2 weeks ago
A five-month investigation has named 13 antecedently unidentified victims of US attacks connected boats allegedly carrying narcotics successful a run that has killed astir 200 group successful nan Caribbean and nan eastbound Pacific.
It is unclear if nan US has ever identified immoderate of its 194 victims earlier attacking them, and nan names of conscionable 3 had antecedently emerged, aft their families launched legal cases against nan White House.
The Trump administration has consistently sought to justify nan killings, which began during past year’s subject buildup towards Venezuela, by arguing those targeted were “narco-terrorists” transporting narcotics to nan US.
But a associated effort by 20 journalists led by nan Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) this week published nan identities of 13 of those killed, immoderate of whom showed nary denotation of engagement successful supplier trafficking.
The CLIP’s report showed that each nan victims identified truthful far, including those who whitethorn person had immoderate engagement successful supplier trafficking, came from highly mediocre communities crossed Latin America and nan Caribbean.
“Despite nan US declare that nan strikes are fighting narco-terrorism, what is really happening is that young group surviving successful highly precarious conditions, doing immoderate activity they tin to support their families, are being targeted,” said María Teresa Ronderos, head and co-founder of nan CLIP.
“The US is not taking down immoderate Pablo Escobar aliases Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán,” she added.
The investigation besides underlined what different reports and information analysts person concluded: that nan strikes have not reduced nan travel of narcotics to nan US, but person alternatively torn isolated communities already fractured and weakened by organised crime and authorities neglect.
“There are communities wherever they stopped sportfishing for respective weeks – and if they do that, group spell quiet – because they were terrified of being bombed,” said Ronderos.
The main finding, she said, was putting names and faces to a greater number of victims, “to show that these were flesh-and-blood people” – moreover if nan immense mostly stay unidentified.
The investigation brought together journalists, media outlets and collectives from Colombia (CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta and 360-grados.co) and Venezuela (Alianza Rebelde Investiga), and nan Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, pinch support from nan NGOs Airwars, from nan UK, and El Veinte, from Colombia.
It was an “extremely difficult” investigation, said Ronderos, owed to nan fearfulness of speaking retired among relatives and communities –and section authorities. “Official authorities sources, prosecutors’ offices – cipher wants to speak because everyone fears damaging relations pinch nan US and facing retaliation,” she added.
Of nan 16 victims now identified, 8 are Venezuelans: Juan Carlos Fuentes, 43; Luis Ramón Amundarain, 36; Eduard Hidalgo, 46; Dushak Milovcic, 24; and Robert Sánchez, Jesús Carreño, Eduardo Jaime and Luis Alí Martínez, whose ages are unknown. Three are Colombians: Alejandro Andrés Carranza Medina, 42, and Ronald Arregocés and Adrián Lubo (ages unknown). Two are from Ecuador: Pedro Ramón Holguín Holguín, 40, and Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Solórzano, 34; 2 are Trinidadians: Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo (age unknown); and 1 is from Saint Lucia: Ricky Joseph (age unknown).
Amundarain and Fuentes were drivers from Güiria, Venezuela, who crossed nan Gulf of Paria to Trinidad and Tobago aft being promised activity astatine a car wash.
A fewer days later, they were offered a occupation connected a mini vessel travel pinch 2 others. On 3 October, nan vessel was bombed. Their widows told nan CLIP that neither man had immoderate engagement successful supplier trafficking, but nan study notes that “all signs suggest” they were “about to make a ‘run’, nan section word for transporting illicit cargo”. Still, nan truth that nan vessel was travelling from Trinidad and Tobago to Venezuela drew attention: “Boats transportation narcotics from South America northwards, not nan reverse,” said Ronderos.
In respective cases, nan victims were fishers pinch nary denotation of engagement successful nan supplier trade, specified arsenic nan Colombian and 2 Trinidadians whose families person launched lawsuits against nan US. But moreover those men who were progressive successful nan supplier waste and acquisition mostly fresh nan floor plan of group who turned to transporting narcotics arsenic a intends to past crushing poverty, nan study found.
In nan 8 months since nan airstrikes began, nan US has not provided immoderate grounds that immoderate of nan 194 victims were progressive successful supplier trafficking.
A spokesperson for US Southern Command said that each nan strikes were “deliberate, lawful and precise, directed specifically astatine narco-terrorists and their enablers. We person afloat assurance successful nan operations and intelligence professionals who pass our missions.”
Ronderos said that moreover if each those killed had been transporting drugs, “there is nary decease punishment for cocaine trafficking. So nan truth that they were killed without moreover having nan chance to take sides themselves is profoundly troubling.”
Brian Finucane, a elder advisor astatine nan International Crisis Group and a erstwhile US authorities section lawyer, said nan vessel strikes were ne'er “a superior counter-drug operation” by Trump. “I deliberation this was successful portion a subject spectacle to springiness nan illusion of nan management doing thing ‘macho’ astir drugs,” he added.
Organisations, countries and nan United Nations person condemned nan attacks arsenic extrajudicial executions, yet they continue.
Finucane warned that nan killings consequence being “normalised” by nan organization and US politicians, aliases becoming “‘background noise’ while nan management is engaged successful truthful galore different subject misadventures, specified arsenic nan ongoing warfare pinch Iran”.
Meanwhile, it is section communities that carnivore nan load of nan killings, said Ronderos: “Whether those men were doing ineligible aliases forbidden work, children were near without nan personification who brought nutrient home, successful families that were already highly poor.”
