With Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clar­ing that nar­co-traf­fick­ers should be “killed vi­o­lent­ly” by the US mil­i­tary, THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader and fish­er­folk are now ques­tion­ing the deaf­en­ing si­lence of Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine re­gard­ing To­ba­go’s stance.

Au­gus­tine is now be­ing called on to say whether the is­land sup­ports the Prime Min­is­ter’s tough line or if To­ba­go will chart its own course in pro­tect­ing its peo­ple and pre­serv­ing peace, as some Caribbean is­lands have done pub­licly.

The con­cerns fol­lowed the Sep­tem­ber 2 US mis­sile strike in the south­ern Caribbean, which de­stroyed a speed­boat al­leged­ly linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang. The US said the ves­sel was car­ry­ing drugs, but no sus­pects were ar­rest­ed, and no ev­i­dence has yet been re­leased pub­licly. Eleven peo­ple were re­port­ed­ly killed.

Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment called it il­le­gal and has since de­ployed thou­sands of troops along its coast­line in re­sponse.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar came out strong­ly in sup­port of the US ac­tion. Speak­ing af­ter the strike, she said, “I have no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers; the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly. I, along with most of the coun­try, am hap­py that the US naval de­ploy­ment is hav­ing suc­cess in their mis­sion.” She added that the coun­try has suf­fered too long from car­tel-linked vi­o­lence: “Our coun­try has been rav­aged by bloody vi­o­lence and ad­dic­tion be­cause of the greed of the car­tels.”

It is against this back­drop that Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has called on Au­gus­tine to make To­ba­go’s po­si­tion clear.

“So, the ques­tion, there­fore, is what is this cur­rent Chief Sec­re­tary’s po­si­tion? Thus far, he has been ab­solute­ly silent… and whether he agrees with the Prime Min­is­ter,” Mor­ris told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day. He warned that To­ba­go can­not af­ford to re­main with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion when lives and liveli­hoods are at stake.

Mor­ris said while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment sup­ports strong ef­forts to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing, it re­jects a blan­ket ap­proach of mil­i­tary ex­e­cu­tions and in­sists the Caribbean must re­main a “zone of peace.”

Mean­while, To­ba­go’s fish­er­folk said the strike is no dis­tant mat­ter, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter pieces of what is be­lieved to be the de­stroyed ves­sel have al­ready reached the is­land’s wa­ters.

Cur­tis Dou­glas, pres­i­dent of the All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, con­firmed that fish­er­men spot­ted de­bris over the week­end. He ex­plained that the cur­rents of­ten car­ry dam­aged ves­sels in­to To­ba­go’s seas and even fur­ther to Grena­da or be­yond. “So, we are call­ing on him (Au­gus­tine) to at least say some­thing be­cause men need to be com­fort­ed. Our fish­er­men go 40 and 50 miles, very deep, and they could eas­i­ly be mis­tak­en for do­ing what­ev­er, drugs or what­ev­er, and be­ing blown in­to the wa­ter the same way,” Dou­glas said.

He added that the si­lence of the Chief Sec­re­tary was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling for a com­mu­ni­ty that spends much of its life at sea. “Men need to be com­fort­ed,” he re­peat­ed, warn­ing that with­out as­sur­ances from their lead­ers, fish­er­folk feel ex­posed to dan­gers well be­yond their con­trol.

Dou­glas said To­ba­go’s fish­er­men, who are not in­volved in the drug trade, fear they could be caught in the cross­fire as US forces step up op­er­a­tions in the south­ern Caribbean. He said they want clar­i­ty from Au­gus­tine.

All at­tempts to reach Au­gus­tine for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.