GUYANA | Adam's Notebook: The more things change

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Very few people make a connection with their historical past. The observance of the 77th anniversary of the killing of five sugar workers at Enmore on June 16, 1948 is still remembered today.

Those sugar workers were protesting for what they say were better conditions on the sugar estates. The protesting workers came from the many sugar estates on East Coast Demerara. 

On April 22, 1948, approximately 1,200 estate workers from the plantations of Enmore, Non Pariel, Lusignan, Mon Repos, La Bonne Intention (LBI), Vryheid’s Lust and Ogle initiated a strike action to express their disapproval against the ‘cut and load’ system and the unfair methods of measuring work productivity. 

This system, together with poor wages, unfair treatment from overseers and dilapidated working and living conditions, led the workers to strike. The protest continued and reached the streets of Georgetown on June 5, 1948.

On June 16, the protest continued at Plantation Enmore, during which police opened fire, killing five and injuring numerous others on the claim that they were attacked by “a large missile throwing crowd”.

The Venn Commission report found that some of the sugar workers were killed even as they were fleeing the might of the then colonial police.

Decades later the same thing happened in Guyana. The colonial police were under the authority of the rulers. Some of them had just returned from what has become known as World War 2. They may have been trigger happy.

Three men were shot and killed at Linden on July 18, 2012 during a protest over proposed hike in electricity rates in the mining community. The order to use deadly force reportedly came from a senior officer on the ground, Clifton Hicken.

The rulers were the People’s Progressive Party. The same thing was to happen a few years later, again in Linden. The mining town of Linden, Region 10 descended into chaos on the morning of April 8, 2025, hours after 23-year-old Ronaldo Peters was shot dead by a member of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).

Peters was reportedly sitting at a pub in the community when a policeman jumped out of a vehicle ostensibly for the purpose of arresting him. Video evidence showed the policeman dragging Peters on the ground after shooting him.

In the ensuing protest another man was shot and killed. Another youth identified as 32-year-old Keon Fogenay, also known as “Dan”, a father of four, was shot dead, again by the police.

This same year the police were to kill more people, this time in the streets of Georgetown. Two men—described by authorities as suspected looters—lay dead, shot during the chaos. 

At the heart of the unrest that left the two men dead lies a politically explosive metaphor: that of occupation. Some have compared the PPP-led state to colonial rule. This brings to mind the saying that the more things change the more they remain the same.

There has been no memorial for these people killed by the police. In fact, had it not been for the continued agitation by the affected people these deaths might have been forgotten. 

From a historical perspective in Guyana some deaths mean more than others. There was no violence during the killings in Linden in 2012. The crime committed by the people was to block the bridge across the Demerara River at Wismar.

When the two protesters were shot and killed in the city the protesters might have been rowdy but they posed no threat to life and limb. It boggles the mind that a government can relate to a killing that happened 77 years ago when no member of the Cabinet was born. 

It is doubtful that any of then ever read the report by the Venn Commission on the killing of the Enmore Martyrs. In fact, few if any, ever heard of the report. But each year they make a pilgrimage to the grave site at Le Repentir, and to the Enmore Monument constructed by the Late President Forbes Burnham.

It was designed by renowned Guyanese artist, Dr. Denis Williams and constructed by Zenith Industrial and Construction Cooperation Society in 1976, on behalf of the Government of Guyana. The following year on June 16, 1977, it was unveiled by Prime Minister Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.

The government never mentions Burnham at the remembrance of the Enmore Martyrs. The message is that the main opposition has made no contribution to Guyana.

On October 6, 1976, a plane carrying 13 Guyanese students to Cuba was blown up off the coast of Barbados. Of late, any observance of this event is missing in Guyana. Cuba and Barbados remember this event each year.

Things reached the stage where the Cubans were instrumental in building a monument to the Cubana dead in Guyana.

We speak of One Guyana but the reality is that some lives appear to be worth more than others. Some events appear to be more important than others.

In any country, significant events are always remembered. In Guyana there is a holiday in August to celebrate the abolition of slavery. There is also an event to remember the arrival of the first East Indians to Guyana on May 5, 1838.

Hardly anyone remembers the slaughter of the hundreds of slaves following the 1823 revolt on the lower East Coast Demerara. The largely nonviolent rebellion was brutally crushed by the colonists under governor John Murray. 

They killed many slaves: estimates of the toll from fighting range from 200 to 500 men and women. After the insurrection was put down, the government sentenced another 45 men to death, and 27 were executed. 

The executed enslaved slaves' bodies were displayed in public for months at what was known as Parade Ground afterwards, as a deterrent to others.

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