ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – The Cuban Ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda, Sergio Martinez, says this week’s seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela by the United States is not “the application of sanctions” nor “compliance with international law.
“It is a vile act of the most despicable modern piracy, carried out not by Caribbean pirates but by the military forces of the greatest imperialist power of our time,” Martinez said.
Guyana, on Wednesday night, said the oil tanker seized by the United States earlier during the day “was falsely flying the Guyana flag” and was not registered in Georgetown.
In a statement, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) said it has “observed the proliferation and unacceptable use of the Guyana flag by vessels that are not registered in Guyana.
US President Donald Trump had earlier said that the SKIPPER was the largest crude tanker ever seized by American authorities, even as the Venezuelan authorities called the seizure of the vessel “piracy.
International media reports said that Washington had imposed sanctions on the tanker for what it claimed was involvement in Iranian oil trading when it was called the Adisa.
Trump has since said that the United States would seize the oil in the tanker.
In a lengthy statement, Martinez said that for centuries, the international community has combated piracy precisely because it represents the very negation of international maritime and legal order.
“Actions such as intercepting ships on the high seas, confiscating cargo without due process, and the law of the strongest prevailing over the law have been rejected by the vast majority of nations. Those pirates of previous centuries, at least, had the decency not to claim to be acting in the name of justice.”
Martinez asked, “By what authority does the United States intercept a ship near the coasts of another sovereign country? Since when does the US Congress have jurisdiction over boats sailing in the waters of our Caribbean?
“The answer is simple. With the authority granted by their nuclear aircraft carriers, which threaten small, sovereign countries in our region without the slightest hesitation. With the capacity to freeze bank accounts or impose genocidal economic wars, like the one waged against the Cuban people, aimed at starving and sickening an entire population that refuses to accept their imperial designs. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
The Cuban diplomat said that Venezuela is a sovereign state and “its territorial waters are not a backyard where Washington can come and take whatever it pleases.
“The irony is brutal: the United States, which presents itself as the guardian of the ‘rules-based international order’, has just demonstrated that those rules only apply when it suits its selfish interests.”
The Cuban diplomat asked where the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising this confiscation was, saying, “It doesn’t exist.
“Where is the international tribunal that declared the cargo illegal? There wasn’t one. Where is due process, the right to a defense, the minimum guarantees that supposedly characterize the “free world”?
“They disappeared somewhere between the detection of the ship and its capture. The most dangerous aspect is not this isolated act, but the apocalyptic precedent it sets. If the United States can confiscate ships with complete impunity, then any naval power can turn its legislative whims and self-interest into universal maritime law and practice.”
Martinez said that in addition, the United States is engaged in “extrajudicial executions that can be categorised as real murders of alleged drug traffickers, who in practice are humble fishermen.
“With its criminal acts, the United States is showing itself willing to dismantle more than three centuries of international legal framework and impose the era of barbarism. Only now, instead of black flags with skulls, they use the rhetoric of “human rights,” “democracy,” and the “war on drugs,” the diplomat said.
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