Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Re­gion­al lead­ers have main­tained that any re­sponse to re­ports of Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties us­ing lethal force against sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean must be guid­ed by the rule of law and es­tab­lished le­gal process­es.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing fol­low­ing the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in St Lu­cia yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go has found no ev­i­dence to sup­port claims that na­tion­als of this coun­try were among those al­leged­ly killed dur­ing re­cent US mar­itime in­ter­dic­tions.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from a jour­nal­ist, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said lo­cal law en­force­ment agen­cies had con­duct­ed ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

“All our in­ves­ti­ga­tions, our lo­cal law en­force­ment, every­thing, noth­ing has giv­en us any ev­i­dence” that the in­di­vid­u­als said to have been killed were cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that the re­ports dat­ed back sev­er­al months and re­it­er­at­ed that au­thor­i­ties had been un­able to ver­i­fy any con­nec­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go de­spite on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so cau­tioned against pre­ma­ture­ly char­ac­ter­is­ing the in­ci­dents as un­law­ful killings, say­ing gov­ern­ments must re­ly on le­gal ad­vice rather than spec­u­la­tion.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that every loss of life is trag­ic, she said re­gion­al gov­ern­ments have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act with­in the frame­work of in­ter­na­tion­al and do­mes­tic law.

“Our le­gal ad­vice has not been that they are mur­ders,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“And I can on­ly act with­in the rule of law, based on the le­gal ad­vice that we have re­ceived.”

Her com­ments echoed the broad­er po­si­tion adopt­ed by sev­er­al Caribbean lead­ers dur­ing the sum­mit, who said that while con­cerns over the loss of life are le­git­i­mate, any de­ter­mi­na­tion of wrong­do­ing must be based on ev­i­dence and le­gal find­ings rather than as­sump­tion.

The is­sue has drawn re­gion­al at­ten­tion fol­low­ing re­ports that US au­thor­i­ties have used force against sus­pect­ed nar­cotics-traf­fick­ing ves­sels op­er­at­ing in Caribbean wa­ters, prompt­ing ques­tions over ju­ris­dic­tion, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights dur­ing mar­itime in­ter­dic­tion op­er­a­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that, un­til cred­i­ble ev­i­dence es­tab­lish­es oth­er­wise, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion will con­tin­ue to be guid­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the rule of law.

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley al­so adopt­ed a mea­sured po­si­tion on the is­sue.

“We would rather not have this as a first op­tion with re­spect to the con­tain­ment of per­sons. War, as we un­der­stand it, is in a the­atre of con­flict. By the same to­ken, ju­rispru­dence has evolved and that is part and par­cel of what makes this is­sue so com­plex.

“Moral­ly, I would pre­fer not to see it. If there is en­gage­ment be­tween the par­ties mil­i­tar­i­ly, they’re al­lowed to take pro­por­tion­ate ac­tion. So let us be very clear that Bar­ba­dos be­lieves there are bet­ter ways to deal with things rather than through the loss of lives,” Mot­t­ley said.