A legend in Guyana’s history yet, unknown to many within the Caribbean region. Kowsilla, also known as Alice was killed during a strike action at the Leonora estate, West Coast Demerara.
She was an active member of the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO), and demonstrated her freedom to protest at the virtually inhuman and exploitative nature of the then sugar baron’s greed over Guyana’s natural resource, sugar – and the wealth it generated for Britain even after slavery.
It is believed that Kowsilla’s defiance against the Leonora sugar estate’s management, just two years before political independence, resulted in her ultimate sacrifice. In January 1964, hundreds of sugar workers and other aggrieved Guyanese staged a mammoth citizens march to protest the imposition of proportional representation, a then unknown electoral system upon British Guiana by the British Colonial Secretary, Duncan Sandys. When the workers, except for a few, staged a strike against the actions of the Leonora Estate management who offered little work after the January 1964 protests or work at severely-reduced rates, the Estate Manager, a Roy Ryder, did everything to break the industrial action which had significantly paralysed his fields and factory operations.
“From some divide-and-rule tactics to outright intimidation and threats, he abused the striking workers but failed to break their resolve.” it said that on March 06, 1964, he ordered that a tractor driven by a scab, be used to clear a main bridge, close to the factory, on which Kowsilla and her colleagues were squatting.
Kowsilla bravely stood her ground as the tractor approached. She was crushed to a grisly death. Fourteen other females who formed the peaceful human barricade were seriously injured with some unable to work again.” Kowsilla’s passing provoked wide-spread dissent and led to new levels of struggle, resulting in estate management meeting directly with workers delegations. The majority of sugar workers then resorted to abandon the then company union – the Man Power Citizens Association (MPCA). This was the movement that made a reluctant government to recognize GAWU in 1976.” The union is convinced that Kowsilla exemplified bravery. “Her death held high the banner of the recognition struggle, and showed the ferocity with which it was waged. The adamancy of the sugar plantocracy not to recognise GAWU was met by a stubborn workers’ struggle.
HERSTORY 