‘Dangerous and horrible’
Former PM Patterson decries US drone strikes on vessels in Caribbean waters; warns attacks erode idea of region as ‘zone of peace’
Published:Thursday | October 16, 2025 | 12:14 AMKaren Madden/Gleaner Writer
Former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson is describing the United States (US) drone attacks on vessels in Caribbean waters as “fundamentally dangerous and a horrible erosion of regional leaders’ commitment to sovereignty in the region”.
Since September 2, US President Donald Trump has ordered military strikes on at least five boats in the Caribbean Sea, which his administration claims were carrying drugs to the US.
According to the US government’s account, the military has killed 27 people, with the most recent attack on Tuesday, which the US government said killed six people.
Patterson, who served as Jamaica’s prime minister from 1992 to 2006, told The Gleaner the situation was not only frightening, but dangerous.
“At our very first meeting in 1972, in Chaguaramus, the four independent countries - Jamaica under Michael Manley, Barbados under Errol Barrow, Guyana under Forbes Burnham, and under the chairmanship of Eric Williams (then prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago) - declared the Caribbean to be a zone of peace.
“What we are witnessing is a fundamentally dangerous and horrible erosion of that firm commitment to assert our collective sovereignty in the area. It is a matter which compels the heads of governments in the Caribbean, as a matter of the greatest urgency, to be in consultations and seek to take a common position, hopefully in reaffirmation of that inviolable position.”
In a statement a day after the first strike, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar voiced strong support for the US action.
“I, along with most of the country, am happy that the US naval deployment is having success in their mission. The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all, violently.”
However, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in late September, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley appealed for dialogue to avoid a war between the US and Venezuela, while Dr Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, described the foreign militarisation of the waters near Venezuela as “exceedingly troubling”.
The current CARICOM chairman is Jamaica’s Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, but the regional grouping has so far not made public its position on the vexed issue.
ESTABLISHED PATTERN
Patterson would, however, not be drawn into forming an opinion on why CARICOM has chosen to remain silent.
“I would rather not share my view [on that]. This is not a matter that permits any semblance of political division. He (Holness) is the chairman of CARICOM. There is a well-established pattern by which we have dealt with such matters. Perhaps the most recent one is when we had to meet to deal with the American request for a Shiprider Agreement.”
Jamaica entered into the Shiprider Agreement with the Americans in 1997, which was brought into force by the passage Wof the Maritime Drug Trafficking (Suppression) Act, 1998.
The agreement allows US vessels to pursue and search, within Jamaica’s waters, vessels suspected of drug trafficking.
While mindful of the country’s sovereignty, the US vessels may also pursue and search Jamaican vessels, which arouse suspicion, in international waters.
Jamaicans are among regional fisherfolk who have expressed concern about the development, with fears that they become “collateral damage” in the ongoing conflict.
Patterson says the continued onslaughts is a clear and present danger to all maritime users and urged action from the regional body.
“There are rules which apply in international waters which should not be violated. What is taking place has worrying implications, not only in terms of the violation of international law, but it affects activities of those who operate in maritime waters, whether for fishing, cruising or sailing. The existing situation demands that CARICOM heads cannot remain silent.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith has not responded to emailed questions on the matter sent to her office on October 7.
Announcing the first of the strikes in early September, Trump said his forces had destroyed a vessel that left Venezuela and was operated by the Tren d Aragua cartel and carrying drugs bound for the US.
The accounts have been accompanied by grainy footage, but the US government has not provided evidence of the alleged drug trafficking or details about who or what was on board each ship.
In one case, the Colombian president said a boat hit by the US was not Venezuelan, but “Colombian with Colombian citizens inside”, a claim which the White House denied.