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CMC – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne says any fight against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea must rest on cooperation and law.
“Without judging facts not before us, including reports of lethal incidents off the coast of Venezuela, we restate a simple principle: the fight against drug trafficking must rest on cooperation and law.
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“Interdictions should proceed under clear legal authority and rules of engagement that minimise risk to life, respect for sovereignty and the law of the sea, and prompt information-sharing and review,” Browne told the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday.
He said that whereas, Antigua and Barbuda stands ready to work with all partners against traffickers, “we are concerned with the build-up of military assets, including a nuclear submarine, indicating the possibility of military conflict.
“We remind everyone that our hemisphere should be respected as a zone of peace, not a theatre of military conflict.”
Earlier this month, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) foreign ministers wrote to the United States calling on Washington to provide an assurance that any military action aimed at Venezuela will not threaten regional stability or occur without prior consultation and warning.
The United States has ordered an amphibious squadron to the southern Caribbean as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to address threats from Latin American drug cartels.
A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser have also been allocated to U.S. Southern Command as part of the mission.
Venezuela has since responded to what it termed the threat posed by the United States and has itself marshalled its troops along its borders.
Trump has since taken credit for what he termed as the “lethal strike” against suspected drug trafficking resulting in the deaths of at last 14 people at sea.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, who has openly supported Washington’s war on drugs in the Latin America and the Caribbean, said that her administration had “not engaged and has no intention of engaging” the 15-member regional integration grouping CARICOM “on this matter”.
She has said that she has “no sympathy for traffickers” and that the U.S. military should “kill them all violently” and on Friday reiterated her support for the U.S. presence in the Caribbean during her address to the UNGA.
In his address, Prime Minister Browne, also addressed the situation in Cuban where the decades old economic and trade embargo by the United States has led to the Cuban people having to live “under a suffocating trade embargo, and Cuba remains listed by one country as a state sponsor of terrorism.
“We all know that this classification is a hoax. It is in our hemisphere’s interest to move towards normalised relations, consistent with sovereign equality. Normalisation is not a concession; it is a pathway to dialogue and to fashioning a way forward that ensures regional stability through negotiated, binding agreements.”
Browne said that the situation in Haiti demands sustained attention, not cycles of improvisation.
“Funding has arrived in fits and starts while suffering has grown. We support a single, Haitian-led plan, executed under a single Security Council mandate and financed through a single, transparent Haiti Fund, aligning the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community, behind one budgeted programme with public accountability.”
He said disbursements should follow results such as roads retaken from gang control, extortion stopped, arms and illicit finance interdicted, civilians protected, and essential services restored.
“Haiti needs one mandate, one Haitian-led plan, one fund — accountable and transparent We urge every member of the Security Council, to support the proposed Resolution on increased security assistance for Haiti that is now before it.
“Action is long overdue; the Council must act to help Haiti and its long-suffering people,” said Browne.
In his wide-ranging address, the Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister also spoke of the climate change situation saying the climate crisis is not a weather forecast for small island states, noting “it is our daily plight.
“Shores retreat, reefs bleach, storms intensify, while droughts destroy crops and animals. This is not fate; Science has proven that it is the product of sustained high emissions, which imperil small states and also damage the environment, economies, and health of the very nations that produce them. Climate change science is not fraudulent and we ignore it to our own peril.”
Browne said that his country supports a “just, orderly energy transition…that caps, then fairly phases down and ultimately phases out the fuels that drive this destruction, without sacrificing energy security or development.
“We favour a fair carbon levy on the heaviest emitters, public and private, with proceeds directed to adaptation, loss and damage, and resilience. “
He said that The Loss and Damage Fund must operate as promised “predictable, front-loaded financing, that arrives when disaster strikes; disbursed timely, on objective triggers, so that help comes at the speed of need.
“But finance must be fair before a storm hits. Right now, the inequitable international financial system, makes the most vulnerable countries pay the highest price, just to protect themselves.
“These climate disasters force us to borrow expensively to rebuild. Consequently, debt swells and resilience stalls.
We call, yet again for full adoption of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index across international financial institutions, so that exposure to shocks opens access to concessional terms.”
Browne said lending should match climate horizons, long repayment periods, low fixed rates, sensible grace periods, and climate-resilient debt clauses, that automatically pause payments after verified shocks.
He said local-currency lending windows would end the foreign-exchange penalty that deepens debt without adding value, adding “that, at least, would be a step along the road to justice.
“For islands like mine, the ocean is not scenery; it is the source of food and jobs, and the opportunity for new chances of growth and development. But it must be protected.
We urge decisive action against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; plastics that choke reefs; and pollution that steals mangroves.
“As custodians of vast Exclusive Economic Zones, small islands offer partnership and stewardship.
Let us back robust global plastics and fossil fuel non-proliferation treaties; expand blue-carbon finance for mangroves and seagrass, and make maritime domain awareness, and the provision of satellite and data-sharing services, standard support for SIDS.
