Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor — Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Amid crit­i­cism of the US mil­i­tary’s han­dling of its strike on an al­leged drug-car­ry­ing ves­sel off Venezuela on Tues­day, the De­fence Min­is­ter says the North Amer­i­can na­tion is free to con­duct its ‘war’ as it sees fit.

And Wayne Sturge yes­ter­day sug­gest­ed that if the US suc­ceeds in its cam­paign, this coun­try’s mur­der rate could fall be­low 100 be­fore the end of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) term.

The US mil­i­tary car­ried out a “ki­net­ic strike” in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters in the south­ern Caribbean on Tues­day, tar­get­ing what of­fi­cials al­leged was a drug-laden ves­sel op­er­at­ed by Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, a group Wash­ing­ton des­ig­nates a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion. Eleven peo­ple were killed in the at­tack.

Ques­tions were raised, par­tic­u­lar­ly by mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ar­gu­ing that due process was by­passed, since the ves­sel and its car­go were de­stroyed and its oc­cu­pants killed rather than de­tained.

Re­spond­ing to this is­sue yes­ter­day, Sturge said, “The US hav­ing de­clared nar­co-traf­fick­ers as ter­ror­ists and de­clar­ing war on such per­sons, they are en­ti­tled to con­duct their war in a man­ner which meets their strate­gic ob­jec­tives.”

Be­fore en­ter­ing elec­toral pol­i­tics, Min­is­ter Sturge was a well-known crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney and he ac­knowl­edged that in his re­sponse.

“As a lawyer, nat­ur­al jus­tice and due process is al­ways pre­ferred.”

How­ev­er, re­gard­ing the US’ ac­tions on Tues­day, Sturge added, “The US, as a sov­er­eign state, in keep­ing with what they see as a wartime pre­rog­a­tive, are en­ti­tled to make the call, par­tic­u­lar­ly where there is a re­al dan­ger that chances of in­ter­cep­tion may have been de­creas­ing rapid­ly.”

Sturge said the Unit­ed States’ pres­ence in the Caribbean, for what it says is its of­fen­sive on drug car­tels, can lead to a low­er mur­der rate in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“A sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of our mur­ders are gang-re­lat­ed and stem from is­sues di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to drug traf­fick­ing.

“If the ac­tions of the US lead to a sub­stan­tial re­duc­tion of drugs com­ing in­to our bor­ders, and I think it will, then we are like­ly to see mur­ders dip be­low 100 per year be­fore the end of our term.”

He said pol­i­tics aside, he is sure most peo­ple would wel­come a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in mur­ders and vi­o­lent crimes.

The De­fence Min­is­ter not­ed that drugs de­stroy lives and, in many in­stances, peo­ple die vi­o­lent deaths at the trans­ac­tion stages.

Venezuela’s Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Fred­dy Ñáñez has al­leged that the video footage of the strike shared by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is AI-gen­er­at­ed.

How­ev­er, Venezue­lan me­dia yes­ter­day re­port­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers of the 11 men as con­firm­ing they were killed in the strike.

Venezuela has al­so con­demned the ac­tion, call­ing it an “il­le­gal mas­sacre” and a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law.