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Clint Chan Tack

38 Minutes Ago

The US Navy warship USS Sampson docks at a port in Panama City on August 30. – FILE/AP PHOTO

A human rights group has condemned a US military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat on September 2 which killed all 11 people on board.

In a statement on September 5, Human Rights Watch director Sarah Yager said, “The US cannot simply use lethal force on anyone it wishes. Criminal suspects should be prosecuted in a court of law, not executed at sea.”

She added that the Trump administration had not advanced any kind of legal justification for this strike.

Yeager said the administration had described it in terms that would make it an unlawful extra-judicial killing.

“This is a dangerous precedent, and the administration should abandon any intentions of unleashing a wave of unlawful targeted killings against suspected drug traffickers.”

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has publicly supported the strike.

On September 2, she said, “I have no sympathy for traffickers. The US military should kill them all violently.”

At a post-cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, neither Defence Minister Wayne Sturge nor Homeland Security Roger Alexander indicated whether or not government had any evidence to confirm the strike was legal.

“What took place in terms of the air strike, took place in international waters and in pursuance of one sovereign state pursuing their own interest against persons who are acting in a manner that is inimical to their interest.

“That (US military strike) had nothing to do with TT.”

The US is not a signatory to UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.

In a BBC report on September 2, Queens University Belfast Prof Luke Moffett said, “Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures.”

The vessel was alleged to have been operated by members of the Venezuelan-based transnational criminal organisation Tren de Aragua (TDA).

Neither Sturge nor Alexander commented on reports which claimed the vessel was destined for Trinidad and Tobago when it was destroyed.

In a statement on August 20, the US Homeland Security Department said the US Coast Guard’s Operation Pacific Viper to crack down on drug smuggling operations in the Eastern Pacific involved the suspected smuggler vessels being disabled, drugs seized and the occupants being arrested.

At a news conference in Venezuela on September 3, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello claimed the US strike condemned TT and other Caribbean fishermen to “execution at sea.” Cabello slammed Persad-Bissessar and Dominican Republic president Luis Abinader for supporting the US military action in the Caribbean.

Persad-Bissessar has supported the US military deployment in the southern Caribbean, outside of Venezuela’s territorial waters.

She has also accepted the Trump administration’s position the deployment is only about drug interdiction.

Satellite imagery from August 30-September 1, has shown the destroyer USS Sampson: Aegis guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and USS Jason Dunham; amphibious transport ships USS Iwo Jima, San Antonio and Fort Lauderdale among the growing number of American military assets in the Caribbean.

Also present, but location unknown is the fast attack nuclear submarine USS Newport News which is armed with Tomahawk missiles which can be used to destroy military and civilian targets ahead of any larger offensive.

Members of the US Marine Corps’ 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are on board the Iwo Jima, San Antonio and Fort Lauderdal. The MEU is a forward-deployed, crisis-response force for US national interests worldwide. Those missions include combat, anti-terrorism, and humanitarian relief operations.

The MEU’s last action in the Caribbean was as part of Operation Urgent Fury during the US military invasion of Grenada in 1983 after then prime minister Maurice Bishop was executed in a coup.

The US also has reconnaissance, transport and fighter aircraft stationed in Puerto Rico. The latter include ten F-35 stealth fighter planes.