Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Unit­ed States’ re­cent move to or­der ad­di­tion­al ships—in­clud­ing a nu­clear-pow­ered at­tack sub­ma­rine—to the south­ern Caribbean to ad­dress drug car­tel threats has been con­demned by Venezuela’s mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions, which says the en­try of a nu­clear sub­ma­rine to the re­gion vi­o­lates treaties the US has signed.

Venezuela’s mis­sion, in its com­plaint to the UN, cit­ed treaties that the Caribbean should re­main a zone of peace—a call Cari­com has made.

But T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has wel­comed the ad­di­tion­al US forces in the re­gion.

This, as the is­sue of the US de­ploy­ment of ships to the re­gion con­tin­ues en­gag­ing at­ten­tion, even as Guyana and Ja­maica are heav­i­ly in­volved in cam­paigns for their gen­er­al elec­tions next Mon­day and Wednes­day.

Last week, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion or­dered an am­phibi­ous squadron to the South­ern Caribbean in a crack­down on hemi­spher­ic drug car­tels.

The USS San An­to­nio, USS Iwo Ji­ma and USS Fort Laud­erdale were sched­uled to ar­rive off Venezuela’s coast by last Sun­day car­ry­ing 4,500 ser­vice mem­bers, in­clud­ing 2,200 Marines,

On their des­ti­na­tion, US De­fence of­fi­cials told CNN then that the ships had not re­ceived or­ders to head to the edge of Venezuela’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al sea, which has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,000 kilo­me­tres of coast­line.

On Mon­day, Reuters cit­ed in­for­ma­tion from US sources that two ad­di­tion­al US ships—the USS Lake Erie, a guid­ed mis­sile cruis­er, and the USS New­port News, a nu­clear-pow­ered fast at­tack sub­ma­rine —will ar­rive in the re­gion by ear­ly next week.

These are re­port­ed­ly aimed at ad­dress­ing threats to US na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty from spe­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed “nar­co-ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions” in the re­gion.

The US des­ig­nat­ed Mex­i­co’s Sinaloa Car­tel and Venezue­lan crim­i­nal group Tren de Aragua (TDA) as glob­al ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions. T&T De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge re­cent­ly said the TDA is op­er­at­ing in T&T.

PM: On­ly car­tels’ min­ions up­set at US pres­ence

Af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar backed the US ini­tia­tive, dis­missed the need for T&T con­sul­ta­tion with Cari­com on the is­sue and put the bid to dis­man­tle drug net­works above Cari­com’s call for the re­gion to re­main a zone of peace, she said yes­ter­day she had no prob­lem with ad­di­tion­al US ships in the area.

“No, not at all. The mar­itime area to be pa­trolled is very large, so any ad­di­tion­al naval as­sets would on­ly in­crease the ef­fec­tive­ness of the drug in­ter­dic­tion op­er­a­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia.

“The on­ly per­sons who are tense are those en­gaged in drug traf­fick­ing and those en­abling the car­tels. These US ships are op­er­at­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters; they’re not in­ter­fer­ing with the sov­er­eign­ty of any na­tion.”

She added, “For years, the re­gion has com­plained about drugs and vi­o­lent crime. We are fi­nal­ly get­ting some help and sud­den­ly, per­sons are against the naval pa­trols. Cit­i­zens must take a close look at the per­sons who are com­plain­ing about the ag­gres­sive US ac­tion against the drug car­tels. The car­tels have in­fil­trat­ed the top ech­e­lons of so­ci­ety through­out the Caribbean, so they now have their min­ions in our coun­try ag­i­tat­ing against the US pres­ence.”

On whether T&T might be caught in the crosshairs of the sit­u­a­tion, she said that is “en­gag­ing in hy­per­bole and hys­te­ria.”

Venezue­lan com­plaint
about sub

But Venezuela’s Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions yes­ter­day called for the Per­ma­nent Mis­sions of the Mem­ber States and the Per­ma­nent Ob­serv­er Mis­sions to the UN to fol­low up on its Au­gust 25 com­mu­ni­ca­tion re­gard­ing a “se­ries of hos­tile ac­tions and con­tin­ued threats” by the US against Venezuela.

The mis­sion strong­ly de­nounced the ad­di­tion­al US ves­sels as a se­ri­ous threat to re­gion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty. Venezuela called for “pre­serv­ing peace, se­cu­ri­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty” in the re­gion.

The mis­sion com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the UN, the le­gal frame­work in­volved and which was al­leged­ly vi­o­lat­ed by the US:

• The pres­ence of an of­fen­sive nu­clear sub­ma­rine in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean con­tra­dicts the his­toric com­mit­ment of na­tions to dis­ar­ma­ment and peace­ful set­tle­ment of dis­putes and rep­re­sents a clear act of in­tim­i­da­tion, con­trary to the let­ter and spir­it of the UN Char­ter, which, oblig­es all states to re­frain from the threat or use of force against the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty/po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence of any state.

• Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean were de­clared a Nu­clear-Weapon-Free Zone by the Treaty of Tlatelol­co (1967), Pro­to­col II, of which was rat­i­fied by the US in 1971.

• Procla­ma­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace was adopt­ed by the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2014 and recog­nised by the UN.

The mis­sion stat­ed that the in­tro­duc­tion of a nu­clear sub­ma­rine in­to the re­gion, with­out trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing its car­go or rules of em­ploy­ment, vi­o­lat­ed the ob­ject and pur­pose of legal­ly bind­ing in­stru­ments and erodes col­lec­tive con­fi­dence in the va­lid­i­ty of the re­gion­al de­nu­cleari­sa­tion regime.

The mis­sion added, “Venezuela de­mands the im­me­di­ate ces­sa­tion of the US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean. It de­mands clear and ver­i­fi­able guar­an­tees from Wash­ing­ton that it will not de­ploy or threat­en to use nu­clear weapons in the re­gion.

“It urges the Agency for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Nu­clear Weapons in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to con­vene ur­gent con­sul­ta­tions to ex­am­ine this se­ries of hos­tile ac­tions and at­tempts at in­tim­i­da­tion.

“Venezuela urges re­spect for the Treaty of Tlatelol­co, signed by the US and de­clar­ing Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean a nu­clear-weapon-free zone.”

An­tigua’s Browne urges zone of peace; Cari­com silent

There was no re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia’s queries on the US de­vel­op­ments (and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pro-US state­ments) from Cari­com chair­man, Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, or the heads of Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent, Grena­da, Do­mini­ca or St Lu­cia yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, An­tigua/Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne, con­tact­ed on the US fleet de­ploy­ment and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks, said, “The re­gion must re­main a zone of peace. I’m a peace prac­ti­tion­er—I con­demn all wars and con­flicts. They bring no val­ue to hu­man­i­ty—they are de­struc­tive. That’s all I have to say,”

Guyana For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Hugh Todd cit­ed Guyana’s state­ment on the is­sue. Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, on the cam­paign trail, has recom­mit­ted Guyana’s sup­port for the US ini­tia­tive.