Spain Port, Trinidad
AP
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Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamura Pershad Bissessar praised the US strike on boats suspected of carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean, saying all traffickers should be killed “hardly”.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that 11 people were killed on a ship departing from Venezuela, near Trinidad and Tobago.
“I am pleased that, together with a large part of the country, the deployment of the US navy is successful in their mission,” Persad-Bissessar said in a statement late Tuesday. “The pain and suffering that the cartels have inflicted on our country are immeasurable. I have no sympathy for human traffickers. The US military should kill them vigorously.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the drugs on board the vessel are likely heading towards Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Persad-Bissessar said that by limiting illegal guns, drugs and human trafficking, twin states in the Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago would reduce violence.
“Our country was destroyed by bloody violence and addiction due to the greed of the cartel,” Persad-Bissessar said. “The massacre of our people is fueled by evil cartel traffickers.”
Other Caribbean leaders were more modest in what they said.
Barbados, a local news site, said Barbado’s Foreign Minister Kelly Simmons had written to Rubio, a foreign minister within the 15-member regional trade bloc, to ensure that future military operations within the Caribbean were not carried out without prior notice or explanation.
“What we’re trying to do effectively is to work through diplomatic channels to ensure there are no surprises or practices, so we can get notifications in realisable places for actions that have foreseeable local impact.”
He said the ongoing dialogue “can avoid misunderstanding and maintain and strengthen each other’s mutual confidence.”
Meanwhile, Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday questioned the operation, saying it could be possible to maritime blockades of drug cargo without attacking vessel residents. He said Colombia usually captures them. This is because the people who transport drugs are “not big drug traffickers” but rather “very poor young people” in the area.
“Bounding a boat violates the universal principle of proportionality of power, and the result of murder,” the left-wing president wrote to X.
Trump says the vessels targeted in the international waters are run by Venezuelan gangster Tren de Aragua. The White House did not immediately explain how the military determined the people on the ship were members of Tren de Aragua.
The strike comes after last month announced it had planned to boost its maritime forces in waters off Venezuela to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels.
