Two Guyanas: Enmore Martyrs vs Linden Martyrs

Jan 06, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

In 1948, four East Indian sugar workers were shot and killed by the Colonial Police in a protest for higher wages & better working conditions in the colony of British Guiana.

They are known today as Enmore Martyrs, and in 1977 President LFS Burnham erected a national monument in their memory. In 2012, under the PPP Government, the Guyana Police shot and killed three persons in a protest in Linden against an unconscionable 50% hike in electricity rates. In 2022, the Police Superintendent who ordered the shooting was promoted to the highest position of Commissioner of Police by the returning PPP Government.

In a true democracy, the electorate & civil society would never have accepted such an indecent move by Government, and that Superintendent would already have resigned a long time ago. One doesn’t have to be political to have moral courage to say this is wrong; on the contrary, it is blind political loyalty and cowardice that often make people suffocate their own conscience and hence condone unjust acts against others they otherwise would not.

Yours truly,

Joshua Faria