The administration of the American president Donald Trump did not care for criticisms aroused by his decision to destroy a fast venezuelan original boat with a missile shot with 11 people on board.
What to know
- The administration of the American president, Donald Trump, has little case of the criticisms aroused by his decision to destroy on September 2 a boat circulating in the Caribbean Sea with 11 people on board.
- Jurists are alarmed that the strike, presented as an attack on drug traffickers, violates international law and is similar to an extrajudicial execution.
- The initiative occurred while Washington multiplies threats relative to the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Vice-President JD Vance returned to the online subject during the weekend by welcoming the role played by American soldiers in destruction on September 2 of the boat, which was carrying a drug of drugs, according to the Pentagon.
“Killing members of cartels who poison our fellow citizens is the best and noblest use that can be made of our army,” he said online.
Its exit aroused the indignation of the Republican senator Rand Paul, who apostrophe him on the relevance of endorseing what is akin to an extrajudicial execution.
“Was he already wondering what happens if the people put in charge immediately killed without trial or defense?” What a grotesque and thoughtless idea to glorify someone’s execution without trial, ”said the politician, who oversees the commission on internal security and government affairs.
Very few details
Despite the stir caused by the attack and uncertainty surrounding both the identity of the people who were on board and the nature of the cargo, the American authorities were stingy with details on this subject.
They have also generally ignored questions relating to the legal framework that could justify their action by limiting themselves to repeating that other strikes of this type could arise.
The behavior of the unworthy administration number of lawyers who evoke a serious drift potentially fraught with consequences for the international order.
“They had no legally right to kill people aboard this boat,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a specialist in international law attached to Notre-Dame University.
The American president “has no intention,” she said, complying with international law and is only concerned with his personal power.
He nevertheless continues to benefit from a form of “passenger” of the international community which, according to the researcher, should protest loudly against the manu militari destruction of the boat.
If it was China that destroyed a boat in the Caribbean of a missile shot, everyone would be indignant and the question would be dealt with in the United Nations.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, specialist in international law at Notre-Dame University
The former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, now attached to Princeton University, notes in an interview that President Trump seems to have “de facto” triggered the war against drug traffickers by authorizing the useless use of the lethal force.
The rehearsal head of state, underlines Mr. Roth, that the traffickers are “terrorists” and seems to want, by this ploy, to echo the “war with terrorism” and the widened powers granted to the American administration in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. These had been mentioned in particular by the previous administrations to justify drone strikes in which the United States was not officially at war.
A criticized approach
The fact of designating, even formally, drug traffickers and terrorists do not change the fact that these are criminals and that it is the existing rules in the fight against crime that must apply, notes Mr. Roth.
The activist notes in this capacity that in the absence of a direct threat to the security of the police, criminals must be arrested and not summed up briefly.
If the approach followed by the Trump administration in the Caribbean is tolerated, the American authorities will believe themselves authorized “to shoot who they want by declaring that they are at war with them”.
Mark Nevitt, a lawyer from the American navy who knows the right in terms of naval operations, explained a few days ago on the Just Security site that the American Coast Guard has been responsible for countering drug trafficking for decades.
A suspicious ship that refuses to stop can first be subject, he says, of summons. Targeted shots can then be used to try to immobilize the boat, for example by touching the engine or the rudder.
“Many unknowns remain relative to the attack (against the Venezuelan boat), but nothing suggests that summons or immobilization shots were used before destroying the boat,” writes Mr. Nevitt.
Washington multiplies threats
The operation in the Caribbean occurs after the Trump administration has deployed several warships off Venezuela and multiplied the verbal attacks against the Nicolás Maduro regime by accusing it of playing a leading role in drug trafficking to the United States.
Photo Juan Barto, Archives Agency France-Presse
Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro
Philip GUNSON, an analyst of the International Crisis Group established in Caracas, notes that the use of military force to counter drug trafficking does not generally give convincing results.
The strike against the boat reflects, according to him, Donald Trump’s muscular approach in terms of foreign policy and seems to be inspired by that of ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, namely that it is preferable to advance the interests of the country to “transport a big stick”.
“Except that Roosevelt also said that it was necessary to speak slowly, which is not the case here,” notes the researcher, who struggles to understand what the administration seeks to obtain from the Venezuelan regime by raising the pressure.
“I’m not sure that Donald Trump knows him himself. There seems to be a fairly important level of improvisation, ”says Mr. Gunson.
