Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello has made reference to a “drunk woman” governing Trinidad, and a “stupid crook” in the Dominican Republic, whose people were being condemned.
Speaking on Venezuelan television during a weekly programme on Wednesday night, Cabello said: “This is just starting. For example, the stupid crook who governs the Dominican Republic and the drunk woman who governs Trinidad, when they… side with this attack, they are condemning their people to be executed at sea. Their fishermen are being condemned to execution.”
Cabello said Trinidad and Tobago’s (and other Caribbean) fishermen were being condemned to execution at sea as a result of the Trinidadian Government’s decision to align with the US after the lethal American boat strike in Caribbean waters.
His comments came after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar praised a US military strike on an alleged drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean; the White House claimed earlier this week it had killed 11 “narco-terrorists” who were part of the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang.
Persad-Bissessar, who had earlier welcomed the US military presence in the Caribbean, had stated US forces should kill all drug traffickers “violently”.
Cabello on Wednesday cited many reports of the event in international media, claiming questions were beginning to arise on the US’ action, its legality, and the information provided by its officials.
On the vessel engulfed in flames in footage released by the US after the strike was announced on Tuesday, he said it was a “little boat” that looked as if it were a fisherman’s boat. Holding up photos comparing a ship to the vessel, he said, “Some media are already appearing on their screens in English and other languages, talking about the small boat.
“They no longer speak of a ship, there is one they call a little boat. Here in Venezuela we are waging a real fight against drugs. Now from all this and what I have gathered, this is a ship, right? And what about this? This is a fisherman,” he said.
Stating he had a lot of doubts on the situation, he added that if it had occurred as described by the US, it could be viewed as an “assassination” and “murder”.
“Their own laws prohibit it. And the right to defence of those who were there? I mean the video they are saying is evidence against them. They assassinated a group of people and I saw five, but they said 11. But that is what they are declaring; their murder is a blunder. You can’t utter a blunder in your own defence. You’re confessing that you committed a crime,” he said.
Reading from a written statement, he referred to the strike as an illegal massacre in international waters.
“They violated international law, violated their own laws and they violated a basic principle—the right to life. This was not justice, this was barbarism. An imperial act that pretends to impose itself as an example, but that once again exposes the double standards of the Washington administration. They talk about democracy and human rights while they practise summary executions at sea,” he said.
He said Venezuela was not complicit in drug trafficking or executions at high sea. However, he said he would be happy if the US embarked upon an internal crusade to take down cartels:
“….not even in the movies have we ever seen one stop or take-down of a drug cartel in the United States—and it is the country in the world where the inhabitants consume it the most,” he said.
