For decades, the Caribbean has been caught in the slipstream of other people’s wars, from cold war proxy battles to Washington’s “war on drugs” and “war on terror”. Our islands have too often been turned into the frontlines for policies scripted elsewhere but fought in our waters, our communities, and on the backs of our most vulnerable.
The recent US naval strikes against alleged “drug boats” leaving Venezuela, and the decision of Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to grant access to territorial waters without first consulting Caricom, risk dragging our islands into yet another manufactured storm. As US warships fire missiles at vessels they claim carry “narco-terrorists”, the Caribbean faces the prospect of being sacrificed in someone else’s theatre of war.
The US narrative rests on a familiar trope: that the Caribbean is nothing more than a trans-shipment hub for narcotics flowing north. But the narrative is dishonest. The true driver is demand. The US insatiable appetite for cocaine and opiates created the billion-dollar trade routes that snake through the region. Rather than own its addiction, the US projects blame outward, painting the Caribbean as “narco-territory” while denying the role of its own citizens as consumers, financiers, and enablers.
Washington’s sudden military zeal is telling. After decades of indifference to Caribbean pleas for fair trade, reparations and climate justice, we are asked to believe US destroyers lurk offshore to protect us. But the reality is this is about squeezing the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, destabilising the country and preparing the ground for regime change. It would be naive to ignore the oil factor. Between Trinidad’s long-established energy base, Venezuela’s colossal reserves and Guyana’s massive discoveries, the southern Caribbean has become one of the most coveted hydrocarbon regions anywhere.
History shows the consequences; Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Haiti through multiple interventions. Each was justified as defending democracy; each left behind wreckage. To believe these new strikes are purely about drugs is to ignore the US’s long habit of cloaking imperial ambition in moral language.
