Trinidad and Tobago was in shock Thursday over the reported deaths of two local men in a US strike on a suspected drug boat, the latest of Venezuela’s neighbors to become sucked into Washington’s pressure campaign.
“Are we in Israel or in Afghanistan? This is the Caribbean; here is peace and love,” a fisherman in the Trinidadian village of Las Cuevas told AFP in a thick drawl after Tuesday’s strike on a boat allegedly ferrying drugs from Venezuela.
Police in Trinidad and Tobago are investigating reports that two citizens were among the six “narcoterrorists” killed in the operation announced by US President Donald Trump.
But Lenore Burnley, mother of 26-year-old fisherman Chad Joseph, told AFP people her family knew in Venezuela “told them he was on the boat.”
Local media reported that another local man, named as Rishi Samaroo, was also on the latest boat to be blown up by US forces in an anti-drugs operation that has left at least 27 people dead since last month.
Trump has deployed seven warships to the southern Caribbean and one to the Gulf of Mexico as part of a campaign to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is widely accused of stealing the 2024 elections.
The Trump administration has accused the authoritarian Socialist of heading a drug cartel — allegations Maduro denies.
Tensions inched higher on Wednesday after Trump announced that he was considering strikes on land targets in Venezuela and indicated he had authorized covert CIA operations against the country.
The fisherman in Las Cuevas, who asked to remain anonymous, lambasted Washington’s trigger-happy methods, “even if they (boats) are transporting drugs.”
“Go and arrest them,” he advised.
Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro recently called on the United Nations to open a “criminal process” against Trump for the strikes, which he believes have also killed Colombians.
At its closest point the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago is just 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the Venezuelan coast.
Las Cuevas lies on the north coast of Trinidad, the bigger island, along a winding road, built by the US military during World War II.
With its translucent waters and coves topped by verdant cliffs, the village is like a postcard for Caribbean living.
Fishermen play cards in the shade while men fix boat engines and nets under a lean-to.
But the idyllic scenes mask a grittier reality.
Three men work on a speedboat equipped with three Yamaha engines that looks as if it is intended for a more lucrative business than fishing.
“Fishing doesn’t provide enough of an income,” one resident told AFP.
Garvin Heerah, a local security consultant, described Trinidad and Tobago as a key cog in the global drug trade.
“The country is more than a mere stopover. It operates as a transhipment hub where bulk shipments are received, stored, repackaged, and prepared for onward movement,” he told AFP.
From here, the drugs are shipped north to the United States, east to Europe and West Africa as well as to other Caribbean countries in “go-fast” speedboats of the kind seen being blown up in videos shared by Trump.
Lynette Burnley, Chad Joseph’s aunt, told AFP that her nephew, whom she described as a “really loving” and generous person, had been a fisherman from a young age.
She said that Joseph and his girlfriend had moved to Venezuela, where Joseph worked in farming, but that he “ended up getting in problems with boats.”
Chad’s mother Lenore claimed her son was on his way home after three months in Venezuela and said his killing contravened the laws of the sea.
“According to maritime law, if you see a boat, you are supposed to stop the boat and intercept it, not just blow it up. That’s our Trinidadian maritime law and I think every fisherman and every human knows that,” she said.
