A US warship arrived in Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela, as Washington ratcheted up pressure on drug traffickers and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The USS Gravely, whose upcoming arrival was announced Thursday by the Trinidadian government, docked in the capital, Port of Spain.
It is set to remain in the small Caribbean nation until Thursday, during which time a contingent of US Marines will conduct joint training with local defense forces.
The exercises are part of a mounting military campaign by US President Donald Trump against drug-trafficking organizations in Latin America, which has targeted Trump’s arch-foe Maduro in particular.
US forces have blown up at least 10 boats they claimed were smuggling narcotics, killing at least 43 people, and Trump has also threatened ground attacks on suspected cartels in Venezuela.
Maduro, a longtime Trump foe whose reelection last year was widely rejected as fraudulent, has accused the United States of “fabricating a war” aimed at toppling him.
The standoff escalated sharply on Friday, when the Pentagon ordered the deployment of the world’s biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, to the region.
Trump has also authorized CIA operations against Venezuela.
The standoff has pulled in Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, a sharp critic of the American strikes who was sanctioned by Washington on Friday for allegedly allowing drug trafficking to flourish.
Washington has accused both Maduro and Petro of being “narcoterrorists,” without providing any proof of the allegations.
In August, Washington deployed a fleet of eight US Navy ships, 10 F-35 warplanes and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region for anti-drug operations — the biggest military build-up in the area since the 1989 US invasion of Panama.
– ‘Getting a lash’ –
In Trinidad and Tobago, a laidback twin-island nation of 1.4 million people, some welcomed their government’s show of support for the US campaign but others worried about getting caught up in a conflict between Washington and Caracas.
“If anything should happen with Venezuela and America, we as people who live on the outskirts of it … could end up getting a lash any time,” 64-year-old Daniel Holder, a Rastafarian who wore a white turban, told AFP,
“I am against my country being part of this,” he added.
Victor Rojas, a 38-year-old carpenter who has been living in Trinidad and Tobago for the past eight years, said he was worried for his family back home.
“Venezuela is not in a position to weather an attack right now,” he said, referring to the country’s economic collapse under Maduro.
Trinidad and Tobago, which acts as a hub in the Caribbean drug trade, has itself been caught up in the US campaign of strikes on suspected drug boats.
Two Trinidadian men were killed in a strike on a vessel that set out from Venezuela in mid-October, according to their families.
The mother of one of the victims insisted he was a fisherman, not a drug trafficker.
Local authorities have not yet confirmed their deaths.
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