SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Over the past two months, the U.S. has deployed warships in the Caribbean and attacked boats officials say were carrying drugs. All of this is occurring in the open waters near the small island country of Trinidad and Tobago, and it has left many there seeking explanations. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Las Cuevas is a tiny town on the cliffs that overlook the Caribbean Sea. Renute Roberts (ph), a fisherman, waits out the rain on a dock just off the water. These days, he says, things have totally changed here.
RENUTE ROBERTS: A lot of people not going out to fish.
PERALTA: Really?
ROBERTS: Yeah.
PERALTA: Since September, grainy videos released by the Pentagon appeared to show the U.S. blowing up wooden vessels out of the water.
The U.S. says that these are drug boats.
ROBERTS: No, no, no, no.
PERALTA: They're not.
ROBERTS: Nah. They are not. There no drug boat. Like, when they're making a run here, and, like, drugs - running drugs, they don't go with more than three person.
PERALTA: Several times now, the U.S. says it has killed six people on those boats, and this scares Roberts because it doesn't make sense. Drug runners, for example, he says would never waste valuable space on so many people. So when he's out on the water fishing, he wonders, what if the U.S. thinks he's running drugs? And these days, when he goes out at night, he hears a loud buzz in the sky.
ROBERTS: Drones.
PERALTA: Oh, the drone.
ROBERTS: The drones.
PERALTA: That scares you?
ROBERTS: That's scary. Once you see a drone, you just leave away from there.
PERALTA: The United States insists its massive operation in the Caribbean is all about stopping drugs from flowing north. David Abdulah, a political analyst in Trinidad, says it feels like this is about much more.
DAVID ABDULAH: You don't need that kind of military asset to deal with some drug runners with some speedboats.
PERALTA: So far, the U.S. has deployed bombers and war jets, guided missile destroyers and some 10,000 troops. And President Trump has warned that the U.S. may well go after what he calls narcoterrorists on land in Venezuela.
ABDULAH: Way back in our history, the Caribbean was, in fact, a major theater of war between colonial powers.
PERALTA: What worries Abdulah is that it appears the Caribbean may be headed to the same place.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
PERALTA: If you drive south and west all the way to where Trinidad ends, you end up in Cedros, a short boat ride away from Venezuela. I find Jesus (ph) watching some kids play in the surf. He hasn't seen Venezuela or his own three kids for three years.
JESUS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "We're so close to home," he says, "but at the same time, so far." His eyes tear up.
JESUS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "We live life through a screen," he says. "Video calls with my kids and my mom." Jesus asked us to use only his first name because he fears retaliation from the government. He was a PE teacher in Venezuela. Now he's out on those waters every day catching fish. He says he's heard the drones hover overhead, but he keeps fishing. I ask him, they don't scare you? And he shakes his head.
JESUS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "My fear," he says, "is that something happens in Venezuela." He desperately wants change so he can go back to his family. But what would happen to his kids, he says, if the U.S. starts bombing?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing) Sing hallelujah to the lord.
PERALTA: The next day, we head back up the coast to Las Cuevas, where a family is saying goodbye to their loved ones.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing) Sing hallelujah...
PERALTA: From the small church to the family home, they carry a picture of Chad Joseph. The family says a few months ago he left for Venezuela, and on the same day, he was to return on a fishing boat. The U.S. carried out a strike. Friends told family they recognized the boat from the video, and he hasn't been in contact since. But there's no body and no certainty.
LYNETTE BURNLEY: As every day go by, it's more and more and more pain.
PERALTA: His aunt, Lynette Burnley, says neither the Trinidadian nor the U.S. governments have offered any answers, so the family has been left in a kind of purgatory. Joseph's grandmother, Christine Clement, says he was just a fisherman. She didn't attend the funeral service. Instead, she sat quietly in the corner of the family house.
CHRISTINE CLEMENT: Like, I don't want to believe. I hoping and praying that he will come someday.
PERALTA: She hopes that one day the phone will ring and it'll be him.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Las Cuevas in Trinidad and Tobago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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