Colombian President calls for criminal charges against Trump over boat strikes

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials after three deadly military strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean.

Petro said "unarmed young people are being shot at with missiles in the open seas" moments after taking the podium at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.

"Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the U.S., even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: President Trump," Petro said.

Petro said the U.S. military shot missiles at 17 unarmed young people in the Caribbean, some of whom were Colombian. 

Trump ordered military strikes on Sept. 2, Sept. 15 and Sept. 19 on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. Trump said the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was using the boats to smuggle drugs to the U.S.

Early in his second term, Trump designated Tren de Aragua and Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.

The U.S. said the three boat strikes resulted in 17 deaths. The Sept. 2 attack killed 11. The strike on Sept. 15 killed three, as did the strike on Sept. 19. U.S. officials have released a few details about the strikes, but Trump has posted videos of two strikes on social media. He told reporters about the third.

Petro said claims of drug smuggling were incorrect.

"They said that the missiles in the Caribbean were to stop drug smuggling. That is a lie."

Petro said his government seized record amounts of illegal drugs and extradited criminals to the U.S. to face charges without firing missiles or killing young people.

He said his administration proved that the government could substitute other crops for coca growers. 

"The violent war against drugs was a failure," Petro said.

He went on to accuse Colombian drug dealers and those working on their behalf of working directly with Republicans in Florida, including allies of Trump.

The Center Square reached out to the White House for comment on Petro's remarks.

Video from the speech showed U.S. officials leaving the room shortly after Petro began speaking.

Petro said the young people in the boats were poor Colombians trying to escape poverty and not connected with any gangs. Later, he said there may have been drugs on the ship.

"Youths in a speed boat who might have had a certain amount of drugs – were not drug traffickers, they were simply poor youth," he said. "But the real drug traffickers live not in South America, but somewhere else, so it's easy to shoot missiles against the speedboats."

He said the real drug traffickers live in New York and Miami.

Petro also blamed the U.S. for failing to reduce its consumption of cocaine and attributed any decline in cocaine use to users switching to fentanyl, which he said was a much more dangerous drug than cocaine. The U.S. remains the world's largest market for illicit drugs.

On Monday, Dominican Republic authorities said they confiscated about 1,000 kilograms of suspected cocaine from a speedboat after a U.S. airstrike in the southern Caribbean.

Agents from the Dominican Republic's National Drug Control Directorate and the Dominican Republic Navy seized 377 packages of suspected cocaine about 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island, Pedernales province. That was after a U.S. air strike against the speedboat.

Dominican authorities working with the United States Southern Command and the Joint Interagency Task Force South detected the boat. They said intelligence reports indicated the vessel was loaded with drugs and was heading to a Dominican territory. Authorities said that from there, the gang would take the drugs to the United States.

Petro also criticized U.S. immigration policies.

"Migration is simply an excuse so that a rich society – rich, white and racist – that believes itself to be a superior race and is not realizing that its leaders are leading it to the abyss, to its own extinction with the rest of humanity," Petro said.

Petro also predicted that climate change would reach a tipping point in a decade and eventually wipe out the world.