Gustavo Petro accuses the US of 'war crime' For attacks on boats
The Colombian leader responded to a post by US Secretary of State Pete Hegseth about the attack on 4 vessels
Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday of committing a “war crime” after Hegseth reported on a new operation against four boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Pacific, which left at least fourteen dead.
“What you are doing, Mr. Secretary of War, is a war crime,” Petro wrote on X, where he shared Hegseth’s post announcing that the US military had attacked the four vessels on Monday “in international waters,” off the coast of Colombia.
The president contrasted this action with a recent international operation in which the Colombian Navy participated and nearly eight tons of cocaine were seized near Europe: “We didn’t kill anyone,” he emphasized.
In another post, Petro stated that the United States “is exerting strong pressure on Caribbean countries not to attend” the Community of States summit. Latin American and Caribbean (CELAC) and the European Union (EU), which he will lead in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta on November 9 and 10.
“They kill freedom,” he concluded.
Hours earlier, the president had already described the new attacks by US military forces against alleged “narco-terrorists” as “murders.” Since September, these attacks have left nearly sixty dead under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
“They are being murdered. They are breaking international treaties of the law of nations. Disproportionate use of force cannot be made; casualties become murders,” he said this morning.
Monday’s attack is the eleventh reported since the Donald Trump administration launched an offensive against drug trafficking in September, first in the Caribbean and then in the Pacific.
The episode deepens tensions between Washington and the governments of Colombia and Venezuela, whose leaders Trump has targeted. has accused him of promoting drug trafficking.
Last week,The United States added Petro, his wife Veronica Alcocer, his son Nicolas Petro, and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list, known as the 'Clinton List,' for alleged links to drug trafficking. In September, the Pentagon removed Colombia—considered the world's largest producer of cocaine—from the list of countries that cooperated in the fight against drugs during the past year.