Answering the people

Aug 10, 2026 Editorial

(Kaieteur News) Guyana has been forced to deal with national crises before. There was the Great Flood of 2005. A crime wave with heavily armed escapees from the 2002 Mash Jailbreak, phantom squads, and extrajudicial murders all wreaking havoc. Many lives were lost. The December 2018 parliamentary No-Confidence motion and the 19-months of continual crises over national elections.

Leaders and many citizens answered the call and did furious battle to gain the upper hand. They did not please everyone, but they tried their best. On 18th July, 2026 what is described as Guyana’s biggest national maritime disaster sent this country into a nosedive.

It is certain to have days ahead before there can be some semblance of calm, cooling of passions. When citizens needed the best in leadership presence, vision and courage, they came up mostly empty.

The calls for two government ministers to resign began, have never stopped. The two ministers are still on the job, in full control of their portfolios. The ministers have dug in their heels, with the expectation that the PPP/C Government leadership has their backs, will hold the line for them. In the current environment, it is apparent that the only people going are those already six feet under, and those gone down with the MV Barima.

The total lives lost still cannot be officially confirmed three weeks after the tragedy. Aside from the usual circling of wagons, that has been the sum of national leadership.
When the expectation is of bold leadership from the front, the first concerns have been to protect comrades. Inspiration comes hard in situations like these. This is only one aspect of a tragedy that has this country raging.

It was inevitable that in a tragedy of this magnitude, the calls for a Commission of Inquiry (COI) would multiply. It is informative that in a country with scores feared dead in a single maritime tragedy that citizens are so angry at one another, that there is no trust in a locally-panelled COI.

The only COI that citizens believe could give them some probability of justice with so many gone, so many not coming back, is one of international composition. To his credit, President Irfaan Ali promised a COI that is ‘full, thorough, and independent.’ After that, he did not do as good as he should, resorted to the usual state of unilateralism.

There was no consultation process, not even one that went through the motions, as a courtesy. No civil society input, no political outreach, no community say. Team members, all selected by the PPP/C Government, decisions made behind closed doors. When leadership of a special kind was called for, it was the regular: new day, same story.

The five-member international panel was sworn in secretly, one virtually, the media was barred from covering the swearing-in. Is that an indicator of what is to come with media coverage and this COI? Further, expressions of unease have been heard about past links between members of the PPP/C Government and, at least, one COI member.

When these pre-COI developments are considered, the question on the minds of many citizen is what kind of actual COI work, what quality recommendations, and what consequences follow, if any? Considering these developments, individually or cumulatively, and the probability of a COI that is full, thorough, and independent has not started out on the right foot.

We hope that we are not watching at a tragedy that began on water being compounded by another that is gathering steam on land. When leadership should be at its highest arc, it seems that the same six for a nine is well in the works.

Vice President Bharrat led a PPP/C Government team to Linden. He led its members indoors, balked at facing the people, then hustled behind a tight security ring back to Georgetown. The government’s man of action who gets tough things done could not get his feet nor voice going.

With 100 dead, with Region 10 management at an impasse, Jagdeo had to go into the teeth of the whirlwind, stand before the people, whatever his concerns. That’s what good leadership does. Order his security people to ease back. He had to respect the call of the people.

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2002 Mash Jailbreak, extrajudicial murders, Great Flood of 2005, Guyana, maritime disaster, MV Barima, national crises, phantom squads, PPP/C Government

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