3 weeks ago
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Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar with Barbados prime minister Mia Amor Mottley, at Parliament on May 23. - File photo by Grevic Alvarado BARBADOS Prime Minister Mia Mottley has condemned deadly recent US military airstrikes in the southern Caribbean and the buildup of assets, saying the place to settle differences is before the United Nations.
Her comments came during the Barbados Labour Party's annual conference on October 25. Former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley posted the four-minute snippet of her comments on his Facebook page on October 26.
In her address, Mottley said peace was critical in the region and it was now under threat by the US military action.
"We have to speak up. I believe that the time has come for us, therefore, to be able to ensure that we do not accept that any entity has the right to engage in extra-judicial killings of persons that they suspect of being involved in criminal activities."
She said Barbados believes in the rule of law and that if there is intelligence suggesting those being attacked are an immediate threat to the US, then Washington has a duty to share that with the region.
Mottley said she did not accept that any nation in the region or greater Caribbean should be the subject of any unilateral expression of force and violence by any third party or nation.
"If there are conflicts and disputes that are in need of resolution, then the place that they need to be taken for such resolution is the United Nations organisation and the methodology that must be deployed for the resolution is one of negotiation and peaceful actions taken in order to ensure that we can settle disputes."
She said almost every war in world history had been ended by dialogue, "So let us have dialogue to prevent the war from starting rather than to stop it when it has started."
Rowley posted the clip of Mottley's address to his page hours after an Al Jazeera news report in which Defence Minister Wayne Sturge gave the US the all clear for its military's actions.
"If the US has deemed a country to be...or persons operating as narco-traffickers and deemed them terrorist and they are waging a war on terror, then it's up to them to come to that conclusion."
He added: "Law is basically all about interpretation.
"You might not agree with their interpretation but if their interpretation is that 'We've deemed these people to be narco-traffickers' and these narco-traffickers to be terrorist organisations and they are waging war on them, that's their prerogative. It hasn't happened in our (TT) waters. It has happened in international waters."
English (US) ·