The National Directorate and members of Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP) send our heartfelt condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones as a result of the MV Barima tragedy.
Condolences are not enough
The deaths of so many innocent Guyanese babies, children, women and men cannot be in vain. For us, they are martyrs. Their death was not a result of a natural disaster or genuine accident. It was a result of the corruption, incompetence, and lack of any kind of accountability that has been normalized in Guyana. EVERYTHING IS BROKEN. EVERYTHING. The level of corruption is hideous, the incompetence is incomprehensible, and the complete lack of accountability at the highest echelons of our society is taken for granted. There is an official system, a broken, obsolete system, a leftover from our colonial past. Then there is the unofficial system that runs parallel to it and is the only way things move – a bribe, a phone call, an order. The decadence and moral bankruptcy at the highest echelons reproduces itself like a cancer. People have even come to admire and aspire to it. Everyone is on someone’s payroll, and everyone pays – to get contracts, to get their land, to get rid of police and traffic problems, to overload a boat. In fact, “greasing palms” and the need to “know someone” is something that Guyanese take as a given. It is used to make things happen in almost every sphere of our existence.
Repression in Guyana
We are all aware of the often-unspoken truth, that our comfort, our careers, our children’s prospects can only be guaranteed in return for our silence and complicity. This is not an opinion, it is fact and it has a name – repression. We are told to keep our heads down and swallow the wrongs. It has become a way of life.
We watched in pain as Diane Cort, whose husband Neil Cort ran the canteen on the MV Barima for more than 20 years, gave her testimony. Well known and well-loved by the crew, she provided a harrowing account for the public record, detailing how the Second Engineer told her that the second engine needed to be repaired before the boat could set sail. She said he was told he “didn’t know his job”. Another engineer reached out to her saying that the boat still had problems and that it couldn’t make the journey with one engine. He said although he had alerted senior officials, his assessment was ignored. This is the type of arrogance that is displayed by those at the top, the ones who don’t know their jobs and could rightly be described as incompetent. Others have reported that when the captain and crew complained about the condition of the ferry and the urgent need for its repair, they were told that if they did not want to operate the vessel, there are others who will. Do any of us doubt that the crew felt they had to say nothing to keep their jobs? And yet it is only the captain and crew members who have been arrested.
That brings us to the Bishop.We are demanding that Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar, General Manager of the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) Yolanda Hughes Smith and Chairperson of the T&HD Board, Rosalinda Rasul be relieved of their duties immediately.
We do not believe that we must wait for an investigation to call for their resignations because there is sufficient evidence in the public sphere to incriminate them on the grounds of gross negligence and incompetence. Think about the established facts:
- There is video of the dilapidated boat leaving the port and already sinking below the load line.
- There are numerous witnesses to the fact that what happened on and before July 18th was not something new, that the boat had issues all the time, was in a state of disrepair for a long while and was clearly unfit to operate.
- A new boat had been purchased and arrived in Guyana in 2023. Minister Edghill and his wife visited India to christen the boat for its maiden journey.
- That boat, the MV Ma Lisha has been used by the PPP, their family and friends to party. Lavishly. Up till now the Government has not constructed the local pier and roll-on/roll-off facility upgrades so that the new boat can be deployed and the people can travel in safety.
Calling on our oppressors to save us
The same foreign masters that colonized us centuries ago, have recolonized us today. We are a Captured State. There is only one way that foreign governments and corporations can continue to run Guyana. They must make sure that both the ruling regime and opposition parties can be managed in a way that allows their continued plundering of our oil, gold and now uranium. All the politicians, from all the parties, stay silent on this, the very root of Guyana’s corruption culture, because they are all competing to manage this neo-plantation and have implicitly agreed to maintain the neo-colonial arrangement.
Parliamentary opposition parties, WIN, APNU and Forward Guyana continue to call on US, UK and EU diplomats for assistance to end the corruption. These diplomats pay lip service to good governance and pledge their undying support to the anti-corruption crusaders, while at the same time representing the most corrupt nations on earth, and assisting them in their mission to plunder our resources and divide and ruin us. Only the other day, President Trump, Marco Rubio and the US Ambassador to Guyana Nicole Theriot publicly stated that President Ali and his government were “doing a great job”.
Despite all this, Leader of the Opposition, Azruddin Mohamed is calling on Scotland Yard and the FBI to lead the investigation into the MV Barima tragedy. Such is the grip that White supremacy has on our people. Many still believe that these organizations, whose own nations are complicit in genocide in 2026, will somehow be impartial and fair. We agree that partisan politics and intimidation will hinder an internal Guyanese investigation, such is the sad state of affairs in Guyana, however, there are many options for regional participation in the investigation. Why on earth would we go to Scotland Yard and the FBI, two organizations that have framed and falsely imprisoned their own citizens, and in the case of the FBI committing atrocities against their own citizens and citizens in other countries.
Silence is Complicity
To our fellow citizens we say, more people, many more people need to find courage and speak their truth to power, despite the consequences. There is strength and protection in unity and collective action. You may think you are safe by choosing to remain silent, but we have just seen where that leads. Silence cannot save us from the horror that will eventually consume us all. There are more calamitous outcomes awaiting us as a result of years of misleaders, and the broken systems they preside over. Let this tragedy be a turning point. We cannot let this pass and return to business as usual; it is a calamity. July 18th is the day that too many children died – in some cases an entire generation gone.
We honour everyone who lost their life and pray that their untimely departure from this world will not be in vain but will awaken something deep within our psyches. Maybe we will wake up from this nightmare and realize that we have to stop exchanging one set of corrupt, egotistical, arrogant politicians for another. We need more than constitutional change, we need system change, and we need it now. An oil rich Guyana is growing up around us, beneath us, on top of us, but certainly not with us, the people. If you need proof, just look at the state of the boat that was transporting our people, our beloved children in the so-called fastest growing economy in the world, while the Government, their family and friends partied lavishly on the new boat. We must come together and speak up this time or risk losing everything our ancestors fought and died for. We owe it to every baby, child, woman and man who lost their life on the MV Barima.
National Directorate
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)
July 24, 2026