Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, holds press conference and holds up a picture of front page of T&T Guardian displaying two citizens of Trinidad who were murdered by the last US imperial strike in Caribbean. Photo: X/@elizondogabriel.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuela has asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to investigate extrajudicial killings the US empire has carried out in the Caribbean Sea and to determine their illegality.
The call for an inquiry, made by Venezuela’s UN Ambassador Samuel Moncada this Thursday, October 16, follows an attack on October 14 “against civilians who were aboard a small boat stationary in the Caribbean Sea, [allegedly] a few miles off the Venezuelan coast,” Moncada said. The US empire’s War Department reported the murders without providing any other details like location, time, names of those civilians killed, drugs allegedly carried, and other important data in their attempt to cover up the true reasons for the attack.
Venezuela also requested that the UNSC confirm the threat these illegal actions pose to preserving peace in Latin America and the Caribbean. It cited extrajudicial executions, the buildup of military forces, bellicose rhetoric against Venezuela, and clandestine CIA operations to commit political assassinations openly acknowledged by President Trump on Wednesday.
As a third point, Venezuela required the UN body to issue a statement reaffirming the principle of unrestricted respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity as an indispensable basis for peace.
🇻🇪 At the UN, Venezuela alerts of “a killer roaming around the Caribbean” committing massacres@SMoncada_VEN displays today's @GuardianTT newspaper, which reported that two Trinbagonians were murdered in the latest U.S. strike on a boat in the Caribbean pic.twitter.com/ztIBxawWQk
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) October 16, 2025
27 killed in escalating attacks
Moncada reported that the attacks since October 14 have so far “left a balance of five illegal attacks and 27 people killed.”
He noted that among the victims, two fishers from Trinidad and Tobago were identified, as reported by Trinidadian media. “Their families have explained that those killed were engaged in fishing,” he told reporters. “This act is another chapter in the escalation of bombings carried out since September against civilian small boats transiting international waters in the Caribbean Sea.”
The Venezuelan diplomat noted that some victims have been recognized by their families and governments as nationals of Venezuela, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago. “We emphasize this fact,” he said, “because it indicates that it affects the entire region; it’s not just a Venezuelan issue.”
Maximum tension
The Venezuelan ambassador characterized the recent attacks in the Caribbean Sea as a point of “maximum tension” for the peace and stability of Venezuela. He pointed to “recent statements by President Trump revealing that the US government is considering launching attacks on land,” a measure he recalled is contrary to the provisions of Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter regarding the abstention from the use of force.
“This alarming decision must be added to the recent statements from the White House, according to which the United States government authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions in Venezuela,” he added. “The new authorization would allow the CIA to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and in the Caribbean.”
Moncada emphasized that the CIA’s “dark record” of covert operations aimed at generating destabilization, sabotage, counterinsurgency, coup planning, and assassination of heads of state is widely known, explaining that these actions all aim to establish political systems subservient to the interests of the US empire.
“This is a massive war propaganda operation underway,” the ambassador warned. He specified that the aggression is carried out from across three axes: “a war propaganda operation, a military escalation with large military equipment approaching Venezuela, and a clandestine intelligence advance with a license to kill, with the purpose of carrying out a coup d’état in Venezuela.”
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Trinidad investigates citizens’ deaths
Trinidad and Tobago police stated on Wednesday that they are investigating the possible deaths of two of their citizens in the latest US imperial attack on a small boat allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, media reported. The Trinidadian police investigation began after residents of the fishing village of Las Cuevas alerted authorities to the presence of two compatriots on the boat, a police officer said.
The president of the US colony, Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday that six people were murdered by the empire in this latest attack, adding to at least four others since Washington deployed military war ships near the Venezuelan coast in August under the guise of the “war on drugs.”
The mother of one of the presumed deceased condemned the attack. “The law of the sea is that if you see a ship [under suspicion], you’re supposed to stop the ship and intercept it, not just blow it up,” said Lenore Burnley, mother of 26-year-old Chad Joseph, who allegedly died in Tuesday’s attack.
Burnley said acquaintances in Venezuela called Joseph’s grandparents in Las Cuevas and told them he was on the boat. Joseph was a fisherman, married, a father of three children, and had been in Venezuela for the past three months, his mother said from his home in Matelot. The young man also had family in Venezuela. According to media reports, the other deceased was also a fisherman and resident of Las Cuevas, known as Samaroo.
Earlier in September, following the first in this series of extrajudicial killings by the US empire, Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar stated “violently kill them all.” Some Trinidadian citizens now point to that statement as making her an accessory to crime for encouraging the US empire’s assassination campaign.
The US empire’s actions have drawn criticism from other regional leaders, with former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson describing the strikes on small boats in Caribbean waters as “fundamentally dangerous and a horrible erosion of regional leaders’ commitment to sovereignty in the region,” according to Jamaican news outlets.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
OT/JRE/AU
