THE majority of Guyanese live on the coast and take their sustenance from the ocean. By its tides, waves and currents, we navigate from one city or town to another. And yet we know so little about it, or the systems upon which we depend when something goes wrong.
I confess that the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the sinking of the MV Barima has made me realise how little I know about the ocean I am fortunate to glimpse every day.
The rush to judgement after the sinking, a little over three months ago, portrayed more impatience than a desire to establish the facts. We wanted answers fast. When they did not come quickly enough, we demanded justice, as though we were prepared to live with the consequences of assigning blame before establishing the truth.
Last Thursday, after seven days of hearings, the CoI paused to assess evidence from 33 witnesses and what its chair described as a foot-high stack of documents, while the secretariat prepared for the next round. More than 70 witnesses remain.
The last witness was retired Captain John Flores, Coordinator of MARAD’s Emergency Operations Division. Once the distress beacon was identified as belonging to the Barima, Flores led the emergency search-and-rescue operation.
MARAD could hardly have chosen a better person for the task. A former Director of Maritime Safety and Commanding Officer of the GDF Coast Guard, Flores joined the Defence Force in 1981. He trained at the Royal Naval College in Britain, received command and watchkeeping training in Canada, and qualified as a search-and-rescue planner in the United States in 1993. His search-and-rescue training continued over the years, including a programme conducted by the United States Southern Command in 2024.
His testimony offered something more useful than an impressive résumé. He walked the Commission through the plans, procedures and communications that informed the response.
We learned that receiving a distress signal is not the same as knowing immediately who is in trouble. Flores explained that the message he received around 11:03 p.m. contained a beacon identification number, a position and a transmission time. At that moment, he said, the source had not been established. Verification was part of the task before him.
We learned, too, that search and rescue involved more than sending a boat towards a set of coordinates.
Flores took commissioners through procedures for alerting agencies, assembling personnel, identifying an on-scene commander, establishing search areas, deploying resources and recording developments. The procedures also addressed communicating with families and notifying them when a search was being called off.
Nor was this simply a collection of people acting independently. Flores described Coast Guard personnel working alongside him and liaison officers helping coordinate the resources of other agencies. He recounted his contact with foreign vessels and the allocation of search areas.
His account was detailed, but it was not a claim that everything had worked perfectly. When a commissioner identified a disconnect in coordination between the foreign vessels and the on-scene commander, Flores acknowledged it and said it had been discussed afterwards. That, too, is evidence worth hearing: where the arrangements worked, where they fell short and what needs to change.
The commissioners recognised the value of his contribution. One thanked him for his comprehensive disclosures and described them as the most comprehensive yet. Another observed that, in the circumstances, “you all did quite well.”
So why wasn’t Flores brought forward earlier?
Witnesses cannot all take the stand at once. Documents must be assembled, testimony heard, and questions followed through. The order in which we would prefer to hear the evidence is not necessarily the right order.
What astonishes me is how readily an incomplete account becomes a complete verdict on social media. An erroneous report fuels an outraged post which in turn justifies a conviction. By the time the next witness speaks, the accused have already been tried in the public arena.
I, too, am in the room. Yet sometimes I read the coverage and wonder whether we attended the same hearing. Questions acquire the weight of findings. Qualifications disappear. An acknowledgement that something could have been done better becomes proof that nothing was done properly.
I am not suggesting that journalists should suspend scrutiny. But they should report the answers as diligently as they do the questions.
The chair has said the commission will hear from the relevant parties within its terms of reference. Let it do so. An unanswered question today is not necessarily a question that will be skipped tomorrow.
The test is whether the completed inquiry examines the relevant evidence and establishes what happened to the Barima, why it happened and how another such tragedy can be prevented.
We are learning things we did not know before. I certainly am. Let us not make ourselves so certain of the answers that we stop listening to the evidence.
What this moment demands is patience.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.