All Guyanese should join the MV Barima protests

Aug 03, 2026 Letters

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Dear Editor,

For the poor and unrepresented Guyanese and others it is in their best interest to join the current protests for accountability for the victims along with the unfortunate T&HD employees considering the MV Barima tragedy. Even if the current protests do include elements of race and politics, the most important factor is a war on the poor and unrepresented Guyanese. Follow the very principle coming from the government to unite, show humanity and don’t make the issue political. Unite as fellow Guyanese showing solidarity for your fellow Guyanese, don’t make this tragedy political by supporting whichever political party you want, and more importantly show humanity for the unfortunate T&HD workers now being scapegoated for this tragedy.

Show gratitude for these workers of the T&HD since for decades these workers for low wages, spent many hours away from their families to provide transport for Guyanese countrywide. It is time to show solidarity with your fellow Guyanese particularly the underclass since it is the right thing to do plus many Guyanese will be finding themselves in helpless situations when they will need their fellow Guyanese to stand up for them. The argument being put forward here is that there is another crisis for Guyanese brewing that is being dwarfed by other major issues in the current headlines. Every week there are multiple flights arriving to Guyana from Cuba.

Cubans being deported from the US are coming to Guyana not returning to Cuba. They have decided to call Guyana their new home, to date the government has not provided what arrangement is this. Imagine Cuba’s population is close to 11 million meaning 5% coming here would be 550,000 more than the amount of people who vote in Guyana, Guyanese take note . So, Guyana sent away the Cuban Doctors on Donald Trump’s orders, yet silence from the US for this new influx of Cubans. The crippling sanctions and blockade of Cuba by the US have now caused an exodus of Cubans, and their destination is now Guyana. I will address the PPP surrogates in the US that supports Trump when Guyana gets an unregulated unchecked migrant crisis. So, Brazilians coming overland via the south, Venezuelans coming by boat, and now Cubans and everybody else by air, this is a warning to the PPP supporters, these people are coming here with a grievance that the Guyana PPP Government sided with the US to cause problems in their countries. I have no issues with immigration or refugee claimants if it’s legitimate and follow a well-organized system. What we have in Guyana is an open border free for all system being defended by the government to provide labour shortage relief.

If these newcomers are here to provide labour, what happens when there is no more work? will they go back home as mainly Venezuela and Cuba is getting unlivable by the day? what happens to Guyana when several hundreds of thousands of people have no means of survival? these are questions need to be answered. I recently spent some time in Parika in Region 3, and witnessed something very concerning, there are hundreds of homeless people speaking in different languages loitering all day seeking refuge in the business establishments because the weather is too hot to be outside and they have no work including children. Many of these businesses can’t function as customers won’t go there and subsequently have to close their doors completely. In the night the newcomers own the night with lewd behaviors of fights, drugs, alcohol and prostitution, forcing the locals to close their prison like gates and go indoors at sundown. These newcomers are causing this being only a few of them for now, so imagine when there will be tens of thousands of them what will happen. I don’t know if this is happening in the rest of the country in the name of transformation, development and progress, maybe other readers can provide more information where they reside.

The major two races of Guyana have been divisive forever like divisive populations everywhere where some confrontations sadly ended in tragedy, but the Afro’s and Indo’s in Guyana understood each other to coexist as Guyanese even as governments discriminated against particular races. These newcomers speak in different tongues having no alliance to Guyanese Afro’s and Indo’s so when they get into large numbers and cause confrontations being Afro and Indo will mean nothing to them just like the disdain shown to Guyanese by the foreign exploiters currently.

The political elites have been building their nest eggs overseas preparing to leave when the mess they have crested starts to stink leaving you the poor and unrepresented to survive in the stench. Those critical of the government gets strategically isolated, targeted and silenced so there is no united opposition in numbers to challenge this oppression coming from the local elites and their foreign handlers, with Guyanese soon to face another issue with the open border newcomers. So, Guyanese there is the MV Barima protest ongoing, join it especially the poor and unrepresented, and even the wishful thinking ones who think they are safe since they really are not soon to be. With so many reasons to join this protest justified the main one is that any Guyanese other than the elites’ turn is bound to come like the THD employees, and they will need their fellow Guyanese to stand with them.

Sincerely,

Concerned Guyanese

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• Letters, MV Barima, Protests

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