When Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced her Gov­ern­ment’s stance on the Unit­ed States as­sault on nar­co-traf­fick­ers at the start of Sep­tem­ber, she sent shock­waves lo­cal­ly and around the re­gion.

“I have no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers, the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, as she re­spond­ed to the US con­firm­ing that its mil­i­tary had con­duct­ed a lethal strike on a sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ing ves­sel al­leged­ly em­a­nat­ing from Venezuela.

Stat­ing that drug and arms traf­fick­ing had caused death and de­struc­tion in lo­cal so­ci­ety over the past 25 years, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “I, along with most of the coun­try, am hap­py that the US naval de­ploy­ment is hav­ing suc­cess in their mis­sion. The US gov­ern­ment has re­peat­ed­ly said that go­ing af­ter the drug car­tels was their ob­jec­tive and they have be­gun to de­liv­er.”