David Abdulah, a Trinidad and Tobago trade unionist, economist and politician and the current leader of the Movement for Social Justice, speaks about the vigil for peace in Woodford Square, Port of Spain, which is one of many popular efforts by the citizens of his country to ask that the United States government stop its strikes on vessels from the region. Analysing how the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has been supportive of the US actions over the past two months, where vessels have been destroyed and people killed (the death toll from these campaigns now rests at 70), Abdulah notes how the people of his country oppose military deployment, war, and regime change. Recalling the history of US interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean, Abdulah underscores how this operation by the United States is simply a refashioned WMD, where, instead of alleged weapons of mass destruction, the US government has simply utilised the “drug war” narrative, while contending that the boats it has destroyed have allegedly been the vessels of drug trafficking operations. Noting how the US has absolutely no right to lecture anyone on the “drug trade,” Abdulah recalls how, during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the US government authorised the transport and sale of cocaine from Latin America to support and finance its efforts to destabilise governments in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Even if these boats were those of drug traffickers, Abdulah insists upon the rejection of the Monroe Doctrine while underscoring the moral principles of peace, while also observing that due process is being completely obliterated and that the US is engaging in extrajudicial killings with zero regard for the law.
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