“Until independent science proves no serious harm, we support a moratorium on seabed mining. No one should mortgage the ocean floor to pay short-term bills,” Browne told the international community.
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I agree Honourable Prime Minister. I believe that all the Caribbean islands and the UNITED STATES Government can work together in order to bring some semblance of order and decency to the effort to rid the area of the narco trade, gun trade, human trafficking and more. It’s called collaboration and it simply cannot be just the US alone doing their thing.
I agree with Audley, but in America and other places only people of substantial wealth could run for president, not like in antigua a puapua broke like hell get elected and turn multimillionaire overnight and start building lots a property and buying up cars and even their close family, so it means they can’t be trusted to enforce no laws, and too busy cutting throats in the Caribbean outdoing each other in passport sale to criminals, the USA and others even point to the integrity commission as toothless a design by the prime minister , they know our prime minister are crooks, after all the same white people that Gaston is holding barbudans at gun point to sell off the lands to are part of a white brotherhood. They speak together about the peanut change they are able to buy out a prime minister with to go to parliament like going to American Congress to make buffer zone laws and the rights to destroy the same environment like mangrove and swamp lands. They are laughing at our so call leaders with their performative politics at the United nation and other forums, done only to impress their semiliterate voters back home in their country to create fanaticism and get re-elected to continue thief.
@Eldread You nail it…For the last 10 years, i didn’t see any. but literally no move in Caribbean waters to stop drugs trafficking. As we said.. If we want to remove complete the major source, How we think is going to be? Talking? Nahh.. You don’t talk with drugs traffickers. We don’t want to attack consumers because Humans Rights, Mental illness, and so on. We complain if we want to bring down the source due Humans rights, and bla bla..So What is the solution? Do nothing to the final consumer, do nothing to the Traffickers, do nothing to the manufacturers. Dam hell we are living.
Lets talk in our Home…
All people around smoking Marijuana, teenagers and adults. All day, all around us.. Do nothing to them, is allowed.
Traffickers? Producers? How we are going to stop the trafficking of something that have no penalty to use it?
#Kaiso_Thyme
🎼🎼🎶🎶🎤
Gaston kum #roc_N_whine, pan dis yah see
Maria! Maria! Dat gal fram City West!
And, U kno how City west gyal whine!
Especially, wen dem put in dem wine
Den, bruk out! Bruk out! De bumpsy
Plus, de BBL and Dadli behind.
👀🧏🏿♂️🗣️ ah say, ah goh see no evil.
…oh gog!
🙈🙉🙊 ah say, ah goh hear no evil.
…my god!
😡🦻🏾🤣ah say, ah goh speak no evil.
…you devil.
But, when it comes to the word #drugs
You can never eradicate its uses
Among the HUEman masses
It will remain with us, just like bed bugs
So, to you Mr. Prime Minister
When it comes #drugs and your rhetoric
To many people, it’s simply oxymoronic
And, this is based upon the simple logic
That’s called, #supply and demand.
You should know this one!
Because it’s the engine, which keeps nation’s economy humming and running!
Drugs! Drugs! Everywhere!
Drugs! Drugs! Here, there and over there
Whether you choose your own vice!
Or others did without your permission or advice
Drugs put food in many people’s pot!
While keeping the fire under it blazing hot
Then stop promoting #forget_me_nots!
And, pretending you don’t know about these facts!
Gaston Browne, PM
A…first off classify what you are referring to as “drugs.” Alcohol to Ozympic and the thousands in between?
B…major industries like tourism, entertainment, sports, military, medicine are heavily dependent on drugs!
C…the demand and supply for drugs by HUEmans will always attract individuals of all kinds. The good, the bad and the ugly.
D…the drugs are not the [problem], until their uses are defined and classified. Who does the classifications and certifications of the drugs which are in such high demand, that wars have been fought over them for centuries. The poppy fields, to the coco fields to the marijuana fields to the pharmaceutical industry labs which synthesize as much as they want? GOVERNMENTS, the one and same which you want to take the lead on curtailing, these said drugs. Again, how oxymoronic is that?
The best solution to dealing with drugs has to be education for it to be effective. Many users of [drugs] from herbs (fever grass, nu-nu balsam, anise, Vicks vapor rub, aspirin, phensic) alcohol all begin at infancy, in the home medicine cabinet, the liquor cabinet, the food pantry.
EDUCATION not guns, bombs, wars will bring some semblance to the DRUG EPIDEMIC which has plagued HUEmanity for centuries.
By the way the CARNIVAL, bacchanal, Dionysus orgy fest which you promote as the greatest summer festival in the Caribbean is powered by NBA – nothing but alcohol a legal drug. The chalice, bong, spliff of the illegal/legal marijuana, and according to school children, there’s enough white powder to make it seem like The Snowman is causing it to snow in Antigua, in the middle of July!
Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’ole Dutty Peg🦶🏿 Garrat_Bastard
Vere Edwards