ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne on Tuesday called for the Caribbean to remain a zone of peace, warning against the impact of the military build-up by the United States ostensibly to deal with drug traffickers in the region.

“We remain resolute in our call for the Caribbean a zone of peace and this is a call we continue to emphasise and reiterate in all forums,” Browne said as he addressed the launch of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference (CHOGM) to be held here November 1-4 next year.

“The reality is, if as a result of the military buildup that we are seeing the southern Caribbean results in any form of conflict…the small island states, particularly the OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States) countries that will suffer disproportionately and that is because we are so vulnerable”.

Browne told the ceremony attended by the country’s Governor General Sir Rodney Williams and the Commonwealth Secretary General, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, that even the fruits consumed in the region are imported from North America.

“If there is any curtailment of shipping or airlift between the Caribbean region and the United States, the impact will be disproportional ” he said, reminding the audience of the impact the Russian war on Ukraine has had on the region, with prices increasing by as much as 10 per cent.

“That was not even in our hemisphere, so just imagine the impact if there should be any form of military action in this hemisphere. I will say to our Caribbean people that we must all coalesce and stand against any form of military action in this hemisphere. And I must say to our Caribbean people that we must all coalesce and stand against any form of military action…any form of military intervention. We are not getting involved in any geopolitical spat between any group of countries. We are defending our own national interests and it is not in our national interests for any form of military action to take place within this hemisphere because of dipropionate impact that will take place,” he said.

Browne said that while Antigua and Barbuda is “small and vulnerable, we should not be afraid to stand on the truth and if there are going to be consequences standing on the truth let it be so. But at the end of the day history will absolve us and will remember us as a nation, a non-aligned nation that continues to call for peace, justice, love among humanity and certainly to call out all of the inequities in the global system”.

He said that is the obligation of human beings living on a planet with other people with whom “we are all brothers and sisters…with a common grandmother 250 thousand years ago, notwithstanding the colour of our skin, the texture of our hair.”

Browne said this should be the hallmark of humanity reminding that ‘when you discriminate or undermine any nation, any set of people, you are literally undermining all of humanity and when you take military action against any nation, any group of nations, you are literally undermining all of humanity and we should not be afraid to stand for peace and justice”.

In recent weeks, the United States military has been bombing vessels in the international waters claiming that the occupants were drug traffickers without offering any evidence of such activity.

The United Nations UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also strongly condemned the airstrikes carried out by the United States against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.