Trinis fear US death squads

Fishermen in Trinidad and Tobago are in fear that they may be executed by drug enforcement officers from the United States who mistake them as being criminals.

In Trinidad Kenrick Modie is a typical fisherman worried that his life and livelihood could be wiped out by an unforeseen US military strike.

Trinidad and Tobago is now entangled in a geopolitical face-off between the US and Venezuela, just 11 miles away. US forces are ramping up destructive strikes on any vessels they deem drug related.

Modie said: “President Donald Trump is giving instructions to shoot and kill people. What could we do? We’re just a little dot.”

His concerns heightened after Trump declared in a recent memo that the US was in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in the Caribbean, alleging they are trying to bring “deadly poison” to US shores.

And on Friday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said he had ordered another strike on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela — the fourth since revelations that Trump told lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants.

Meanwhile, Venezuela has accused the US of military build-up and aggression, prompting President Nicolás Maduro to place the country’s military and civilians willing to take up arms on high alert.

Stuck in the middle is Trinidad and Tobago, a nation with a multimillion-dollar fishing industry that employs thousands of fishermen who cast their nets almost daily to sustain themselves and their family.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said that drug cartels have contributed to pain and suffering in her country, and she has urged the US to “kill them all violently.”

She also said she is willing to grant the US access to Trinidad and Tobago, if needed, so Americans can defend Guyana from neighbouring Venezuela, which has claimed two-thirds of Guyana as its own.

Maduro said that Persad-Bissessar’s willingness to grant such access is like declaring war against Venezuela. He has called for a return to good relations with its Caribbean neighbour, even as Trinidad and Tobago’s government claims there’s no bad blood between the countries.

While those in authority trade words and military commanders ramp up their posturing, dozens of fishermen in Trinidad and Tobago feel their lives are at risk given the ongoing American strikes and escalation of tensions with Venezuela.

“If we die, we die, that’s how this life is,” Modie said.