Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The As­sem­bly of Caribbean Peo­ple (ACP) has con­demned the Unit­ed States for what it calls an at­tempt to pro­voke mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Venezuela, fol­low­ing the coun­try’s claim that a US war­ship “il­le­gal­ly as­sault­ed” a fish­ing ves­sel car­ry­ing nine tu­na fish­er­men.

Venezuela claims that on Sep­tem­ber 12, the US Navy de­stroy­er USS Ja­son Dun­ham in­ter­cept­ed the fish­ing ves­sel Car­men Rosa, 48 nau­ti­cal miles off La Blan­quil­la Is­land, de­ploy­ing 18 armed troops who oc­cu­pied the ves­sel for eight hours and dis­rupt­ed its crew of nine fish­er­men.

Yes­ter­day, via me­dia re­lease, the As­sem­bly of Caribbean Peo­ple, a re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, ex­pressed its sol­i­dar­i­ty with Venezuela.

It said this lat­est “at­tack” against Venezue­lan fish­er­men is clear­ly part of an at­tempt to pro­voke in­ci­dents to jus­ti­fy mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Venezuela.

“We ex­press our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Venezue­lan fish­ing work­ers who have al­ready suf­fered two at­tacks in­volv­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate and ex­ces­sive use of force, in­clud­ing a shame­ful ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing that tar­nish­es the ho­n­our of the US mil­i­tary. The Unit­ed States must cease its war mon­ger­ing and hege­mon­ic agen­da in the Caribbean re­gion. The colo­nial and im­pe­r­i­al Mon­roe Doc­trine is dead and can­not be res­ur­rect­ed,” the group as­sert­ed.

The ACP said the ma­noeu­vres of the US gov­ern­ment seek to “mil­i­tarise Caribbean wa­ters to de­stroy the sov­er­eign­ty of the peo­ples of our re­gion and plun­der our re­sources.”

The re­gion­al group said any ag­gres­sion against Venezuela is “an at­tack on all of us.”

It de­clared, “Long live the uni­ty of the peo­ples of the Caribbean! Say no to im­pe­ri­al­ist ag­gres­sion! Say yes to the sov­er­eign­ty of our re­gion and re­spect for the rights of our peo­ples to live in peace. Trump and his troops out of the Caribbean wa­ters! They shall not pass! The Caribbean must re­main a Zone of Peace!”

On Sat­ur­day, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment ad­vised the US to leave the re­gion and called on Amer­i­cans to re­ject the use of its sol­diers as “sac­ri­fi­cial pawns.”

“By plac­ing their sol­diers and of­fi­cers as can­non fod­der and ex­pos­ing their lives once again, they re­peat the his­to­ry of oth­er events that led to end­less wars, such as Viet­nam.”

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment went on to say that this re­flects “shame­ful be­hav­iour” in Wash­ing­ton that ir­re­spon­si­bly com­mit­ted ex­treme­ly cost­ly mil­i­tary re­sources to “fab­ri­cate pre­texts for mil­i­tary ad­ven­tures.”

On Sep­tem­ber 2, a US mil­i­tary strike on a ves­sel in the Caribbean killed 11 peo­ple, es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions with Venezuela. Wash­ing­ton said the boat car­ried Venezue­lan gang mem­bers from Tren de Aragua, des­ig­nat­ed a ter­ror­ist group, while Cara­cas in­sist­ed the dead were civil­ians. Venezuela’s In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo de­nounced the ac­tion as “mur­der” and an ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar backed the US, urg­ing vi­o­lent ac­tion against traf­fick­ers. The US has since boost­ed its naval pres­ence near Venezuela un­der a counter-nar­cotics cam­paign, which Cara­cas sees as a cov­er to oust Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, on whom Wash­ing­ton has placed a $50 mil­lion boun­ty.