Murder. Plain and simple.

By Johnny Zokovitch

As I write, Admiral Frank M. Bailey is testifying to a Congressional committee regarding a US military strike on a “drug boat” in the Caribbean this past summer. At issue, in particular, is whether a second strike aimed at killing two survivors of the initial bombing was illegal and a war crime, and exactly who was responsible for the order to kill survivors. Since that attack, the Trump administration has carried out at least 20 additional strikes, resulting in the deaths of 83 people. 

Obscured in the arguments of what constitutes a war crime, whether Congressional approval is necessary to launch a de facto war, and who is ultimately responsible for issuing what may be illegal orders, is this simple, straightforward reality: these extrajudicial killings are murder, plain and simple. 

Murder is and has been the unofficial policy of governments worldwide, including our own. 

In late 2017, I spent just over a week in the Philippines with Pax Christi International member organizations from throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Our hosts, Pax Christi Pilipinas, educated us on the history of government-sanctioned extrajudicial killings in their country, from the years of the Marcos regime to the then-current policies of the Duterte administration. We heard specifically about President Duterte’s cruel approach to curbing the drug trade in the Philippines, an approach that included the murders of both drug addicts and drug dealers, while also incurring the “collateral” damage that resulted in the killing of family members of both. 

Our delegation met with some of those family members who had lost loved ones, victims of the extrajudicial killings which plagued the Philippines following the rise of Duterte. We listened to their stories of loss, confusion, and anger. Some shared tales of relatives who had been coerced into the drug trade and were actively searching for ways to get out, only to have that opportunity snatched away from them when they were gunned down by an assassin looking to collect on a bounty from the Duterte government. Others who were killed weren’t involved at the selling end but rather the buying end, addicts themselves with few opportunities for recovery and treatment, nevertheless caught up in a drug war fueled by the policies of the Duterte regime. Like the killings of those on “supposed” drug boats, no mechanisms of justice were employed: no arrests were made, no evidence presented to a jury, no judge presided over a trial, no investigation carried out, and the innocence or guilt of those accused was never established. 

Such extrajudicial killings as those in the Philippines have played out time and time again across the world, whether through government-sanctioned death squads in Latin America,  drone strikes on wedding parties carried out by the US military during previous presidential administrations (Republican and Democratic), Israeli government-condoned settler attacks on Palestinians, or these latest military strikes on supposed drug boats. And each and every time, despite the finer points of whether they violate international or military law, there’s no escaping that these extrajudicial killings are, in fact, murder. 

In a statement released on December 3, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military (who recently ended his term as president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) said, “In the fight against drugs, the end never justifies the means, which must be moral, in accord with the principles of the just war theory, and always respectful of the dignity of each human person. No one can ever be ordered to commit an immoral act, and even those suspected of committing a crime are entitled to due process under the law. As the moral principle forbidding the intentional killing of noncombatants is inviolable, it would be an illegal and immoral order to kill deliberately survivors on a vessel who pose no immediate lethal threat to our armed forces….” Read his entire statement here.

This upcoming Sunday of Advent, our gospel reading from Matthew introduces John the Baptist. John is baptizing in the Jordan River and has particularly pointed words for the Pharisees and Sadducees who are coming to his baptism, words that don’t tiptoe around the reality that these two groups bore for the ongoing poverty, violence and oppression of so many of their marginalized and vulnerable sisters and brothers. 

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”

In the best of the prophetic tradition, John doesn’t mince words when naming and confronting evil. Neither should we. 

As the Trump administration continues its campaign of extrajudicial killings in the waters off of Venezuela, let us call it what it is: Murder. 

Johnny Zokovitch is the former executive director of Pax Christi USA. He currently serves on the board of thePax Christi International Fund for Peace and is in pastoral leadership at St. Cronan Catholic Church in St. Louis.