Q24N (Geneva, Switzerland) The United Nations (UN) has urged the United States to halt attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, condemning the incidents as “extrajudicial killings.”
In recent weeks, at least 62 people have died in the Caribbean and the Pacific in armed attacks by Washington against what it presented as drug-trafficking boats.
Relatives of the victims say some of them were simply fishermen.
“These attacks, with their mounting human cost, are unacceptable,” wrote UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in a statement.
“The United States must end such attacks and take all necessary measures to prevent the extrajudicial killings of people on board these vessels, regardless of any alleged criminal activity,” he added.
Türk emphasized that these people died “in circumstances that have no justification under international law.”
The operations are taking place against a backdrop of heightened tension between the United States and Venezuela.
Washington presents its attacks and the air and naval deployment in the Caribbean as part of a strategy against Latin American cartels, which it defines as “terrorist” organizations.
The Trump administration even authorized CIA operations in Venezuela and accuses President Nicolás Maduro of being behind drug trafficking to the United States.
“Addressing the serious issue of illegal drug trafficking across international borders is (…) a matter of law enforcement, governed by the careful limits that international human rights law places on the use of lethal force,” Turk noted.
“The intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life,” he emphasized.
Along those lines, the official said that “based on the very limited information publicly provided by U.S. authorities, none of the individuals on the attacked vessels appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others.”
Turk therefore called for “swift, independent, and transparent investigations into these attacks.”