Survivors and families of those who lost loved ones travelled long distances on Wednesday to the Arthur Chung Convention Centre to meet the commissioners investigating the MV Barima tragedy. 

They came, elders and many with small children, an estimated 120 individuals, to speak about what they endured, their loss, grief and their anguish. They deserved to be heard by the commissioners, but instead everyone was treated to a political performance.

Five WIN parliamentarians, including the Leader of the Opposition, who had not been invited, imposed themselves on the gathering, turning a meeting intended for survivors and bereaved families into a platform for partisan attacks.

None of them were aboard the vessel nor did they have any relatives on it, and yet they commandeered attention that belonged to families still living with the consequences of the tragedy.

This was political opportunism at its crudest. Grief and sorrow became a backdrop for a crass message that displaced the very people the commissioners expected to hear from.

What they got in return were blatant attacks on their integrity. Chairman of the COI Godfrey Phillip Smith said the commission welcomes public scrutiny and invited the families present to hold it accountable.

WIN MPs interpreted those words as a licence to dominate a gathering convened for people whose lives have been shattered. 

Throughout the three-hour meeting, the commissioners remained transparent, patient and caring. Their conduct stood in sharp contrast to the politicians who intruded. 

At the close, family members openly embraced the commissioners, some sobbing in their arms. Those encounters revealed the meeting’s human purpose, which was to  allow people to be heard.

The survivors and bereaved families should never have been subjected to the role of political props. Their suffering is not a campaign platform. Their opportunity to address the commissioners face to face on Wednesday was subordinated to political grandstanding.

WIN’s representatives owed these families restraint and respect. Instead, they turned an encounter with the commission into a political circus.

Their central goal was unmistakable: WIN’s MP and their leader placed their own message ahead of the voices of survivors and those still mourning their loved ones.