Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello shows on a map the probable zone where the US claims to have blown up a "drug boat" allegedly originating from Venezuela. Photo: Con El Mazo Dando.
The US government, led by President Donald Trump, violated international and US laws and protocols by carrying out extrajudicial executions and sinking a boat in international waters that, according to the US authorities, resulted in the death of 11 people. Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello made this comment on Wednesday, September 3, during his television program Con El Mazo Dando.
The day before, Trump reported, in statements to the media, that US naval forces “literally shot down a vessel carrying a large amount of drugs,” which was sailing through the Caribbean Sea and had supposedly left Venezuela heading toward the United States.
This act was a clear violation of international law and the fundamental principle of the right to life, killing people in the high seas instead of capturing and detaining them and presenting them before pertinent judicial authorities.
Cabello suggested, “Let us do an exercise. Let us suppose that the boat was carrying drugs, that there were 11 people on board, and that US forces were shot at. Do they have the right to murder someone? Their own laws prohibit it. And the right to defense? What the United States is saying is evidence against itself. They murdered a group of people, they say there were 11 people.”
Former US Security Advisor: Alleged US Attack on a Venezuelan ‘Drug Boat’ Raises ‘Serious Concerns’
These are some of the arguments put forward by Cabello in his analysis:
- The White House did not explain how the US Naval Forces determined that the vessel was coming from Venezuelan territory, how they determined it was loaded with drugs, nor what procedure was used to identify the “cartel” responsible for the transfer, nor the nationalities of those on board the boat.
- The attack was a clear violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) as no government has the right to sink a civilian vessel on the high seas. Intervention is only allowed in cases of piracy, slave trafficking, or ships without a state flag, explained Cabello.
- The action also violated the 1988 Vienna Convention on the Fight Against Illicit Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which establishes that authorities are to undertake international cooperation, boarding, and arrest, “not a massacre.” Washington outright disregarded those protocols.
- The blowing up of the boat violated Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, which states that the use of force is only justified in self-defense. Similarly, the right to life and a fair trial of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was violated. No suspicion of drug trafficking justifies applying the death penalty at sea.
- The execution of the people on the boat violates the United States’ own legal framework, particularly the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, which requires the arrest and presentation of alleged drug traffickers before the courts.
- The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States enshrines due process. Moreover, contrary to the War Powers Resolution, there was no authorization from Congress, which is the body that authorizes the “use of armed force” outside the United States.
- In 2018, the International Criminal Court opened a preliminary examination against Rodrigo Duterte, then president of the Philippines, for extrajudicial killings in his so-called “war on drugs.”
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
