One of the Caribbean’s longest-serving politicians and the opposition leader in St. Vincent has condemned the silence of regional officials relating to last week’s attack on a vessel by the U.S. military, calling it murder and barbarism.
Ralph Gonsalves, who lost general elections back home in late November after 24 unbroken years as prime minister, says he is bewildered by the fact that traffickers are not handed the death penalty, yet the U.S. military kills them anyway. “Any penalty that is carried out has to be carried out by a court.”
He was referring to last week’s deadly strike by the U.S. military on a vessel which St. Lucian officials have acknowledged had sailed from a local fishing village earlier in the week. It is believed to have been crewed by three St. Lucians, who remain missing as of Thursday.
Prime Minister Phillip Pierre had earlier in the week admitted that “people lost their lives,” noting that authorities are awaiting official confirmation from international agencies. The badly damaged vessel has washed up near Canouan Island in the neighboring Grenadines. Colleague fishermen have claimed the vessel as one used by fellow fisherfolk.
Speaking on his radio program, Gonsalves argued that “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.”
He attacked the new administration of Prime Minister Goodwin Friday for clamming up about the strike, noting that “this government hasn’t said anything yet about these matters. At least not as far as I know.”
“So, even if these persons involved in drug trafficking, you just can’t kill them. There is something called international law and something called domestic law, and you have to have processes. Everybody is innocent until they are proven guilty. You can’t just say that these persons are drug traffickers. You have no evidence that this is so. You have not found any drugs and even if you find drugs in the waters after you blow up the vessel, you can’t be judge, jury, and executioner without giving the persons an opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law,” Gonsalves stated.
