By Albert Baldeo
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
August 18 marked one month since the MV Barima tragedy. The state-owned, reportedly uninsured, 87-year-old vessel was traveling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma when it sank. Seventy-six persons reportedly survived, 73 lost their lives, and the status of approximately 30 others still requires clarification.
The tragedy is no longer defined only by what happened at sea. The Government’s response-including what it knew, when it knew, how it acted and whether it will accept responsibility-has become a test of its credibility.
Documents reportedly revealing earlier deficiencies in the vessel and tenders for its rehabilitation raise grave questions. Why was the MV Barima not dry-docked? What information passed from the Transport and Harbours Department through MARAD, the responsible ministers and Cabinet? Who knew the vessel’s condition, and what decisions followed?
The Commission of Inquiry must therefore examine both prevention and response: the vessel’s maintenance, certification, defects, insurance, cargo and passenger load, and the entire decision-making chain that permitted its final voyage; and, separately, when the distress signal was received, who was notified, what rescue assets were available, how quickly they were deployed and whether earlier action could have saved lives.
The Commission should obtain Cabinet and ministerial records; maintenance, inspection and tender documents; passenger and cargo manifests; Timehri Air Traffic Control recordings; search-and-rescue logs; official communications; and authenticated voicemail messages reportedly sent by passengers as the vessel was sinking. It must establish a precise timeline showing when the Prime Minister, ministers, the GDF, Police, Search and Rescue Unit and other authorities learned of the emergency and what each did thereafter.
Most urgently, the MV Barima must be salvaged before the weather window closes. It is the most important physical evidence. A credible inquiry cannot be expected to reach conclusive findings about the vessel’s condition while it remains beneath the Atlantic for most of the Commission’s limited two-month life.
The Commission must also be accessible and inclusive. It should travel to Region One, meet survivors and grieving families directly, hold public hearings, permit online testimony and invite qualified Guyanese and diaspora maritime, engineering, legal and emergency-response experts. Families should not be required to find their way to the Commission; the Commission must find its way to them.
Justice must also include mercy and due process. The captain and crew should not be prematurely scapegoated while possible institutional and governmental failures remain unexamined. Criminal responsibility must be determined from credible evidence and the applicable law-not public pressure, political convenience or grief. Accountability must extend through the entire chain of command, wherever the evidence leads.
Meanwhile, the Government should not wait for the final report to help those suffering. It must immediately provide:
- Substantial and meaningful Interim financial assistance to survivors and affected families, without requiring them to waive their legal rights;
- Adequate final compensation based upon loss of life, pain and suffering, dependency, injury, trauma and economic hardship;
- Funeral assistance, counseling and long-term psychological support;
- Transparent procedures governing eligibility, compensation levels, appeals and payment deadlines; and
- Immediate maritime reforms, including fleet-wide inspections, mandatory insurance, accurate manifests, enforceable passenger and cargo limits, modern communications and tracking equipment, functioning life-saving equipment, emergency drills and properly equipped regional search-and-rescue services.
Finally, the Government must commit now to publishing the Commission’s complete report, together with a timetable for implementing every accepted recommendation. A report delivered privately to the Executive, under whose authority the vessel operated, will eviscerate public confidence.
Press conferences and promises are not accountability. Accountability means salvaging the evidence, hearing the affected communities, compensating families, protecting defendants’ due process rights, identifying every institutional failure and implementing reforms now before another life is lost.
The MV Barima remains beneath the Atlantic. Families continue to grieve. Justice is held captive. Time is disappearing. The victims, and Guyana beyond borders, deserve truth, justice, mercy, compensation and reform-and a Commission permitted to follow the evidence wherever and however high it leads. President Irfaan Ali must lead from the front. Pad up, Irfaan! Time to step up, it’s pace like fire out there.
Hon. Albert Baldeo
Former Magistrate, Senior State Counsel and State Prosecutor
Community Leader and Judicial Delegate
New York, USA
