Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is fac­ing mount­ing crit­i­cism at home and abroad, af­ter her strong en­dorse­ment of Tues­day’s US mil­i­tary strike on an al­leged Venezue­lan drug ves­sel that killed 11 mem­bers of the Tren de Aragua car­tel. And she is now be­ing urged to watch her tone on the on­go­ing US ac­tion in the Caribbean.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is dou­bling down on her call to the US to “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly, say­ing she has T&T cit­i­zens at heart in the mat­ter.

Af­ter US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio con­firmed the strike on Tues­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had no sym­pa­thy for drug traf­fick­ers, not­ing ‘the slaugh­ter of our peo­ple is fu­elled by evil car­tel traf­fick­ers.”

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­demned the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment and urged her to re­tract it im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s) lat­est What­sApp mis­sive, in which she de­clared that the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca should “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” is reck­less, dis­grace­ful, and in­con­sis­tent with the oath she has tak­en to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law. It is com­plete­ly un­be­com­ing of our head of gov­ern­ment, who is ex­pect­ed to be more pru­dent in her lan­guage,” Beck­les said.

She not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter’s so­cial me­dia out­put “draws our coun­try in­to un­nec­es­sary con­flict over which we have lit­tle to no con­trol and can put our le­git­i­mate fish­er­folks, off­shore work­ers, and oth­er work­ers in the mar­itime space at in­creased risk.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed States Coast Guard’s rules of en­gage­ment, the ap­proach to drug car­tels, hu­man smug­glers, and in­ter­dic­tion at sea re­quires strict pro­ce­dures.

Key prin­ci­ples of the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s use-of-force pol­i­cy al­so in­clude: Valu­ing and pre­serv­ing hu­man life, de-es­ca­la­tion, pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, dead­ly force as a last re­sort and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Ac­cord­ing to the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the shoot first and ask ques­tions lat­er does not align with the Coast Guard’s use of force pol­i­cy.

While Trump showed a video of the strike, ex­perts not­ed that no oth­er proof of the claims that it was a drug boat was giv­en. This is why the strike has raised con­cerns.

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions An­tho­ny Bryan al­so yes­ter­day cau­tioned that the Prime Min­is­ter’s en­dorse­ment over­stepped diplo­mat­ic bound­aries.

“Lan­guage mat­ters, and it is the first inkling any­one would have about a par­tic­u­lar state’s po­si­tion. The lan­guage that was ex­hib­it­ed re­cent­ly by the Prime Min­is­ter is desta­bil­is­ing. We’ve al­ways been a neu­tral coun­try, this is my point, a for­eign pol­i­cy based on neu­tral­i­ty. Have we aban­doned that?”

Dur­ing a Zoom in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Pro­fes­sor Bryan main­tained that the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion could place the re­gion at risk.

“I think we have to thread cau­tious­ly and not be vo­cif­er­ous in the way in which the prime min­is­ter has been. Yes, it’s al­right to be friends with Pres­i­dent Trump, but you don’t have to be­come the in­car­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Trump.”

Pro­fes­sor of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Andy Knight went fur­ther, sharply crit­i­cis­ing both the US op­er­a­tion and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse.

“The US mil­i­tary car­ried out in­ten­tion­al killing in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters with­out due process, and the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go is ap­plaud­ing on the side­lines. It is time for peo­ple in the Caribbean to wake up and re­alise that Amer­i­ca un­der Trump is act­ing in a man­ner that de­fies in­ter­na­tion­al law. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has le­gal train­ing; she should know and un­der­stand this.”

Knight fur­ther con­tend­ed that the le­gal­i­ty of the strike against sus­pect­ed mem­bers of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang is ques­tion­able un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law. While the US has la­belled the group a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion, he not­ed that “drug traf­fick­ing, though crim­i­nal, is not an act of war.”

He said the use of lethal mil­i­tary force against “sus­pect­ed” traf­fick­ers vi­o­lat­ed prin­ci­ples of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and due process.

“First, this was an ex­e­cu­tion of an in­di­vid­ual with­out due process. This is il­le­gal. To claim that it is OK be­cause gen­er­al­ly, drug car­tels kill in­no­cent peo­ple, is to bring the USA down to the same lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty that we ac­cuse drug car­tel crim­i­nals of do­ing.”

He fur­ther warned that US “gun­boat diplo­ma­cy” risks trans­form­ing the Caribbean Sea from a zone of peace in­to a “the­atre of con­flict”.

The in­ci­dent has sparked calls for Cari­com to take a uni­fied stance against the es­ca­la­tion of US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion.

“Cool­er heads must pre­vail be­fore the Caribbean is dragged in­to a con­fla­gra­tion by a fail­ing hege­mo­ny un­der­min­ing the pil­lars of in­ter­na­tion­al law and diplo­ma­cy,” Knight said.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port pub­lished in the Bar­ba­dos To­day, Bar­ba­di­an For­eign Min­is­ter Ker­rie Sym­monds said that for­eign min­is­ters with­in Cari­com have writ­ten to US Sec­re­tary of State Ru­bio to en­sure that fu­ture mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions with­in the Caribbean do not oc­cur with­out pri­or no­tice or ex­pla­na­tion.

The PM’s con­tro­ver­sial state­ments, orig­i­nal­ly re­port­ed by the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, has since been picked up by CNN. As a re­sult, it has es­ca­lat­ed dis­cus­sions on the mat­ter be­yond the coun­try’s bor­ders and across the Unit­ed States.

The CNN re­port al­so quot­ed Colom­bian pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro, who ques­tioned the op­er­a­tion, say­ing that it’s pos­si­ble to con­duct mar­itime in­ter­dic­tion of drug ship­ments with­out at­tack­ing a ves­sel’s oc­cu­pants.

Kam­la: My du­ty is to pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the crit­i­cism yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed her stance on the es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela, in­sist­ing that while Cari­com states are free to voice their own po­si­tions, she will con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise T&Ts fight against drug car­tels.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the crit­i­cism of her stance, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dou­bled down on her po­si­tion, fram­ing the is­sue as one of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tion of cit­i­zens.

“I have made it clear be­fore that all coun­tries in Cari­com can speak for them­selves on this is­sue. For more than 25 years, nar­co-traf­fick­ers have un­leashed hell up­on Trinidad and To­ba­go, fu­elling our mur­der rate, flood­ing our streets with guns and drugs, and bru­tal­is­ing our peo­ple through tor­ture, in­tim­i­da­tion, ex­tor­tion, kid­nap­ping and vi­o­lence. These car­tels prey on our youth, de­stroy fam­i­lies, and prof­it from mis­ery,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She ar­gued that the threat posed by or­gan­ised crime net­works, such as Venezue­lan car­tels, de­mands de­ci­sive ac­tion and co­op­er­a­tion with al­lies, even when such moves spark de­bate.

“My du­ty is to pro­tect the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, not the crim­i­nals and car­tels who prey up­on them. Every­one else may choose their side; I have al­ready cho­sen mine. I stand with law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. And I stand with those who are will­ing to fight against these crim­i­nal car­tels to help us have a safer coun­try,” she de­clared.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks sig­nal her Gov­ern­ment’s firm com­mit­ment to align­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners on an­ti-nar­cotics op­er­a­tions, de­spite warn­ings from op­po­si­tion voic­es and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts that her en­dorse­ment of US mil­i­tary tac­tics could un­der­mine the re­gion’s tra­di­tion of neu­tral­i­ty.

While Cari­com has not yet is­sued a uni­fied state­ment on the lat­est US-Venezuela flare-up, Per­sad-Bisses­sar em­pha­sised that each mem­ber state re­tains the right to shape its own re­sponse.