Cuba today vigorously rejected at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament the naval and aerial deployment of the United States in the Caribbean Sea and described it as a dangerous act that threatens regional peace.

Speaking at the forum’s plenary session, the island’s ambassador to UN-Geneva, Rodolfo Benítez, considered the mobilisation of warships and other weapons a dangerous and aggressive show of force, which violates the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this sense, he denounced Washington’s stance as a step that ignores the commitment of the 33 member countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to peaceful coexistence, endorsed in 2014 in Havana, where they declared the region a Zone of Peace.

The diplomat also condemned the accusations by the United States of links to drug trafficking against the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, wielded by the White House and the State Department to justify the deployment.

It is an absurd and ridiculous pretext that lacks foundation, he warned.

According to Benítez, «no one with a minimum of common sense and honesty conceives that the scale of the personnel, military technique, aerial and naval means, including nuclear submarines, and firepower that the United States is deploying in a peaceful zone like the Caribbean, truly aims for the declared objectives» of combating drug trafficking.

Cuba urged the Conference on Disarmament to demand that Washington end its military escalation in the Caribbean and its hostile actions against Venezuela.

To accept this disproportionate and dangerous military operation or to remain silent would set an extremely serious precedent, he emphasised.