Dear Editor,
The sinking of the MV Barima on July 18 claimed at least 73 lives, with dozens more still unaccounted for. The ferry served the Region One route to Mabaruma and Port Kaituma — a corridor whose passengers are overwhelmingly Indigenous Guyanese. Yet when President Ali named the five-member Commission of Inquiry on July 26 — Justice Godfrey Phillip Smith, Captain Hamada Fouda, Nyree Dawn Alfonso, Rear Admiral Hayden Pritchard, and Dr. Andrzej Jasionowski — not a single member is drawn from, or has a demonstrated background representing, the Indigenous communities who bore the brunt of this tragedy.
This is not a minor oversight. The National Toshaos Council, representing over 250 Indigenous leaders, has already spoken out, and Indigenous voices in Parliament have pressed for accountability from the ministers overseeing the ferry service. Those calls reflect a simple truth: the people who lost the most in this disaster have no seat at the table meant to determine what happened and why.
A commission staffed entirely by legal and maritime technocrats — however qualified — cannot fully grasp what this loss means to families in Kumaka, Morawhanna, or Port Kaituma, nor can it be expected to prioritize the concerns unique to hinterland and Indigenous communities: the reliability of their only transport link, the accuracy (or fabrication) of passenger manifests that excluded dozens of their relatives, and the decades of underinvestment in the vessels serving them.
If this inquiry is to command the trust of the very communities it is meant to serve, it must include Indigenous representation — whether as a full commissioner, a formally consulted advisor, or through structured hearings led by Toshaos and community representatives. Anything less risks producing findings that Region One residents will rightly view as decided about them, not with them.
Sincerely,
Keith Bernard
Discussion