Cuba accuses the U.S. of committing extrajudicial killings and violating international law during attacks ordered by Donald Trump under the narrative of “fighting drug trafficking.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned on Wednesday the “continuous extrajudicial killings” perpetrated by U.S. forces in international waters of the Caribbean and Pacific.
“They constitute a grave violation of international law and human rights and maintain a permanent threat to peace, security, and stability in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Rodríguez argued in a post on the social network X.
The foreign minister criticized Washington’s “indiscriminate and illegal” use of force, while also pointing out that the US “does not address the root causes of illicit drug trafficking,” being “the world’s largest drug market” and a place where “drug traffickers’ money is laundered with impunity and with the complicity of several of its politicians.”
Previously, the Cuban foreign minister had denounced: “It is state terrorism to ignore the origins of the illegal drug trade in their country, while murdering people without due process or evidence of drug trafficking.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez condemned the ongoing extrajudicial killings attributed to US forces in international waters, encompassing both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
The Cuban denunciation comes in response to US military operations that, since September, have destroyed some 17 vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, resulting in the deaths of at least 66 people.
The most recent incident was reported this Tuesday by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who announced on X a “lethal kinetic strike” against a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing two of its crew members, under orders from President Donald Trump.
“We will locate and destroy all vessels that intend to traffic drugs to the United States,” Hegseth declared, without offering any evidence that the vessel was carrying narcotics.
In August, Washington deployed warships, a nuclear submarine, fighter jets, and special forces off the Venezuelan coast, under the pretext of “combating drug trafficking.”
The governments of Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba have rejected the military deployment and have repeatedly warned of the threat it poses to Latin America and the Caribbean.
In this regard, they have highlighted the need to preserve the region as a “Zone of Peace,” as proclaimed at the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), held in Havana in 2014.
IMAGE CREDIT: Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced the lethal U.S. attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific on social media. Photo: EFE.
[ SOURCE: teleSUR ]
