RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The US mil­i­tary car­ried out yet an­oth­er strike against sus­pect­ed drug boats on Sun­day, killing six peo­ple in the East­ern Pa­cif­ic, ac­cord­ing to Sec­re­tary of De­fence Pe­te Hegseth.

The mil­i­tary launched two lethal strikes against two sep­a­rate ves­sels “op­er­at­ed by des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions,” Hegseth wrote on X, with­out dis­clos­ing which or­gan­i­sa­tions the ships’ crews were be­lieved to have been af­fil­i­at­ed with.

“These ves­sels were known by our in­tel­li­gence to be as­so­ci­at­ed with il­lic­it nar­cotics smug­gling, were car­ry­ing nar­cotics, and were tran­sit­ing along a known nar­co-traf­fick­ing tran­sit route in the East­ern Pa­cif­ic,” Hegseth said.

The US mil­i­tary has killed 76 peo­ple in 19 strikes that have de­stroyed 20 boats since Sep­tem­ber 2, as part of a cam­paign that Wash­ing­ton said is aimed at cur­tail­ing the flow of drugs in­to the Unit­ed States.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has voiced sup­port for the US strikes, urg­ing them to “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” as she said drug traf­fick­ers were re­spon­si­ble for much of the crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Mean­while, with the USS Ger­ald R Ford, the largest air­craft car­ri­er, on its way to the Caribbean and oth­er US war­ships now de­ployed in the re­gion, many Venezue­lan na­tion­als work­ing in Trinidad said they are grow­ing anx­ious about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ris­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty back home.

At Debe Junc­tion yes­ter­day, sev­er­al Venezue­lan work­ers were seen sell­ing veg­eta­bles. Among them was Ernesto José, who said his thoughts re­mained with his fam­i­ly in Cara­cas.

“We don’t know what’s go­ing to hap­pen, but we’re hop­ing noth­ing hap­pens to the in­no­cent fam­i­lies in Venezuela,” he said.

Near­by, Hernán­dez Ro­jas said he has been tak­ing on ex­tra shifts to send more mon­ey home. “I’ve been work­ing every day and man­ag­ing to send about 300 dol­lars more each week,” he said. “Right now, every bit helps.”

The mi­grants said they are fol­low­ing re­gion­al de­vel­op­ments close­ly.

Venezue­lan Ron­nel Car­rion, orig­i­nal­ly from Tu­cu­pi­ta, who has been liv­ing and work­ing in Trinidad for the past three years, said he was al­so anx­ious.

“My whole fam­i­ly is in Venezuela, and I’m here in Trinidad, and I am very wor­ried about what is hap­pen­ing with Venezuela and the Unit­ed States. Since we do not want war in Venezuela, we say from Trinidad, no to war,” Car­rion said.

Co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, said mi­grants have been work­ing long hours, of­ten sev­en days a week, to save ex­tra mon­ey to send to rel­a­tives in Venezuela.

Yes­ter­day, the Mi­a­mi Her­ald re­port­ed that, ac­cord­ing to es­ti­mates cit­ed by the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and In­ter­na­tion­al Stud­ies, the US mil­i­tary will soon have 13 ves­sels in the re­gion—in­clud­ing eight war­ships, three am­phibi­ous ves­sels, and a nu­clear-pow­ered sub­ma­rine. The Her­ald said new­ly ar­rived cruis­ers USS Get­tys­burg and USS Lake Erie have joined oth­er Amer­i­can ships al­ready op­er­at­ing near Venezue­lan wa­ters.

The mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment, de­scribed by Wash­ing­ton as a “se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence,” has stirred de­bate among sev­er­al Caribbean lead­ers who have been ad­vo­cat­ing for the re­gion to re­main a “zone of peace.”