In a fiery and introspective public statement, former Prime Minister Moses V. Nagamootoo has hit back at the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) for what he calls a “misdirected and venomous” attack on his character and legacy of advocacy for sugar workers. His post, pointedly titled “Once Upon A Time”, was both a rebuttal and a reflection on a lifelong bond with the sugar industry—and the political betrayals that have marked its decline.
GAWU, in a June 24 statement, derided Nagamootoo’s writings on the sugar industry as fiction, hypocrisy, and deception. The union went further to mockingly advise that any future commentary on sugar should begin with the words “once upon a time.”
Nagamootoo, undeterred, took the advice literally and turned it into the title of his latest op-ed. In a tone that veered between bitter irony and solemn recollection, he outlined his decades of solidarity with sugar workers, his personal sacrifices, and the political tightrope he walked in standing up for their rights.
“In my last article, ‘Martyrdom and Mockery’, I paid tribute to the heroic struggles of sugar workers,” Nagamootoo wrote. “We owe our right to join a trade union and the right to vote mainly to their sacrifices.”
Guyana’s (then British Guiana’s) struggle for the right to organise began in 1905 with dock workers, under the leadership of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. He later founded the country’s first trade union, the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU), in 1917. The legal right for workers to join a trade union of their choice was formally established with the passage of the Trade Union Ordinance in 1921, which granted legal recognition to the BGLU—now the Guyana Labour Union.
In 1926, Caribbean labour leaders convened in British Guiana to chart an indigenous development strategy for the region’s peoples. Among the key demands were internal self-government through the proposed West Indian Federation and the right to one-man-one-vote. One of the labour leaders who played a leading role in that historic meeting was Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. At the time, Guyana’s future national leaders, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, were just eight and three years old, respectively.
All subsequent struggles for the right to vote and to freely join a trade union were built upon the foundation laid by Critchlow, widely regarded as the father of Guyanese and Caribbean labour activism.
“Indecent Pledge” Sparks Firestorm
The row appears to have stemmed from Nagamootoo’s criticism of what he described as an “indecent pledge” by a union leader, who reportedly promised sugar workers’ votes to a political party—one which had elevated him to the National Assembly.
“That gross act… was without any respect for the workers’ political beliefs, their right to independent association and their right to choose,” Nagamootoo stated, calling the pledge a dangerous conflation of union loyalty and political allegiance.
He contends that his post struck a nerve within the ruling elite and GAWU, provoking them to “go for my jugular” with unfounded allegations, including falsely attributing references to an ILO socio-economic study on estate closures—references which, Nagamootoo insists, he never made.
Rewriting History
Nagamootoo noted use of the ILO Report in the story by the Village Voice News, and exclusion of his criticism of the Burnham-Hoyte regime. Only after the backlash, he said, did the paper publish his full, unedited post. He emphasised that while the GAWU statement attacked him for citing the International Labour Organisation (ILO) study, “the truth is, I did not refer to any ILO study in my Facebook post! What GAWU wrote was truly fiction.”
The insert in the article, which is separate from Nagamootoo’s op-ed, was sourced from a 2021 report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), and is verifiable through the provided hyperlink. According to the report, more sugar workers lost their jobs under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government than under the People’s National Congress (PNC) or the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) governments. This is the record—and reality—that the PPP now seeks to deny. That study shows -11,154 workers lost jobs under PPP government; 325 under PNC; 5160 under APNU+AFC
A Legacy of Sacrifice and Survival
Nagamootoo also revisited harrowing episodes of personal risk during his time as a journalist and political activist, including a brutal physical assault that left him nearly dead.
“I have become accustomed to making the powerful uncomfortable,” he wrote. “At times, I paid a near-fatal price.”
His narrative widened to encompass the broader post-colonial tragedy of the sugar industry across the Caribbean, from the shuttering of Caroni in Trinidad to the collapse of estates in Barbados and Jamaica. He noted that successive Guyanese governments—from the PNC to the PPP and the APNU+AFC—have all struggled to keep the sector afloat, pouring an estimated G$500 billion into what he calls “our sugar problem.”
But rather than engage in partisan blame, Nagamootoo called for serious divestment and diversification plans that center sugar workers as stakeholders in a new economic order. “Sugar workers must guarantee land to become key stakeholders in the non-sugar revolution,” he said.
“Once Upon a Time” Was Real
GAWU’s sarcastic jab that Nagamootoo was trying to “burnish his care and compassion” for sugar workers was, he argued, inadvertently truthful.
“Yes, once upon a time, I stood side-by-side with sugar workers in their struggles… Once upon a time, I was on the precipice of resignation as Prime Minister over delayed redundancy benefits… Once upon a time, I suffered cardiovascular stress after meeting sugar workers—and days later, I survived open-heart surgery.”
Nagamootoo ends with a poignant reflection: “Had the outcome been different, once upon a time, I would have closed the innings knowing that I did as best as I could for sugar workers and the people of Guyana.”
In revisiting the past, Nagamootoo not only defends his record but challenges those who, he says, now seek to monopolise the sugar workers’ voice for political expediency. Whether or not one agrees with his politics, the former Prime Minister’s narrative offers a raw and complex portrait of a sector—and a man—caught in the crosscurrents of power, memory, and struggle.
Read the 2021 ILO Report here:-
https://www.ilo.org/caribbean/information-resources/publications/WCMS_800352/lang–en/index.htm
