Sugar workers of the Providence harvesting gang downed tools early yesterday morning in protest at the use of excessive force by the police against a colleague, who reportedly behaved disorderly while waiting to collect his wages on Friday.
The man, Zakir Bolas, said to be in his 30s of Smithfield, NA, was kicked and gun-butted and had to seek medical treatment. Over 200 workers, dressed in working gear and carrying tools and lunch bags converged at the Baptist Turn, Edinburgh, East Bank Berbice around 5 am.
Four trucks were parked nearby and left after the workers refused to join them. The workers returned home at around 8 am and vowed that they would continue to down tools until there was action by the estate and the police force.
According to them Bolas did not deserve to be treated in such a manner and they demanded that he be compensated.
Stabroek News contacted senior police officers in Berbice and was told that “statements are being taken and the matter is being investigated.”
The cane-harvesters are claiming that around 2.30 pm on Friday two police officers who had escorted the cash, brutalized Bolas. He was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital for an x-ray but because of the long wait there he was taken to the Rose Hall Estate (RHE) Dispensary instead.
The incident stemmed from disorderly behaviour by some of the workers who were waiting impatiently for their money. A worker told this newspaper that they were indeed shouting about who should be paid first when Bolas started to use indecent language.
He said that when it was Bolas’s turn to uplift his pay, a senior employee told him that he had no money to get and the clerk then closed the canister. Bolas became agitated and started to “shout and curse.”
At this stage the officers were alleged by the workers to have dragged him out of the line, thrown him face-down on the ground, kicked and gun-butted him and stamped on him behind his head.
SN learnt that senior employees of the Rose Hall Estate were summoned and they arrived shortly after. Reports are that they expressed disappointment with police actions and commented that the police should not have intervened but allowed the estate’s security to deal with matter.
