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Development Economist Dr. Chris Stokes
As US President Donald Trump steps up his country's military build-up in the Caribbean Sea, Amnesty International is warning that any airstrike authorised by Congress would violate international human rights law and could amount to unlawful executions.
This statement comes in light of the reported circulation of a draft resolution in the US Congress to authorise the use of military force against alleged drug traffickers.
Several such strikes have already taken place, targeting and killing alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers.
Amnesty International USA's Director of Security and Human Rights, Daphne Eviatar says, if US legislators authorise using military force against suspected drug traffickers, it would not change the fact that such lethal strikes amount to extrajudicial executions.
She says such strikes have no legal justification whatsoever under international human rights law.
On September 3, President Donald Trump said the US military had targeted a boat that allegedly set out from Venezuela, killing 11 people on board.
On September 15, he claimed responsibility for a lethal airstrike on another such vessel, reportedly killing three more people.
And again, on Friday, he announced that the US military had conducted a third airstrike on a boat.
Development Economist Dr Chris Stokes, reacting Sunday on Radio Jamaica's That's a Rap, said these actions by the US military signal a worrying departure from the global rules-based order.
"The post-World War II rules-based world order, constructed by the said United States of America, from which the said United States of America benefited... is now being dismantled," he observed.
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