‘An attempt at recolonization of the region’ – that’s how Trinidadian peace activist Zakiya Umoza-Wadada describes the US assault on Venezuela, amid the most intense militarization of the southern Caribbean in generations.
The foundations were laid in August last year when US president Donald Trump quietly signed a Pentagon directive to use military force against Latin American drug cartels (See ‘Another failure of the War on Drugs’, page 52). Quickly, the US began to amass warships in the Caribbean. By December it had brought in around 15,000 troops, carrying out 35 strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 115 people.1
