MV Barima -The Bridge was Empty

THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM♦ GUYANA

MV Barima –The Bridge was Empty

OPINION BY: GHK LALL

First, the disclosures. This is owed to all Guyanese, none more than the departed in the star-crossed MV Barima. Next in line are the tragedy struck family members; parents, spouses, children, above all. Last in line in this first leadership examination is Pres Ali. Prime Minister Phillips turn is coming.

In this postmortem, the objective is not to dissect Pres Ali and drain him of all plasma. It is to touch him in soft strokes. Inspire him to view his actions differently. Guide him to motivate himself, operate differently, should, God forbid, another disaster visits.

Wherever Pres Ali was-in Canada, in a swamp, in a plane, in a luxury box, in the company of quality people-he had to come to a dead stop and race back to Guyana. If he was in a plane that might be problematic. In all other settings, it would have to be the same controlled urgency to his movements. Except for one. The one exception I would make to Pres Ali staying one minute longer wherever he was on that horrendous Saturday night, Sunday’s predawn hours, would be as follows.

The president is out of it, due to serious attention needed. He was not, and I am grateful to the Almighty, the merciful and the benevolent. Once he was mobile, in the fullness of his senses, it had to be to Guyana for Pres. Ali. A charter had to be found. Leader to leader that should have been very doable.

He and his retinue, his wider circle, may not see matters this way, but he could not distance for a second more than necessary. With knee bent before God, I submit to Guyanese what I think. Pres Ali distanced. Not for long. But long enough. He belonged in the company of the Guyanese people.

No other company could compete for his time and attention. Nor the lushness of his presence in the hours after that MV Barima Saturday Night Catastrophe of a unique kind.

It qualifies as a catastrophe in my thinking. So, when he came all solemnity and warmth, he was already cold in the consideration of citizens traumatized and reeling.

For the record, I repeat: a president is not a private citizen. A former president is. The head of a sitting head-of-state is the property of his people. I see nothing radical in these assertions. They are inseparable from the role. It’s not given to pantomime. Or phantomlike disappearances and reappearances. There was Brazil before, if recollection serves well. A president has dotted lines to sign, and lines which he must not cross. His protocol officers should inform him accordingly.

Pres Ali may be the frontrunner for Guyana’s worst president ever. When the MV Barima was engulfed in an unconquerable avalanche of water, Excellency Ali had a glorious opportunity to be remembered as Guyana’s most inspiring president ever. Like I said in the first lines, I do not judge Pres Ali. Nor is he hoisted aloft. Guyanese get that duty. Since the first days of his assumption of the presidency, Excellency Ali has cast a broad shadow. On the night and morn of the MV Barima being sucked into the depths by forces that hurled aside resistance, Pres Ali cast no shadow. His shadow was a fairy of the imagination. His substance was invisible, sprawled on the deck of conjecture.

Where was Guyana’s president in the hour when an SOS calls? What could be so vital that the dead is made to wait, and the living to wrestle with their demons? The MV Barima could have been Pres Ali’s finest hour. Regrettably, his clock could find no minutes making it his dampest. When the MV Barima went down with the lives of over 100 Guyana lost, Pres Ali should have rose and soared. He had to be found first. In retrospect, he was the first unsounded toll.