The largest lake in Central America and its volcanic island

Lake Nicaragua, also known by the indigenous names Cocibolca or Ukurikitucara, has an área of 8,264 km2, which makes it the largest in Central America.

In this large lake there are two main island groups, the volcanic island of Ometepe and the Solentiname archipelago.

The island of Ometepe (of the Nahuatl Ometepetl = two mountains) has a strange and magical geographical configuration. It is the largest volcanic island in the world that is located inside a lake. The two summits that dominate the insular landscape are the Concepción and Maderas volcanoes with respective altitudes of 1,610 and 1,234 meters. The Concepción volcano whose indigenous name was Choncoteciguatepe (the Chorotegas called Mestliltepe), has had recent activity, with lava spills that in 1953 forced the evacuation of the island. The Madera volcano has not been active for several centuries and its crater is occupied by a lagoon.

The surface of Ometepe is 276 km2 and has a population of 35,000 people. The main urban center, with about 3,000 inhabitants, is Astagalpa or Altagracia in the northeastern end of the island. In the grounds of the main church of the town a park was created with the archaeological sculptures that were found in several points of the territory. They are anthropomorphic figures with animal heads, which seem to represent totems, similar to those that are exhibited in the Gregorio Aguilar de Juigalpa museum in the nearby Sierra de Amerrique.

It is considered that the sculptures are related to the Matagalpa culture that prospered in pre-Hispanic times on the lake margins.

Currently the Matagalpas are a deeply diminished ethnic group, linked to the Lencas and Mayas of Guatemala, Yucatan and Honduras and to the Guatusos that live near the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica.

One of the local nations, recently recognized as belonging to this ethnic trunk, are the Amerindians, former inhabitants of the Sierra de Amerrique, also called Cordillera Chontaleña

According to theories that have recently been publicized, the name "Amerrique" would have given rise to the name of the American continent.

The origin of the name "America"

The Sierra de Amerrique, the ancestral territory of a group of Matagalpas known as the Americos, is known for its gold deposits located in the old mines of La Libertad and Santo Domingo, still in operation.

The repetition of the name "amerrique" by the first European crews at the end of the XV century and the beginning of the XVI century, referring to a region rich in this metal, was spread in the port populations of Europe, spreading throughout the continent. The idea that the word America derived from the Florentine cartographer Américo Vespucio was generated from certain publications known in later times.

This hypothesis was developed "in extenso" in two books that we published some time ago: "Amerrique, Los Huérfanos del Paraíso" and "La Mentira del Milenio" (Ed. Piriguazú, D.Antón, 1997 y 2000).

 Reproduced from "Chronicles of the Human Peripecie", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones

Walking in their Shoes

People & Power follows two migrant caravans as they head through Mexico to the US border.

For well over a year, large groups of Central American migrants, travelling together for safety in "caravans", have been fleeing from persecution, poverty and violence in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Covering thousands of kilometres through Mexico, they've been heading to the US border in the hopes of getting across and gaining asylum - despite the many dangers and privations en route and warnings by US officials that anyone found entering the country illegally would face arrest, prosecution and deportation.

The largest traveling group, with over 7,000 people, got under way in Octobewr 2018, attracting enormous media attention and a furious response from American President Donald Trup, who labelled the caravan an invasion, dispatched troops to the border, reaffirmed his election pledge to build a "wall" on the border to keep migrants out, then announced (after Congress declined to pay for it despite a 35 day government shutdown), that he would declare a national emergency to get the funds.

This provoked a bitter constitutional confrontation with his opponents, which is still playing out and may yet end up in the US Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the October caravans arrived at Mexican border towns such as Tijuana, adding to the thousands of migrants waiting in often squalid, dangerous conditions in hopes of getting to the US.

They have since been joined by others who, notwithstanding the undimmed hostility of the Trump administration and the growing impatience of Mexico, have continued to follow in their footsteps. The crisis, if that is indeed the best way to describe the attempt by many thousands of desperate people to gain sanctuary, continues.

