DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed States has car­ried out an­oth­er strike near Venezue­lan wa­ters, hit­ting a small ves­sel it claims was in­volved in nar­co traf­fick­ing and killing six peo­ple on board.

US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced the op­er­a­tion on his so­cial me­dia plat­form, Truth So­cial, say­ing it was or­dered by Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth un­der his au­thor­i­ty as com­man­der in chief.

Trump said the “ki­net­ic strike” tar­get­ed a ves­sel af­fil­i­at­ed with a Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­gan­i­sa­tion op­er­at­ing in the US South­ern Com­mand’s area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

He added that “in­tel­li­gence con­firmed the ves­sel was traf­fick­ing nar­cotics, was as­so­ci­at­ed with il­lic­it nar­coter­ror­ist net­works, and was tran­sit­ing along a known DTO route.”

“The strike was con­duct­ed in In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ters, and six male nar­coter­ror­ists aboard the ves­sel were killed in the strike. No US Forces were harmed,” Trump wrote, shar­ing de­clas­si­fied footage of the at­tack.

Hegseth lat­er re­post­ed the pres­i­dent’s mes­sage and the video on X.

It is the fifth such op­er­a­tion in the US­SOUTH­COM re­gion since Oc­to­ber 3.

While US in­tel­li­gence links the tar­get­ed ves­sels to crim­i­nal net­works, Unit­ed Na­tions of­fi­cials and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties have dis­put­ed the claims, al­leg­ing civil­ian ca­su­al­ties and warn­ing that con­tin­ued strikes risk fu­elling re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Venezuela warns of im­mi­nent at­tack

Venezuela’s am­bas­sador to T&T has re­it­er­at­ed that his gov­ern­ment be­lieves an at­tack by the Unit­ed States is im­mi­nent.

Speak­ing at a press brief­ing in Port of Spain, Am­bas­sador Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero re­stat­ed Venezuela’s po­si­tion de­liv­ered at last Fri­day’s emer­gency ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Sup­port­ed by Chi­na and Rus­sia, Venezuela warned that a po­ten­tial US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion “could oc­cur in the very short term,” de­scrib­ing it as a threat to re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al peace that could fu­el mi­gra­tion, ter­ror­ism, and vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Sánchez Cordero said Venezuela ap­pre­ci­at­ed sup­port from the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) in op­pos­ing the “mil­i­tari­sa­tion of the Caribbean,” though he not­ed that some coun­tries, in­clud­ing T&T, had not en­dorsed the group’s state­ment.

He down­played re­cent ex­changes be­tween of­fi­cials in both coun­tries, de­scrib­ing them as po­lit­i­cal rhetoric.

“There may be dis­agree­ments but, that’s where I was go­ing, that comes and goes. What mat­ters is the long-stand­ing re­la­tions be­tween both peo­ples. That’s what mat­ters, re­al­ly. The rest is re­al­ly just peo­ple talk­ing, what­ev­er. But what mat­ters is the true friend­ship be­tween our both coun­tries. That will re­main no mat­ter what.”

The am­bas­sador de­clined to is­sue a di­rect mes­sage to T&T’s gov­ern­ment on the al­leged threat, say­ing Venezuela was “sim­ply stat­ing the re­al­i­ty.”

Asked whether Venezuela still be­lieves the first strike against a ves­sel was gen­er­at­ed by ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, he replied that it was “a ques­tion best posed to the Unit­ed States.”

He al­so de­clined to com­ment on the Drag­on Gas deal, say­ing he was not au­tho­rised to dis­cuss the mat­ter. How­ev­er, he said Venezuela would “wel­come any par­tic­i­pa­tion from Trinidad and To­ba­go or Cari­com” that con­tributes to re­gion­al peace.

The am­bas­sador of­fered no up­date on re­ports of the pend­ing de­por­ta­tion of 200 Venezue­lan na­tion­als from Trinidad.

Union urges peace and di­a­logue

On Mon­day, Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get reaf­firmed the union’s com­mit­ment to keep­ing the Caribbean a zone of peace and wel­comed the prospect of di­a­logue be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

Ro­get said the union has “al­ways main­tained that po­si­tion,” adding that any ini­tia­tive bring­ing rev­enue to Trinidad and To­ba­go, such as the Drag­on Gas project, would be a pos­i­tive step.

He said while talks may not yet be on the agen­da, the union sup­ports the Prime Min­is­ter and her gov­ern­ment in pur­su­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties that “en­sure the coun­try ben­e­fits from the kind of gov­er­nance we have nev­er seen be­fore.”