Dear Editor,
The PPP Government still does not understand the depth of the anger sweeping Guyana over its handling of the MV Barima tragedy. If it had, Ministers Juan Edghill and Deodat Indar would have long been made to resign.
Instead, both remain comfortably seated in office, protected by gangs and state police at their homes, while the Government scrambles to regain significant lost political ground. Cabinet ministers including the embattled subject ministers have been dispatched across the country, and the tone-deaf President has now launched yet another round of “Presidential Outreaches.” Communities neglected for decades are suddenly being promised roads, housing, drainage and other basic services.
You cannot patronise a nation mourning more than one hundred lives lost through your Government’s failure and then expect a carefully staged damage-control campaign to erase the public’s grief and anger. It will not work. A hundred lives cannot be pushed aside by a new road or buried beneath a government press release.
At Leonora, President Irfaan Ali behaved less like a leader comforting a nation and more like a snake oil salesman promoting government programmes. In Linden, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo turned his attention to housing complaints, claimed he knew little about problems that had developed under his own administration, and quickly promised government intervention.
That is how the PPP operates; neglect communities for years, suddenly discover their problems when public support begins to slip, and then present the fulfilment of basic responsibilities as political generosity.
Hundreds of Guyanese converged on the grounds of Watooka House in Linden to protest Bharrat Jagdeo’s visit and demand accountability. They waited for hours, but he refused to face them or even offer a word of acknowledgement. A senior government official who travelled to Linden claiming to listen to the people deliberately ignored the largest and loudest gathering of citizens outside.
When darkness fell, Jagdeo snuck out under the protection of a dozen security officers. As he departed, he waved and mocked the protesters who had stood there for hours. That single moment captured the contempt with which this administration treats citizens who refuse to remain silent.
Equally insulting was the decision to send Juan Edghill into the grieving communities of Region One. As the minister responsible for the vessel and the system under which this disaster occurred, he has still not been made to resign or properly account for his failure. Instead, Edghill was placed at the centre of the outreach in the very region still mourning its dead, removing any lingering doubt that this administration intends to shield both him and Deodat Indar, the minister directly responsible for the maritime sector, from accountability.
Survivors remain traumatised. Families are still grieving, and some continue waiting for answers about loved ones who remain unaccounted for. Sending Edghill into those communities as though nothing happened showed how little this Government understands or cares to understand about their pain.
The tragedy also exposed Guyana’s lack of an effective search-and-rescue capability. Pomeroon River fishermen became the first line of rescue while the state struggled to respond. Ordinary citizens went to sea when the country’s institutions should have been leading the effort. Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed and his team played a prominent role in the rescue and recovery operations, exposing the Government’s lack of preparedness and urgency.
The Government’s internal review is nothing more than an attempt to investigate itself and control the outcome. The defining failure is already beyond dispute; when the MV Barima went down, the state had no effective search-and-rescue capability to save its citizens. Guyanese cannot reasonably expect the very administration responsible for this catastrophic neglect to expose itself, punish its own ministers or deliver the accountability it has fought so desperately to avoid.
No outreach, handout or hurried development promise will silence a nation demanding answers for its dead.
The victims of the MV Barima tragedy will not be treated as an inconvenience in the PPP’s desperate fight for political survival. They were our mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and loved ones, not numbers to be forgotten when the headlines fade. Their families deserve the truth, and those who failed them must answer for it. Guyana has endured enough performances. We demand justice for the dead, answers for the living and the resignations that must follow.
Yours faithfully,
Hana K. Mohamed
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