So who are these people and what are they escaping from? As some of the largest groups passed through Mexico at the end of 2018, reporter Eric Campbell travelled with them to find out.

He heard heart-breaking tales of teenagers running for their lives from gang violence, a mother hoping to get medical treatment for her daughter, young families escaping poverty and deprivation.

Even then, few of them were oblivious to the fierce rhetoric coming from the White House or the dangers of being trapped at the border or even being deported, but most seemed to be clinging onto the hope that somehow they'd find a way to a better life in the US.

Source: Al Jazeera

Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador: fleeing from misery and violence

The "caravans", only available option for the poorest population of these three Central American countries.

In recent months (years) the formation of "caravans" of migrants from several Central American countries to the United States has become news in the media. The majority of these migrants come from three Central American countries, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

This is not a new phenomenon. For many decades, migrants from these three countries have emigrated to the United States, where they are important minorities. The last censuses have given a figure of 1,267,000 Guatemalan residents, 1,649,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Hondurans living in the United States. The true figures are probably much higher, due to the existence of many undocumented people and immigrants arrived in recent months. It would not be risky to estimate the Guatemalans at 1.5 million, the Hondurans at 1 million and the Salvadorans at 2 million.

These states are relatively small and densely populated. In its 108,889 km2 Guatemala houses 17.5 million inhabitants with a population density of 161 inhabitants / km2. Honduras has 9,200,000 inhabitants in a territory of 12,492 km2. Its density is 82 / km2. El Salvador, which has the highest density, has 7,400,000 inhabitants in a small territory of 21,041 km2. The density is 352 inhabitants / km2.

In addition to their high density, these are countries that have seen their ecosystems deteriorated, with forests cut and heavily eroded soils due to the mountainous nature, and the  frequent strong volcanic activity and earthquakes. Being in a tropical region with coast in the Caribbean Sea, they are very vulnerable to strong hurricanes that periodically hit their coastal territories.

To this it should be added the presence of contaminated water in lakes, rivers and coastal environments, related to the indiscriminate use of water resources that are affected by predatory agriculture and uncontrolled mining.

In addition in the three countries the economy is based on monoculture crops, which are very vulnerable to international prices and pests.

Since education has traditionally been postponed by successive governments, a large part of the population does not have qualifications that may allow them to enter a labor market with scarce job opportunities.

These countries have very constrasting social differentiation among their populations. This comes from the time of the colony and has continued with successive oligarchic governments, often military, who have ignored the situation of extreme poverty in which many people live in their respective countries.

In recent decades, urbanization has increased and poor neighborhoods were established in the main cities, with the growth of violence and the formation of criminal gangs (the "maras").

Both the absence of job opportunities and the lack of basic services and insecurity have encouraged several tens of thousands of people to emigrate to the United States where there is already a large Central American population.

In times past, the migration was individual, generally crossing Mexico (country that they had and must cross to reach their destination) by various means (especially by train, a famous railway nicknamed "the beast").

These individual migrations subjected migrants to situations of great insecurity, robberies, robberies, rapes. For this reason, in recent months the migrants decided to migrate together in large groups of people who are called "caravans".

 The Honduran and Salvadoran caravans must travel Guatemalan and Mexican territory to reach the US. Guatemalans only need to cross the 2,000 km of Mexico to the border with the US.

Anyway, 2,000 km is a very long distance to travel on foot or using local transport, generally depending on the goodwill of the drivers. It is worth noting that the Mexican people have been extremely hospitaliaries with the migrants. For a long time, until 2009, it was Mexicans who emigrated, now, at a time when the migratory balance towards the US favors Mexico, Mexicans have been helping migrants from neighboring countries, even offering the possibility that they could stay to live in the Mexican Republic.

However, the migration from Central America to the US will not stop while the deep causes that generate them subsist; poverty, inequality, exploitation and its natural derivative, violence.

Danilo Antón