Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Gas­ton Browne says if the Unit­ed States in­deed took ac­tion against nar­co-traf­fick­ers on Tues­day, it may not be con­demned. How­ev­er, he al­so says if the in­ci­dent was a pre­cur­sor to any mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion, he would cer­tain­ly con­demn it.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, af­ter the US on Tues­day an­nounced it had de­stroyed an al­leged drug boat con­nect­ed to the Venezue­lan Tren De Aragua gang, Browne said, “If in­deed it is that the US took out a boat and it in­volved nar­co­traf­fick­ers, I don’t know that any­one could con­demn any such act.

“But when it comes to es­ca­la­tion of any mil­i­tary con­flict in the re­gion, I stand op­posed to any such in­ter­ven­tion in this hemi­sphere. We want to en­sure that it re­mains a hemi­sphere of peace, where all cit­i­zens can feel se­cure.”

He said while there will al­ways be dif­fer­ences, this should be re­solved us­ing di­a­logue and diplo­ma­cy, “and we con­demn all acts of mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion and all wars - they bring no val­ue what­so­ev­er to hu­man­i­ty.”

How­ev­er, Browne said he did not see the need for Cari­com in­ter­ven­tion if what the US said was cor­rect about the ac­tion tak­en on Tues­day.

“But if, on the oth­er hand, this is a pre­cur­sor to any mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion, then we will cer­tain­ly con­demn any such mil­i­tary con­flict that may arise,” Browne added.

“Any mil­i­tary con­flict will re­sult in un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences for the en­tire Caribbean and that is why we have to con­tin­ue call­ing for peace and uni­ty, diplo­ma­cy and di­a­logue. No­body should be of­fend­ed by this call, as it’s an at­tempt to main­tain the hemi­sphere as a zone of peace and tran­quil­li­ty.”

He added, “The im­pact of any mil­i­tary con­flict will have a dis­pro­por­tion­ate ef­fect on the Caribbean coun­tries that rank among the most vul­ner­a­ble and least re­silient in the world. That must be con­sid­ered.

“My ar­tic­u­la­tions are there­fore in de­fence of na­tion­al in­ter­est, re­gion­al in­ter­est and hemi­spher­ic in­ter­est; the in­ter­est of all. I con­sid­er my­self an ad­vo­cate for glob­al peace, love, uni­ty, truth and jus­tice - in­clud­ing cli­mate jus­tice.”

The depth of Browne’s feel­ings on mat­ters like war, cli­mate change and oth­er is­sues are con­veyed in 10 songs he co-wrote with Chat­G­PT in the past two weeks. Browne’s re­leased a de­but al­bum en­ti­tled Love is the Way, an in­spi­ra­tional gospel/reg­gae rhythm hy­brid urg­ing a har­mo­nious so­ci­ety.

On Tues­day, Venezuela Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Fred­dy Nanez dis­missed the video of the dead­ly strike as “AI-cre­at­ed.”

But US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump yes­ter­day dou­bled down, de­fend­ing the ac­tion. Ac­cord­ing to US me­dia, Trump said “mas­sive amounts of drugs” were found on the boat and bags of drugs were seen “all over” it. He said the US has “tapes of them” speak­ing.

Eleven peo­ple were killed in what Trump de­scribed as a “ki­net­ic” strike on the pirogue-type ves­sel which was seen on video. A ki­net­ic strike in­volves di­rect force, em­ploy­ing mis­siles, bombs or pro­jec­tiles.

US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio on Tues­day claimed the drugs on the ves­sel were “like­ly head­ed to Trinidad or else­where in the Caribbean.”

It was the first known en­gage­ment fol­low­ing the US’ heavy mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the re­gion in its crack­down against drug car­tels. T&T is part of an in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion com­pris­ing Guyana, Ecuador, Paraguay and Ar­genti­na sup­port­ing the US-led ef­fort.

Yes­ter­day, US De­fence Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth said mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions against car­tels would con­tin­ue.

Re­gional lead­ers write to US

The re­gion is as con­cerned about the US de­ploy­ment.

Bar­ba­dos For­eign Min­is­ter Ker­rie Sym­monds said Tues­day that Cari­com for­eign min­is­ters wrote to US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio seek­ing di­a­logue to en­sure that any mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions do not ex­tend to oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries with­out no­tice and ex­pla­na­tion.

Sym­monds told “Bar­ba­dos To­day” that re­gion­al for­eign min­is­ters met last week and “set­tled” that a let­ter should be writ­ten. It was to have been sent out by now. He said it was draft­ed by chair­man of the Con­fer­ence of For­eign Min­is­ters (St Kitts For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter) Dr Den­zil Dou­glas.

Sym­monds al­so com­ment­ed on re­marks by T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the US mil­i­tary is­sue.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed yes­ter­day that Dou­glas, as chair­man of the Con­fer­ence of For­eign Min­is­ters, will be sign­ing the let­ter to the US.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers didn’t re­ply to ques­tions yes­ter­day on the re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment in re­sponse to the US ac­tion.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Amery Browne al­so point­ed to a US De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty re­port which showed how ev­i­dence is seized.

“The US Coast Guard is be­ing suc­cess­ful­ly de­ployed in oth­er op­er­a­tional zones against drug car­tels. Please read the re­port care­ful­ly. This re­port de­tails how ev­i­dence is seized and the drug run­ners are cap­tured off Mex­i­co and the busy west­ern coast­line of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca,” he said.

“When a sus­pi­cious ves­sel re­fus­es to stop when en­gaged, the en­gines are de­stroyed...bring­ing the ves­sel to a halt, and any hu­man and drug car­go is re­moved and ev­i­dence gath­ered be­fore the ves­sel it­self is de­stroyed, based on the ex­am­ples pro­vid­ed.”

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah al­so said yes­ter­day that prop­er ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the US mis­sile “hit” on the boat is need­ed.

“What was shown wasn’t prop­er ver­i­fi­ca­tion. If you’re deal­ing with drug in­ter­dic­tion, you’re sup­posed to seize a boat, ar­rest peo­ple and iden­ti­fy who’s be­hind the op­er­a­tion. The US should at least say where the boat came from and what ‘in­tel’ they had. Dead men tell no tales,” Ab­du­lah said.

“You can­not just blow a boat out of the wa­ter. Drug in­ter­dic­tion isn’t mil­i­tary war­fare where one coun­try can use mil­i­tary force to at­tack and kill just like that. T&T’s Gov­ern­ment shouldn’t con­done that.”