T&T stands firm

Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs has reiterated the Government’s support for the US military intervention in the region. To date, an estimated 32 people have been killed in the US seven strikes on alleged drug vessels, among them two Trinidadians. In a media release yesterday, the ministry said the US operations were aimed at combating narco and human trafficking and transnational crime which it says would make the region a ‘true zone of peace’- a term which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said was a false ideal when speaking at the UN General Assembly last month. The ministry said the Government affirms that these operations were not meant to target law-abiding citizens, fisherfolk and other seafaring individuals seeking to earn an honest living. “Alternatively, all persons who may seek to engage in, or indirectly support, any illegal activities in the Region, are warned that should they be so inclined, they do so at their own peril. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago reiterates its commitment to the people of the Caribbean for the creation of a safer, stronger and more prosperous Region,” the statement read. The Government’s response follows claims by relatives that two Trinidadian fishermen from Las Cuevas died in the fifth US boat strike last week which killed six in total. Relatives of 26-year-old Las Cuevas fisherman Chad ‘Charpo’ Joseph told the Express that they suspect he may have been one of two Trinidadians killed in one such strike. His relatives, alongside international human rights groups and critics within the US, have since questioned the strikes. ”Donald Trump (is) just destroying families, boy. He just destroyed families for no good reason,”Joseph’s cousin, Aficia Clement, told the Express on Thursday. The Prime Minister had previously welcomed the boat strikes, stating that US forces should kill all drug traffickers “violently”- a statement she stood by even as relatives criticised the strikes. On Saturday, Caricom issued a statement which stated that heads of government called for the Caribbean to remain a zone of peace — with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, which reserved its position. The strikes September 2 President Donald Trump announced while speaking at the White House in September that on September 2 the US had blown up a boat coming out of Venezuela. A video, depicting a lethal strike on a vessel in the southern Caribbean, was later released by US officials, the White House confirming the killing 11 ‘narco-terrorists’ who it later designated as part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. In a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the military strike had been carried out earlier that morning (Tuesday) in the SOUTHCOM region on his orders. Tren de Aragua has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organisation, operating under the control of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, according to the US government -it is responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America, beware! Thank you for your attention to this matter!’ wrote Trump. September 15 Trump claimed that three people had been killed by a US military strike on another Venezuelan vessel. On his Truth Social account he claimed that the operation had positively identified drug trafficking cartels. September 19 Trump posted on social media of another strike that had killed three people who were affiliated with a designated terrorist organisation. The US government confirmed that four people had been killed when its forces destroyed a boat allegedly involved in drug trafficking on the high seas not far from Venezuela. President Trump announced a strike in the Caribbean Sea which he said killed six. Trump said that this lethal kinetic strike was conducted under his standing authority by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on a vessel he alleged was affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organisation (DTO) conducting narco trafficking in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. The strike, he said, occurred just off the coast of Venezuela. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route,” he wrote on his Truthsocial platform. The US confirmed a seventh strike in the southern Caribbean, killing three more people it claims were “narco-terrorists”, bringing the total death toll of the US military’s lethal boat strikes since September to 32. On his X account on Sunday, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated that his department had conducted the strike on a vessel it claimed was associated with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Colombian far-left guerrilla insurgency group. On Saturday, Trump confirmed that a large drug-carrying submarine had been destroyed by the US military as part of its efforts to curb drug trafficking in the region, killing at least two. Two deemed by Trump as “narco-terrorists” survived the US strike — the first known survivors of lethal operations carried out by the US in the Caribbean Sea since September 2. Two others on board did not.