MV Barima inquiry should name political blame

Dear Editor,

President Ali says that Guyanese could expect a Commission of Inquiry into the MV Barima tragedy^[1] that is of the highest quality. The president has given the same assurance in other circumstances and what Guyanese were left to deal with was Excellency Ali type quality.

Most Guyanese, including many from the PPP base, have a different definition, interpretation, and expectation of what real quality is, looks like, should be. It’s painful, but the president’s history with quality leads me to low to no expectations re the Barima COI. I present my expectations, which any quality COI should easily deliver awake or asleep.

First Finding: a culture of political intrusion and direction contributed heavily to 100 lives lost. Those in the political directorate who held up that and other boats, who overloaded it. They indirectly (and directly) killed 100 struggling, lower-rung-of-the-ladder natives. Names named. All the way up.

Second Finding: a culture of executive and administrative acquiescence had a hand in sending that boat and those bodies in it to the bottom. Cargo? Who cares about any damn minister’s precious cargo now lost? Highlight that, so that Guyana sees how governance functions, when the parades and speeches are done. Bottom line conclusion: an overloaded boat had an overdue date with the seabed and fishes.

Third Finding: there’s a clear picture of ministerial and managerial actions that reek of material derelictions. Responsible leadership. Risk appetite. Safety considerations. This finding should go above two names or two government portfolios.

Fourth Finding: ultimately, responsibility for the MV Barima tragedy rises above the names held out, goes beyond the clamour of vigilantes galloping forward and hunting for vengeance. Vigilantes go well with vengeance. But vigilantes-however well-intended, well-grounded, and well representative of the bottled rage of a people-are never about true justice. It’s the justice of the emotionally crazed, the bloodthirsty.

Fifth Finding: indeed, ministerial heads have hands stained with responsibility. But there are heads that are above their heads. Ministers don’t operate in vacuums, or the isolation of remote islands. Ministers accumulate reputations. Depending on that record, honestly compiled, they remain in place, or are terminated. When they are retained, despite chronic ills, then responsibility and accountability spiral higher. Who kept them? Who condoned their weaknesses? Who covered up their gaps? Who fostered a tragic culture (we are in charge and to hell with everybody else)? We do as we please, don’t answer to anyone. It was only a matter of time before a boat capsized, a road collapsed, a helicopter crashed, a children’s dorm burned.

Sixth Finding: 100 dead, Guyanese shattered, numbed, disillusioned. This can’t be clean governance. This has no ingredients that underpin trusted leadership at the highest level. Any level. Irresponsibility and treachery accelerated tragedy.

Seventh Finding: leadership platitudes added the profane to a painful set of circumstances. Leadership must talk way less, speak to truth far more, and work constantly and sincerely at generating real trust. Not racially motivated trust. Not money trust (bartered for as part of an exchange). Not propaganda energized trust. But real trust from real people, who don’t owe anything to anyone, most of all political dominators and dominatrices. This is right. This is wrong. This is who doesn’t belong.

In other countries, ministers were rolled out of offices, with their heads preceding. In some instances, entire governments took the honest, decent step. They departed. National leaders have done so, on principle, or in response to the power of the people, and the pressures they brought to catastrophic issues. A point worthy of note is that those national leaders had no well-tended, well populated pastures to retreat to, settle down, and write their memoirs. Or a textbook on cunning, but failed, leadership. A proper, honourable, self-respecting, MV Barima COI could, with one eye closed, one ear blocked, and one part of its mind otherwise occupied, arrive at the above findings inside a week.

References

1. President to announce “independent” commission of inquiry into MV Barima ferry tragedy — demerarawaves.com ↩