KINGSTOWN – Opposition Leader Dr Ralph Gonsalves has criticised the ongoing United States military action against alleged illegal drug traffickers after three people, presumed to be St Lucian nationals, were killed in the latest strike in the Caribbean Sea.
Gonsalves, an attorney, said that while drug trafficking does not carry the death penalty in the United States and the Caribbean, “any penalty that is carried out has to be carried out by a court.
“You just cannot execute them at sea. That is a species of barbarism contrary to American values, contrary to international law and contrary to American jurisprudence, and I am pleading with our American friends to revisit this matter.
“This is all part and parcel of what is called the Dunroe Doctrine…a political ideological doctrine which has to be subjected to international law and your own domestic law. If we can’t say that in the Caribbean, we may as well declare that we are slaves of the United States of America,’ said Gonsalves.
Earlier this week, the St Lucia Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre said that his administration is “actively engaging through established diplomatic and security channels” after confirming that “people lost their lives” in the latest United States military strike against what Washington says are illegal drug dealers in the Caribbean Sea.
“I can confirm that people lost their lives and to the circumstances I have got no official notification on the circumstances surrounding their deaths,” Pierre told reporters, repeating that statement when asked by reporters whether those killed were St Lucians.
“The issue is being investigated by the powers responsible for investigations,” he said.
Last Friday, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said that at the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander General. Francis L. Donovan, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed,” SOUTHCOM said in a statement.
SOUTHCOM has since released a video of the attack that appears to show a missile strike on the boat which then explodes into flames, leaving the vessel obliterated.
On Saturday, the St Vincent Times newspaper published photographs of that it said were the remnants of an alleged drug boat blown up in a lethal strike by the US military last week that surfaced off Canouan, one of the Grenadine islands.
It said that the discovery was made by a group of fishermen from the mainland who had indicated that no bodies were seen floating in the area. (CMC)
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