LOCAL fishermen have nothing to fear after a US military strike on a Venezuelan drug boat on September 2. San Fernando Fishing Cooperative Society vice-president Clinton Lochan expressed this view on September 3.
On September 2, US President Donald Trump said US forces stationed in the southern Caribbean destroyed a vessel which he said had departed from Venezuela.
He said the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua cartel and was carrying drugs bound for the US. On the same day, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the drugs on that boat could have been bound for Trinidad and Tobago or some other Caribbean country.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has supported the destruction of the vessel, which killed 11 people on board.
She said she has no sympathy for traffickers and “the US military should kill them all violently.”
US defence officials have not provided details on the strike,including what legal authority they relied on to justify it.
In a WhatsApp comment Lochan said local fishermen have no reason to be concerned about the strike and it does not affect them in any way.
“We are in a national group with a who set of fishing people all over TT and other islands but nobody from Trinidad is concerned.”
Lochan said members of this group are in a a WhatsApp chat and were in communication with each other about the strike. He repeated than none of them, including local fishermen, are concerned the strike will affect them.
“That happened to nobody in Trinidad. That doesn’t concern us. Everybody in Trinidad safe for now.”
Lochan said there is no reason for local fishermen to alter their activities, including where they fish, because of the strike.
‘That is for the people who like to venture out further than they should be venturing out.”
He said local fishermen will continue to fish in local waters and have no business operating across the maritime border in Venezuelan waters.
“At the end of the day, what are you doing in Venezuelan waters?”
Lochan said all bonafide local fishermen will be operating in TT waters and know the areas where they can operate legally in.
He added there may be people who claim to be fishermen but are doing other activities.
“They have the ones who are doing their stupidness and saying they are fishermen.”
Lochan said if these people venture into Venezuelan waters, they will have to deal with the consequences.
He repeated this is not a problem for members of the society.
“We don’t venture further than a certain place.”
Lochan said fishermen operating out of other local fishing ports, do so in other areas.
He added he does not care what happens to them.
At a post-cabinet news conference at the Red House, Port of Spain on June 5, Persad-Bissessar warned local drug, human traffickers and smugglers masquerading as fishermen “if you enter Vene’s (Venezuela’s) waters to do your illegal acts and you are caught by Venes’ authorities…you are on your own.”
Over the years, local fishermen have been arrested by Venezuela’s Guardia Nacional after they entered Venezuelan waters and were accused by the Venezuelans of engaging in criminal actions. There have also been instances of Venezuelan pirates entering TT waters and attacking local fishermen.
Defence Minister Wayne Sturge supported Persad-Bissessar then.
He said one only had to look at certain court matters over time to see instances where drug and human traffickers had pretended to be fishermen. He added there had been videos posted online of dismembered bodies being found in fishing boats.
Sturge claimed that could not have happened if those people were legitimate fishermen.
In a BBC report on September 2, some experts in international and maritime law questioned whether the US attack was legal.
The US is not a signatory to UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.
In the article Queens University Belfast Prof Luke Moffett said, “Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures.”
In a statement on August 20, the US Homeland Security Department gave some details about the US Coast Guard’s Operation Pacific Viper to crack down on drug smuggling operations in the Eastern Pacific. Those operations involved the suspected smuggler vessels being disabled, drugs seized and the occupants being arrested.
The destroyer USS Sampson, which is among the US Navy vessels deployed to the southern Caribbean, was involved in Pacific Viper. Newsday
