: “We are, once again, reminded that the brutal repression of 1948 did not daunt the workers nor dampen their spirit. These struggles took place side by side with other struggles to improve wages and working conditions throughout the industry and for other workers.”

Every year, on June 16, family members, PPP and GAWU officials and others would visit the tombs to pay tribute to the slain sugar workers. Traditionally, red-coloured clothing is worn.

Based on the historical facts, striking workers had gathered outside the factory at the Enmore Sugar Estate on the day in question. The management of the estate in those times requested police protection because of the growing crowds.

It is said that confrontations arose between police and the protesters, who tried to enter the factory compound. Subsequently, the police opened fire on the workers, killing the five and injuring at least 14 others.

Furthermore, on June 17, protesters from sugar estates marched from Plantation Enmore to the Le Repentir Cemetery next to the hearses carrying the bodies of the five slain sugar workers.