Tuesday, April 18, 2006

U.S. Navy group, a threat in the waters of the Caribbean

PORT-OF-SPAIN, April 17 .– The combat group of aircraft carriers led by the USS George Washington, which is engaged in maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea, is soon to arrive – with its veiled messages of war and threats – in the ports of Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curacao and St. Kitts and Nevis.

A communique from the Southern Command quoted by the Newsday daily in Trinidad and Tobago, specifies that the U.S. Navy’s so-called Partnership of the Americas operation planned for the months of April and May has had military intervention in the region attributed as its purpose, Prensa Latina reported.

The newspaper says the nuclear-powered George Washington and the ships accompanying it exited U.S. waters last Friday the 14th with the mission of demonstrating U.S. military power in the region.

For almost two months, the U.S. military will be "training" their regional allies in the war on drugs and human trafficking, according to the military communiqué quoted by Newsday.

The combat group includes the USS Monterey cruiser, the Stout destroyer, and the Underwood frigate, which are carrying 6,500 U.S. Navy officers and sailors.

These types of maneuvers are nothing new; similar ones were carried out in October 1983, when ships from the Seventh Fleet heading for the Mediterranean Sea were diverted to carry out the invasion of Grenada, an operation that Washington rehearsed beforehand with air and sea training on the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques.