Oct. 31 (UPI) — The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the United States’ attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific are violations of international human rights law.
Türk said in a statement Friday that the attacks, which have killed 60 people, are “unacceptable.”
Since Sept. 2, the U.S. military has attacked boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific that the President Donald Trump administration has said were smuggling drugs to the United States. The administration has offered no evidence of the allegation.
“These attacks — and their mounting human cost — are unacceptable. The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them,” Türk said.
Trump gave a speech on Tuesday to U.S. sailors aboard the USS George Washington in Japan in which he boasted of strikes.
“For many years, the drug cartels have waged war in America, and at long last, we’re finally waging war on the cartels,” he said.
Türk said that drug smuggling is a law enforcement matter, not a war.
“Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life,” he said. “Based on the very sparse information provided publicly by the U.S. authorities, none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law.”
On Oct. 19, Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murder and violating Colombia’s sovereignty in territorial waters for the death of a Colombian fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, in a mid-September strike.
“The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure,” Petro said in a statement. In response, Trump canceled all foreign aid to Columbia.
In his statement, Türk called on the authorities to “lawfully” intercept and detain suspects of drug trafficking “under the applicable rules of criminal law.”
It said the United States should “investigate and, if necessary, prosecute and punish individuals accused of serious crimes in accordance with the fundamental rule of law principles of due process and fair trial, for which the U.S. has long stood.”
