President honours Rose Hall Estate martyrs

Mar 28, 2013 News

By Leon Suseran
The 15 lives that were lost on March 13, 1913 at Rose Hall Estate, Canje were honoured on Monday with a wreath- laying and tribute ceremony, the first of its kind for the fallen sugar workers. Among those paying tribute to the dead were President Donald Ramotar, representatives of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), East Canje Humanitarian Society, Regional Chairman and Regional Executive Officer, as well as Dr. Fred Sukdeo, whose close relatives were among those shot and killed by colonial police officers a century ago.

PPP Exec Member, Zulfikar Mustapha; Pres. Ramotar; Dr. Fred Sukdeo and Region Six Chairman, Mr. Armogan.

The workers were all shot by the colonial police on the high bridge leading to the Rose Hall Estate because they protested and refused to work on days for which they were granted leave.
Harvesting ended on January 27, 1913 and the Administrative Manager told the immigrant workers that they were to clean their surroundings.
On January 28, the Manager reportedly changed his mind and ordered them to go to work because he had some planting to do. Some were inclined to while others were dissuaded from following the orders. Seven men were served summonses to attend court. The Manager asked that they pay for the cost of the summons. The workers agreed but to pay it in installments but the Manager rejected the suggestion. The problem escalated from this point.
And it so happened that fifteen workers—14 men and one woman— were killed. The dead were: Badri, 26; Bholay, 33; Durga, 72; Gafur, 27; Jugai, 30; Juggoo, 37; Hulas, 25; Lalji, 45; Motey Khan, 26; Nibur, 75; Roopan, 25; Sadulla, 23; Sarjoo, 21; Sohan, 33; and the lone female Gobindei, 32.
Their bodies were transported in jute bags on donkey carts to the New Amsterdam Hospital. Forty- one workers were injured.
“These are the people who paid the ultimate price because they resisted what they deem to be oppression and offensive at the time…and anytime you stand up to the masters in those days, you had no chance—you were either injured or killed”, said Region Six Chairman, David Armogan.
Veteran educator, Mr. Phillip Deobhajan laid out the historical aspect of the massacre. Dr. Fred Sukdeo stated that Rose Hall Estate has a unique history in Guyana, and he outlined five historical attributes: Rose Hall as a community which started the 1763 Berbice Slave Rebellion up the Canje River; the Rose Hall Riot in 1913; the Rose Hall Estate clarifier incident whereby several workers met their deaths; vesting of Bookers Guiana to the people of Guyana at the Canje Welfare Centre and the first meeting to establish a heritage site at Plantation Highbury to commemorate the first arrival of East Indian Immigrants to British Guiana.
President Donald Ramotar said that it was important to note that the workers “made that ultimate sacrifice and we still remember them today 100 years later. They who pulled the trigger—those responsible for this terrible deed—have all been forgotten; no one remembers them.”
The event, he stated, brought to an end the hated system of indentureship. “That is what is significant.” The Guyanese leader said that a large part of the history of Guyana has been the history of sugar. From the time indentureship replaced slavery, he added, the workers played the most central role in transforming Guyana “and that was only natural, because sugar was then ‘king’—the main pillar of the economy”.
He recalled the struggle in Leonora in 1938 that finally saw trade unionism entering the industry and spreading throughout Guyana. “They were fighting to defend, then, their economic rights and for independence.”
The bulk of that struggle, he stated, was in the sugar estate. “1948 at Enmore was the beginning of the end of colonialism in our country—All those struggles took place in the estates themselves and….we will always have to pay tribute to sugar workers and the role that they play”.