Colombian President Gustavo Petro stated this Saturday, October 18, that the United States violated his country’s maritime space and killed a fisherman during its military deployment in the Caribbean presented as an operation against drug traffickers.
Washington has notably mobilized seven stealth ships and warplanes in what it describes as a fight against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea, and has carried out at least six attacks there since early September that have left at least 27 dead.
“His activity was fishing”
“U.S. government officials committed murder and violated the sovereignty of our territorial waters,” criticized the left-wing president.
“The Colombian vessel was adrift and had activated the failure signal due to an out-of-service engine. We are waiting for explanations from the United States government,” added the Colombian president. Alejandro Carranza allegedly died in one of the US attacks in mid-September while fishing in Colombian Caribbean waters, according to the testimony of a relative shared by the president in X.
“It’s not fair”
“Alejandro Carranza is a fisherman, we grew up in families of fishermen (…) it is not fair that they bomb him like this. He is an innocent person who was going to earn his daily bread,” said Audenis Manjarres, reading a message in a video from public television RTVC Noticias.
He claimed to have recognized the ship that appeared in the videos of the September 15 attack broadcast by international media. Fishermen have stopped going out to sea for fear of being bombed, said the young woman from the coastal town of Santa Marta.
Venezuela, particularly attacked
Bogotá denounces this US deployment in the Caribbean, which targets especially Venezuela, where Donald Trump accuses President Nicolás Maduro of being at the head of a large drug trafficking organization to the United States. Venezuelan authorities strongly deny any involvement in drug trafficking and believe Washington is trying to impose regime change on Caracas and seize the country’s significant oil reserves.
In the United States, the legality of attacks against suspects who are not intercepted or interrogated, in foreign or international waters, is also debated. The Colombian president asked the UN General Assembly in September for “criminal proceedings” to be initiated against his American counterpart Donald Trump in response to these deadly military attacks.
Source: BFM TV
