Experts decry US ‘summary execution’ of alleged drug runners off Venezuelan coast

Michael Becker, an worker mentor of world legislation at Trinity School, Dublin in Eire, told the BBC Wednesday that the Trump management’s designation of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and alternative drug trafficking teams as terrorist organizations “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point.”

“The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narcoterrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets,” Becker mentioned. “The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.”

“Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law,” Becker added.

Despite the fact that the US isn’t a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, US army prison advisers have asserted that the rustic will have to “act in a manner consistent with its provisions.”

Luke Moffett, a mentor of world legislation at Queens College Belfast in Northern Eire, informed the BBC that future “force can be used to stop a boat,” this will have to in most cases be achieved the use of “nonlethal measures.”

Such motion, mentioned Moffett, will have to be “reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials,” and the United States assault was once most likely “unlawful under the law of the sea.”

The diversion workforce CodePink said Wednesday that “even if Washington’s claims are accurate, drug trafficking does not justify a death sentence delivered by missile.”

“International law is clear: The use of force is only lawful in self-defense or with explicit UN Security Council authorization,” the crowd endured. “This strike had neither. It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law.”

“Under US law, it’s equally indefensible,” CodePink argued. “The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to authorize war. Unilateral action may only be used in emergencies or self-defense, and this strike meets neither.”

CodePink endured:

With the United States Southern Command property already deployed within the pocket, why gamble away up a vessel rather of taking pictures and interrogating the workforce? If the purpose had been truly to discover proof of [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro’s alleged involvement, this reckless method raises simplest two chances: Both the narrative is fabricated and Washington impaired it as a pretext for a calamitous display of power or it’s actual, and the United States selected extrajudicial killing over legislation, proof, and humanity.

CodePink known as on Congressional Ambitious Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) “to lead the fight in Congress to stop this escalation,” urging him to “introduce legislation to block unauthorized military force, hold hearings to expose the dangers of border militarization, insist on transparency of all relevant directives, and rally Congress to cut off funding for these reckless operations.”

Tuesday’s assault got here amid Trump’s deployment of an armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, whose socialist executive has lengthy persisted US blackmails of regime alternate—and sometimes more.

Infused with the perception that it has the best to meddle any place within the hemisphere beneath the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has attacked, invaded, engaged, and another way intervened in Latin American and Caribbean countries neatly over 100 occasions because the doubtful declaration was once issued by means of President James Monroe in 1823.

Because the overdue nineteenth century, oil-rich Venezuela has revealed US interventions together with involvement in border disputes, backup with army coups, aid for dictators, and makes an attempt to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution—together with by means of formally spotting opposition figures claiming to be the reputable presidents of the rustic.

Critics of US imperialism highlighted Washington’s hypocritical insurance policies and practices towards Venezuela.

“Venezuela produces no cocaine, but US warships patrol its coastline under the banner of a ‘drug war,’” Untouched Hampshire Diversion Motion organizing director Michael “Lefty” Morrill wrote Wednesday.

In the meantime, neighboring Colombia and within sight Peru—the arena’s two cocaine manufacturers—get incorrect such remedy. Nor does Ecuador, which has emerged as one of the crucial global’s trafficking hubs.

Morrill additionally in brief explored bits of the lengthy US historical past of supporting narcotraffickers when strategically expedient, noting that former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega “was first a CIA asset, then branded a narco-dictator and dragged to a US prison.”

“The Taliban was once a strategic partner in Afghanistan’s opium trade, before being cast as the world’s largest trafficker,” he added. “‘Drugs’ are not simply powders; they are pretexts, shaped to fit the contours of empire.”

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