UN Rapporteurs Human Rights Experts presented in a declaration that “according to international law, all countries must respect the right to life, even acting on the high seas or in foreign territory”
The United States missiles sank three boats indicated to transport drugs in the Caribbean from Venezuela so far in September, the occupants of those boats perished, and the Maduro administration mobilized on alert before the fear of an attack or incursion from the US fleet deployed in the area.
There is no clarity about whether Washington prepares a major military operation, or if it only seeks to send a message of determination and strength to drug trafficking posters, to the governments of the region and the American population itself.
But he is already criticized that, by advancing as a Sheriff From the distant west, revolver in hand to destroy seasoning and liquidate suspects, has put aside protocols and laws of international validity in the fight against drug trafficking.
The US president, Donald Trump, reported on September 2 the first attack on a boat that left Venezuela and transported “illegal narcotics to the United States”, with the result of the destroyed ship and “11 dead terrorists.”
The video released by the president evidenced that there was no interception of the boat, or surface monitoring, even less detention of the occupants to take them before the justice.
Instead, the boat was seen flying in pieces impacted by a powerful projectile.
On the 15th, Trump reported a similar kinetic attack (a projectile falls from space and destroys with the energy released by its impact) on another boat, loaded with cocaine and fentanyl as he said, and “three male terrorists died in action.”
He then declared to journalists in the White House that there have really been three drugs of drug traffickers sunk by his air force in the south of the Caribbean Sea, but without giving more details about the third.
*Also read: how far Venezuela’s sovereignty comes in the sea and what happens to US ships
The law on the margin
After the sinking of the first boat, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (ACNUDH), declared that “people should not be killed by using, traffic or selling drugs.”
“The principles on the use of force established in international law must be respected. The intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a measure of last resort, when there is an imminent threat to life,” he added.
More recently, UN Rapporteurs Human Rights Experts presented in a declaration that “according to international law, all countries must respect the right to life, even acting on the high seas or in foreign territory.”
“International law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers,” says their statement.
They recalled that “international law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers.”
“Criminal activities must be dismantled, investigated and prosecuted in accordance with the rule of law, even through international cooperation,” added the text of the experts, which are independent and designated by the UN Human Rights Councilbased in this Swiss city.
The American political opposition reacted, with statements such as those of the Democratic representative for the state of Virginia, Donald Beyer, for whom there is no legal authority that allows the president to murder people in international waters based on accusations without evidence or due process. “
Democratic senator Adam Schiff, from the State of California, said he is writing a resolution of war powers aimed at preventing US troops from making more attacks until Congress formally authorizes it.
“I worry that these illegal murders put us at risk, without adequate justification. I don’t want to see us entering a war with Venezuela because the president is simply flying ships through the air,” Schiff said.
And for Senator John Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, “President Trump’s actions constitute a flagrant violation of the law and a dangerous attack on our Constitution.”
“No president can fight a war in secret or carry out unjustified murders. That is authoritarianism, not democracy,” Reed added.
On the other hand, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has stated that “the United States has long used technology established to intervene drug traffickers. But it does not work, because the drug cartels know that they will lose two percent of their load. What will stop them is if they destroy them”.
What was done with the boats was “to use intelligence to determine that a drug trafficker was directed to the United States, and instead of intercepting it, by order of the president he destroyed it. And it will happen again,” said Rubio, driver of the toughest line in Washington against Maduro.
Anti -drug military
The use of military force for the anti -drug fight, and one with the size of the one deployed in the Caribbean, is also questioned by its effectiveness, for example by the Venezuelan columnist Moisés Naím, who for 14 years was editor of the American magazine Foreign Policy.
Naím considers that “fighting organized crime as if it were an anti -government insurgency or a terrorist group shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the adversary and is a recipe for failure.”
“Anyone who has investigated organized crime in Latin America knows the ephemeral and easily replaceable that are individual groups and leaders,” Naím said.
Another aspect of the American offensive is on the accent placed by Trump in blocking the fight against the entrance to the United States of the fentanyl, opioid that is above all manufactured in Mexico, with inputs brought from China, and that crosses the US terrestrial borders, not the Maritime of the Caribbean.
Nor is small boats expected from the Southeast Caribbean to go to US territory thousands of kilometers away. It is more frequent that they take Cocaine to Caribbean Islands for their re -export to Europe.
The bombardment of the boats also contains a message for Mexico, from where several posters dispatch drugs to the United States.
In Venezuela, lto mature administration Multiply preparers for a “prolonged resistance” in case of an American military intervention, and its Marine infantry does practices on the Island La Orchila, 160 kilometers northeast of Caracas.
The US forces deployed in the Caribbean “are looking for an incident to attack us. But we have not fallen or fall into provocations,” Maduro said.
The United States does an amphibious and reactive landing exercises in Roosevelt Roads, in East Puerto Rico, in support of the fleet deployed in the Caribbean. The hand near the revolver cylinder head.
*Journalism in Venezuela is exercised in a hostile environment for the press with dozens of legal instruments arranged for the punishment of the word, especially the laws “against hatred”, “against fascism” and “against blockade.” This content was written taking into consideration the threats and limits that, consequently, have been imposed on the dissemination of information from within the country.
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