Trinidadians challenge US forces killing their loved ones 'like dogs' / Photo: © AFP
Trinidadians challenge US forces killing their loved ones 'like dogs'
Trinidadian Rishi Samaroo's relatives are adamant: he was a fisherman, not a drug trafficker as the United States claimed after it destroyed his boat in Caribbean waters.
Samaroo, 41, was one of six people killed in the attack announced last week by US President Donald Trump himself.
Rehabilitated after a criminal youth, "Rishi was a loving, kind, caring, sharing person... He would do anything for anybody that asked him," his sister Sunita Korasingh told AFP Thursday after his funeral in a suburb of Port of Spain, the capital of the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
The United States has deployed a military fleet in the Caribbean in what it has called an anti-drug operation but Venezuela says it really aims to unseat President Nicolas Maduro.
The Pentagon has announced nine attacks on alleged drug boats in recent weeks in the Caribbean and now the Pacific, claiming close to 40 lives. The victims' governments and families say most were civilians -- many of them fishermen.
The US has made public no evidence to back up its claims of drug trafficking involving the vessels.
In a question addressed to Trump, 38-year-old Korasingh said: "If he was 100 percent (sure) that this boat... had drugs in it, why didn't he stop this vessel and search it and all the rest of vessels instead of blowing up people... like dogs?"
If drugs are found on these boats, she continued, "you could lock them up... within the law... but you can't just be going around blowing up" boats.
- "We all make mistakes"
About 30 people gathered Wednesday night for Samaroo’s wake in a tent in a poor neighborhood.
Neighbors say shootings are frequent in the area, host to several drug gangs and a significant community of Venezuelan migrants.
Few people wanted to speak to AFP.
A scholar known as a pandit led the Hindu ceremony, one of the most practiced religions in Trinidad and Tobago.
Korasingh made a banner featuring Samaroo with angel wings standing on clouds with a blue sky in the background and the words: "Gone but never forgotten."
His family said he had served a 15-year sentence for homicide committed as a teenager, then moved to Venezuela.
"As human beings, we make mistakes at a young age... We learn from our mistakes and grow," said Korasingh of her brother's criminal past.
When he got out, he became a fisherman and a goat farmer and sold cheese.
Drugs? Never.
"He never even smoked a cigarette in his whole life," she insisted. "He never even drank a beer in his life."
His family says Samaroo was on his way home from Venezuela when he was killed.
- Last call -
Attendees at the wake played cards, drank alcohol and coffee, and talked about Samaroo.
Another sister, Sallycar Korasingh, said she received a video call from him minutes before he set out by boat on that fateful night of October 12.
"We spoke and he showed me he was going on the boat. This was just before midnight... I took a picture of him," the 31-year-old told AFP.
She said did not know what Samaroo's relationship was with 26-year-old Chad Joseph, also killed in the strike.
According to Trinidadian press, Joseph had been accused of drug trafficking in the past but never convicted.
But his family and neighbors insisted to AFP last week Joseph had no links to drug trafficking, and was also a fisherman and farmer.
Samaroo had three children in Venezuela with three different women, according to family members.
Trinidadian police are investigating the strike.
(L.Barsayjeva--DTZ)
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