Dear Editor,
The nation rightly mourns the many souls lost aboard the MV Barima. We grieve with the families who will forever live with an emptiness that can never be filled. But amid the sorrow, one group must not become the forgotten victims of this national tragedy—the workers of the Transport and Harbours Department.
Every day these men and women reported for duty knowing they were working under hazardous conditions. Every voyage of the MV Barima was a gamble with life. Every departure from port was, in truth, a death trip waiting to happen. That reality did not begin on July 18. It existed long before that fatal night. The workers were operating a death trap. Like the passengers, their lives were placed at risk every time the vessel sailed. They had no special protection. No privileged escape. The only reason some survived is because they possessed one skill that many passengers did not—they could swim.
Some have recounted harrowing accounts of being thrown overboard repeatedly by the force of the sea, only to be dragged back beneath the vessel before fighting their way to the surface again. Their survival was not because the system protected them. They survived despite the system.
The workers were victims every bit as much as the passengers. They were compelled to earn a living under conditions that no responsible employer should ever have tolerated. They worked within a system that exposed them daily to unacceptable danger while asking them to carry out duties that increasingly compromised both their own safety and that of the travelling public.
The workers and passengers alike became victims of an uncaring, careless and selfish regime.
What makes this tragedy even more painful is that safeguards once intended to protect lives were dismantled. Under the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration, inspectors were assigned to ensure vessels complied with loading specifications and safety requirements before leaving port. We were recently advised by APNU+AFC Minister David Patterson, that when the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) returned to office, those safeguards were removed.
Workers have since spoken of receiving instructions from higher authorities directing them to continue loading vessels regardless of capacity. In today’s Guyana, where fear stalks the workplace and thousands struggle simply to provide for their families, refusing such instructions is easier said than done.
Many complied, not because they believed it was safe, but because they feared losing the jobs that fed their families. They complied under duress. In doing so, they placed their own lives at risk.
Now, in the aftermath of this national catastrophe, some seek to heap further blame upon these already traumatised workers through allegations that marijuana use contributed to the tragedy. That narrative is nothing more than a red herring.
The MV Barima did not capsize because workers were under the influence of marijuana. The vessel capsized under the crushing burden placed upon it. It collapsed beneath excessive weight, forced upon it by decisions made from above. It succumbed under the final instruction from higher authorities to continue loading cargo onto a vessel that should never have been operating under those conditions.
Indeed, Prime Minister Mark Phillips himself has publicly acknowledged that Government cargo was aboard the vessel and that the inspection system failed.
Those admissions should focus the national conversation where it belongs—not on scapegoating desperate workers, but on examining the decisions, policies and failures that created the conditions for this disaster.
The dead deserve justice. The survivors deserve answers. The workers deserve protection—not persecution. They were not the architects of this tragedy. They were among its victims.
If Guyana truly intends to honour those who lost their lives aboard the MV Barima, then we must reject attempts to criminalise or vilify workers who themselves were forced to labour inside what had become a floating death trap.
History must record this tragedy honestly. The MV Barima did not fail because ordinary workers failed. It failed because a system entrusted with protecting both workers and passengers abandoned its most fundamental duty: safeguarding human life. Only by acknowledging that uncomfortable truth can Guyana ensure that no worker is ever again forced to earn a living aboard a vessel that has already become a coffin waiting to close.