Two Trinidadian Nationals Among Those Killed in US Military Strike in the Caribbean
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – The secretary of the non-governmental organization, Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, Gary Aboud, Thursday confirmed that two Trinidad and Tobago nationals were among the six people killed following the latest United States military airstrike on a small vessel in international waters near the coast of Venezuela earlier this week.
US claims it bombed vessel carrying narcotics“We would like to offer our condolences to the families, friends, children, wives of the deceased. Very, very sorry that they were murdered like this. I am very very sorry,” Aboud said on a radio broadcast on Thursday with regards to the killings of Richie Samaroo and Chad “Charpo” Joseph.
Aboud said as a result of the killings, local fisherfolk are now afraid of going out to sea.
“People are terrified at the risk of being killed at sea. Personally I am very upset with our national position of bringing American warships and allowing them to by pass the judicial process.
“We have law and order. We are a civilised nation. Yet we have adopted and given blessing to warmongering murderers to come into our territory and kill people outside of the judicial process.
“I strongly advise fishermen not to go further than a quarter of a mile, half a mile from the shoreline,” Aboud said, adding that the fishes being sought can be caught near the shores.
“It is very dangerous to be offshore as you can be killed at anytime,” he said.
The Trinidad and Tobago government and the Trinidad and Tobago Police (TTPS) have made no official comment regarding the deaths of the two nationals, but Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has publicly given support to the United States war on narcotics in the Caribbean.
Last month, President Donald Trump ramped up US military presence in the Caribbean Sea ordering an amphibious squadron to the southern Caribbean as part of his effort to address threats from Latin American drug cartels.
A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser have also being allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission.
The United States military has carried out four deadly air strikes in Caribbean waters over the past few weeks against what Washington alleges are Caracas-backed drug traffickers. The Venezuelan government denies the charge, accusing the administration of being a threat to the peace and security of the whole region.
Persad Bissessar has said that she is “happy that the US naval deployment is having success in their mission,” and that “the pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all violently”.
In the latest US strike, President Trump said it targeted a vessel allegedly linked to narcotics trafficking and terrorist networks transiting through the Caribbean. It was the fifth US “kinetic strike” in the region since the deployment of military assets under the administration’s anti-narcotics campaign.
In total, 27 people have been killed in five similar operations, which Washington claims are aimed at dismantling drug routes linked to Venezuela.
However, relatives of the two Trinidadians have condemned the attack, calling it “inhumane” and “unjustified.”
Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, said her son was not involved in drugs and described his death as “wrong and cruel.
“The sea law is they supposed to stop the boat and intercept it, not blow it up like that,” Burnley told a local media outlet, while her son’s grandmother, Christine Clement, said e had been living in Venezuela for the past three months and had previously survived another attack while trying to return home by sea.
Aboud said the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister should be hauled before the International Criminal Court over what is taking place.
“What our Right Honourable Prime Minister has done should be questioned at the International Criminal Court becase we are a country with courts and if we have a problem with the way the judiciary is functioning we should improve it.
“We have a Coast Guard…(and if) they don’t have radars, we should get radars, but killing our boys at sea. murdering them, here are about 20 commodity items that Trinidad imports from Venezuela,” he told radio listeners.
He said these include, honey, apples, wild meat, donkeys, goats and that “the whole pig industry is supported by piglets coming from Venezuela.
“It is very common that many of our boys find it lucrative to run over (to Venezuela) and bring substances. There is also trafficking with the Venezuelans that work here , come and go regularly for funerals, weddings or they just go home after working here for a year or two.
“So the idea of killing them, certainly there is a small percentage of the American import of cocaine and narcotics that come through the Caribbean and the United nations has documentation that states eight per cent of it travels through the Eastern Caribbean territories, but 92 per cent travel through Central America,” Aboud added.
