Barbados International Minister Kerrie Symmonds has voiced unease over current U.S. navy strikes on vessels within the Caribbean suspected of drug trafficking, warning that the actions might have bypassed due course of and set a troubling precedent.
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The issues comply with U.S. President Donald Trump’s order late final month to strike a ship off the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 folks. Trump later confirmed that three extra folks had been killed in a separate strike, saying each vessels had been carrying medicine.
Whereas some regional leaders, together with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, have praised Washington’s harder stance on narcotics — with Persad-Bissessar declaring she had “no sympathy for traffickers” and urging U.S. forces to “kill all of them violently” — Barbados is taking a extra cautious view.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Symmonds stated the area values U.S. assist in curbing trafficking however burdened that the conduct of the 2 current strikes raises severe authorized and moral questions.
“This can be a matter that should be handled within the context of preserving the rule of regulation,” he stated. “We’d a lot choose to see suspected criminals recognized and interdicted. Of us who’re suspected are normally arrested, tried, and if convicted, then sentenced. It’s a harmful and really slippery slope if we arbitrarily decide guilt and perform assassinations.”
He warned that if harmless civilians had been mistakenly focused and killed, the area might face “a most troublesome and disastrous incident.”
Symmonds stated Caribbean Group (CARICOM) international ministers have written to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio looking for assurances that any future navy actions is not going to destabilize the area or be undertaken with out session. The letter additionally known as for advance discover of operations prone to have an effect on the Caribbean and for continued diplomatic engagement with Washington.
“Thus far there was no formal response,” Symmonds confirmed.
