Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor—Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth has ex­pressed con­cern that ac­cu­sa­tions of war crimes against Amer­i­can mil­i­tary per­son­nel could dis­cour­age coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC) from un­der­tak­ing sim­i­lar op­er­a­tions against sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ers.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is among the coun­tries that joined the US-led coali­tion on March 7, when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da.

Hegseth, who has sur­vived an im­peach­ment at­tempt in the Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives over the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, says Wash­ing­ton is work­ing with coali­tion part­ners to pre­vent what he de­scribes as “law­fare”, or the use of le­gal pro­ceed­ings to chal­lenge counter-car­tel op­er­a­tions.

The im­peach­ment res­o­lu­tion, spear­head­ed by Re­pub­li­can Con­gress­man Thomas Massie, ac­cused Hegseth of over­see­ing un­law­ful mil­i­tary strikes against sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ers, in­clud­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2, 2025, op­er­a­tion be­tween the ge­o­graph­ic ar­eas of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela that killed 11 peo­ple.

The res­o­lu­tion al­leged that two sur­vivors of the ini­tial strike were killed in a sub­se­quent at­tack, in vi­o­la­tion of le­gal pro­tec­tions for ship­wrecked in­di­vid­u­als. It al­so ac­cused Hegseth of over­see­ing ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings and weak­en­ing le­gal over­sight with­in the Pen­ta­gon, rais­ing fur­ther ques­tions about the le­gal­i­ty of US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean.

Last evening, the Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives blocked the im­peach­ment ef­fort against Hegseth, vot­ing 211 to 204 to re­fer the res­o­lu­tion to a com­mit­tee, ef­fec­tive­ly halt­ing the at­tempt to re­move him from of­fice. Massie was the on­ly Re­pub­li­can to join De­moc­rats in op­pos­ing the pro­ce­dur­al move.

The de­ci­sion fol­lowed al­le­ga­tions that Hegseth had abused his au­thor­i­ty in over­see­ing Amer­i­can mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing dead­ly strikes against sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean. Al­though the im­peach­ment ef­fort has been blocked for now, it can be re­vived when the De­moc­rats take con­trol of Con­gress in Jan­u­ary 2027.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day ahead of the House’s de­ci­sion, Hegseth dis­missed the im­peach­ment ef­fort as po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, in­sist­ing that Amer­i­can mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in­volv­ing sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ers, Venezuela, Iran and Yemen were law­ful.

“As for the ar­ti­cles them­selves, Iran, the car­tels, Maduro, Yemen, every­one was a law­ful op­er­a­tion or­dered by the Com­man­der in Chief, then or­dered by my­self, no­ti­fied to Con­gress and ex­e­cut­ed by Amer­i­can war­riors who did their jobs,” Hegseth said.

He ar­gued that dis­agree­ments over mil­i­tary pol­i­cy did not con­sti­tute im­peach­able of­fences and re­ject­ed ac­cu­sa­tions that Amer­i­can forces had com­mit­ted war crimes.

How­ev­er, Hegseth ex­pressed con­cern that such al­le­ga­tions could cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty among coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing in the AC­CC.

“When our politi­cians want to play po­lit­i­cal games, in­sin­u­at­ing that our troops may be com­mit­ting war crimes or they’re not fol­low­ing the law when every­thing has been law­ful from day one, they start to sow doubt or at­tempt to sow doubt,” Hegseth said.

He sug­gest­ed that coali­tion part­ners could be­gin ques­tion­ing whether sim­i­lar mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions un­der­tak­en with­in their own ter­ri­to­ries might ex­pose them to le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

“If you go af­ter these car­tel mem­bers in your coun­try, maybe some­one will go af­ter you lat­er,” he claimed is the fear that de­trac­tors are try­ing to put in the AC­CC.

Hegseth said the Unit­ed States was work­ing close­ly with par­tic­i­pat­ing gov­ern­ments to ad­dress those con­cerns.

“We’re work­ing re­al­ly hard with these coun­tries to pre­vent that kind of law­fare, to make sure they can get af­ter these drug car­tels that have dec­i­mat­ed their com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

His con­cerns come as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie stands firm on his po­si­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go has act­ed law­ful­ly in its deal­ings with the Unit­ed States, re­it­er­at­ing his ear­li­er as­sess­ment that Amer­i­can mil­i­tary strikes on sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean were con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie main­tained that in­de­pen­dent le­gal ad­vice ob­tained from an in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pert sup­port­ed his as­sess­ment of the con­tro­ver­sial Amer­i­can mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions.

In Jan­u­ary, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dis­closed that he had sought ex­ter­nal le­gal ad­vice be­fore ar­riv­ing at his con­clu­sion.

“My first look at it, and the ad­vice I took, is the strikes were con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al law,” Je­re­mie said at the time.

“I’ve done my job, which is to en­sure the re­pub­lic acts in ac­cor­dance with the law,” he said.

The le­gal opin­ion was re­port­ed­ly pro­vid­ed by British King’s Coun­sel (KC) Har­ish Salve of Black­stone Cham­bers in Lon­don.

Mean­while, Hegseth said par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries had been en­cour­aged to join the US counter-car­tel ef­forts af­ter wit­ness­ing Amer­i­can mil­i­tary strikes against sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels, the cap­ture of Maduro and the block­ade around Venezuela.

He main­tained that the coali­tion was mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial, al­low­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing gov­ern­ments to com­bat crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions while help­ing the Unit­ed States pre­vent drugs and gangs from en­ter­ing its bor­ders.

“They get to save their coun­tries and take their streets back. We get to pre­vent drugs and gangs from com­ing to our coun­try. Both sides win in that dy­nam­ic,” he said.

Turn­ing to Venezuela, Hegseth al­so de­fend­ed the Amer­i­can op­er­a­tion that re­sult­ed in Maduro’s cap­ture, re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that the Venezue­lan leader had been kid­napped.

“In­dict­ed and want­ed, Nico­las Maduro thought he was un­touch­able. He was not kid­napped. He was brought to jus­tice by Amer­i­ca’s best,” Hegseth de­clared.

He de­scribed the op­er­a­tion as a mil­i­tary suc­cess, claim­ing it was com­plet­ed in just 48 min­utes.

“Vic­to­ry in one night, vic­to­ry in 48 min­utes to be pre­cise,” he said.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has main­tained that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mil­i­tary played no role in the cap­ture of Maduro, de­spite US Sen­ate For­eign Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Jim Risch prais­ing this coun­try for play­ing an “ac­tive role” in sup­port­ing the op­er­a­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Hegseth al­so dis­closed that more than 70 sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels had been sunk dur­ing the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary cam­paign, with 218 al­leged nar­co-ter­ror­ists killed.

He claimed mar­itime drug smug­gling had de­clined by at least 65 per cent as a re­sult of the op­er­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Hegseth, the cam­paign had pre­vent­ed thou­sands of Amer­i­can deaths by dis­rupt­ing the flow of il­le­gal drugs in­to the Unit­ed States.