By Staff Writer
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Feb 18, CMC – 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 best of my knowledge, I have 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 the 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 U.S. 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 what 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.
International law and human rights experts have repeatedly said such attacks by the Donald Trump administration amount to extrajudicial executions, even if those targeted are alleged to be engaged in drug trafficking.
Last month, the families of two Trinidadian men killed in a US strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat filed a lawsuit against the US government.
Lawyers filed the claim in Boston’s federal court on behalf of relatives of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, among six men killed off the coast of Venezuela on October 14 last year.
Gonsalves, who has questioned the silence of the new St Vincent and the Grenadines government so far on the issue, said he had been advised that the two boats blown up at sea had been found off the coast of Canouan and the other off the coast in Owia.
“This government hasn’t said anything yet about these matters. At least not as far as I know before I came on,” he told listeners to his weekly radio programme.
Gonsalves said that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in its lawsuit involving the Trinidad and Tobago nationals, has made “the very reasonable submissions that while everybody renounces drug trafficking, you must understand that drug trafficking does not carry the death penalty in the United States or anywhere in the Caribbean.
“I just want that to sink in. 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 people 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.
“That is what law is a bout,” said Gonsalves, adding that the matter could only be addressed by law enforcement.
“You arrest them, you charge them, you bring them to a court of law, you work with neighbouring states…but you have to give people the full canopy of their rights. They are human beings, you just can’t kill them like that,” Gonsalves added.
CMC/pr/ir/2026