The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) said March brings bittersweet memories as it remembers late president Dr Cheddi Jagan, and Kowsilla who was mowed down by a tractor while protesting at the Leonora Sugar Estate 43 years ago.
The union, in a press release, said it remembers Jagan’s March 6, 1997 passing at an American Military hospital. GAWU said it has been a decade already that Jagan passed and his lifelong struggle for freedom and social justice has been forever etched in the national psyche.
It also remembers the March 6, 1964 passing of Kowsilla, who was also known as Alice, and was part of a group of peaceful women protesters at the estate who was opposed to the breaking of a strike when she was run down. GAWU said Kowsilla paid the ultimate sacrifice for the nation’s sugar workers who struggled for a further 12 years in order for it to be recognised.
The GAWU was recognised in February 1976.
The union will commemorate Kowsilla’s death with a solemn wreath-laying ceremony at Anna Catherina, West Bank Demerara today at 7.30 am. Fraternal and friendly organisations are expected to participate.
GAWU said Jagan’s and Kowsilla’s deaths gave them strength, inspiration and hope.
