Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday ordered his nation’s security forces to stop sharing intelligence with the US until the administration of US President Donald Trump stops its strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
Petro wrote on X that Colombia’s military must immediately end “communications and other agreements with US security agencies” until the US ceases its attacks on speedboats suspected of carrying drugs.
Petro wrote that “the fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people.”
Photo: AFP / Venezuelan Ministry of Defense
It was not immediately clear what kind of information Colombia would stop sharing with the US.
The White House had no immediate response to Petro’s statements.
At least 75 people have been killed by the US military in strikes in international waters since August, according to figures supplied by the Trump administration. The strikes began in the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela’s shores, but have shifted recently to the eastern Pacific, where the US has targeted boats off Mexico.
Photo: AFP
Petro has called for Trump to be investigated for war crimes over the strikes, which have affected citizens of Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Petro has long been a critic of US drug policy and has accused the Trump administration of going after peasants growing coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, instead of targeting major drug traffickers and money launderers.
On Sunday, he met with the family of a Colombian fisherman who was allegedly killed in one of the strikes.
Photo: EPA
“He may have been carrying fish, or he may have been carrying cocaine, but he had not been sentenced to death,” Petro said during a summit between Latin American and EU leaders hosted by Colombia on Sunday. “There was no need to murder him.”
Meanwhile, a US aircraft carrier strike group arrived in Latin America on Tuesday, escalating a military buildup that Venezuela has warned could trigger a full-blown conflict as it announced its own “massive” deployment.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered an area under control of the US Naval Forces Southern Command, which encompasses Latin America and the Caribbean, the command said in a statement.
The vessel’s deployment was ordered nearly three weeks ago, with the goal of helping to counter drug trafficking in the region.
Its presence “will bolster US capacity to detect, monitor and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the western hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.
Caracas fears the deployment, which also includes F-35 stealth warplanes sent to Puerto Rico and six US Navy ships in the Caribbean, is a regime change plot in disguise.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose past two election wins were dismissed as fraudulent by Washington and dozens of other countries, has accused the Trump administration of “fabricating a war.”
“If we as a republic, as a people, go into an armed struggle in order to defend the sacred legacy of the liberators, we’re ready to win,” Maduro said on Tuesday.
On Nov. 2, Trump played down the prospect of going to war with Venezuela, but said that the days of Maduro — who he has called a drug lord — were numbered.
The Trump administration says that the US is engaged in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, which it describes as “terrorist” groups.
Venezuela on Tuesday announced what it called a major, nationwide military deployment to counter the US naval presence off its coast.
The Venezuelan Ministry of Defense in Caracas spoke in a statement of a “massive deployment” of land, sea, air, river and missile forces, as well as civilian militia to counter “imperial threats.”
Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino said that 200,000 troops participated in an exercise, although no military activity was observed in the capital.
Padrino sought to assure Venezuelans that the country was “safeguarded, protected, defended.”
“They are murdering defenseless people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, executing them without due process,” he said of the US operations.
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