How the US made the so-called 'safe third countries' unsafe

Despite Donald Trump's claims, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are everything but safe.

This year, US President and xenophobe-in-chief Donald Trump finagled "safe third country agreements" with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, allowing the United States to deport aspiring asylum seekers to the very region many of them are fleeing in the first place. 

Even Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele - the possessor of the enlightened opinion that "President Trump is very nice and cool, and I'm nice and cool, too ... we both use Twitter a lot" - recently admitted that his country needs to be "safer" and that its asylum capacities are currently nonexistent.

Indeed, the fact that the homicide rates in the three allegedly "safe third countries" are consistently among the highest in the world should be an easy indicator that they are anything but safe. Femicides abound.

Drowning in guns

The US's own role in fuelling violence in Central America's Northern Triangle has been well known for decades - from its habit of backing right-wing dictators and death squads to its continuing support for homicidal state security forces. In the aftermath of the US-facilitated coup in Honduras in 2009, that nation became more unsafe than ever. 

And across the region, the US-exported model of neoliberal oppression has constituted a form of violence in its own right - perpetuating extreme inequality and condemning the masses to often existence-imperilling economic misery. 

But one of the most crucial aspects to consider when contemplating US complicity in the appalling unsafety of the Northern Triangle is the sheer volume of US weapons circulating in the region.

In March, Foreign Policy reported that Trump was "sending guns south as migrants flee north", with his administration "push[ing] to weaken oversight of gun exports".

And yet the cross-border mobility of US armaments is nothing new. Back in 2014, Harry Penate - the former attache to Central America for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives – spoke candidly about the significant role American guns were playing in the epidemic of violence in the region, which was already causing a northward exodus of refugees.

According to Penate's estimate at the time, half of the illegal weapons in murder-plagued El Salvador were from the US.

Flash forward to 2018, and the New Yorker's Jonathan Blitzer cited reports that 49 percent of illegal and unregistered weapons recovered in El Salvador came from the US; in Honduras, it was 46 percent, and in Guatemala 29. While the causes of Central American violence were manifold, Blitzer noted, "American firepower facilitates it."

Insecurity industry

Of course, the whole "legal" vs "illegal" distinction is problematic as well, since just because a gun is licensed, registered, and so forth does not mean everything is all fine and dandy. Just ask, inter alia, all the black Americans shot by US cops. 

Anyway, what does the US expect allowing a bazillion licensed US firearms dealers to operate smack on the US-Mexico border? Surely it never occurred to anyone that armaments might make their way not only into Mexico but also down to the suddenly-safe third countries.

Juan Jose Martinez d'Aubuisson - a Salvadoran anthropologist, author, and expert on the MS-13 gang (another of Trump's pet nemeses despite being none other than a creation of the US) - recently remarked to me that, although there is a prominent myth that the weapons circulating in this neck of Central America are left over from the region's civil wars, in reality, the violence is carried out predominantly by US-manufactured handguns and not military-grade weapons. 

"Many of these arms enter the country legally from the US and then cross over to the black market," he said. "Another point that shouldn't be overlooked is that lethal violence is frequently carried out with legal weapons purchased in authorised stores, by persons with official permission to carry arms."

So much for safety.

Another source of acute insecurity - not only in the Northern Triangle but also throughout Latin America - is, it turns out, private security.

In a 2018 report titled "Security for Sale", Sarah Kinosian and James Bosworth review the abuses that have been rendered possible by the burgeoning Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) industry - thanks to which private security guards vastly outnumber public officers in many countries. In tiny Honduras alone, there were no fewer than 1,038 registered private security companies as of 2017 - and plenty more unregistered ones. 

All for profit

The US, in typical privatisation-obsessed fashion, has contracted with PMSCs in various countries "to provide assistance to the public security forces", but the companies are perhaps better known for their services in protecting elite wealth, safeguarding the corporate exploitation of resources (including by repressing indigenous and environmental activists), and generally assisting in the proliferation of the neoliberal miracle.

In the Northern Triangle, in particular, the private security industry is a "major supplier of weapons for criminal groups", as imported arms are stolen, lost, or otherwise make their way to the black market. 

This becomes even more consequential when we consider that current and former military and police often work in private security, as well. In El Salvador, "active members of the military are allowed to work with or own private security firms". In Guatemala, meanwhile, "private security firms have been tied to extrajudicial killings".

In November 2018, the Miami Herald wrote about the Honduran military police's apparent use of US weapons to kill political protesters. The article quoted the US State Department on how "human rights concerns" were among the numerous factors taken into consideration when evaluating direct commercial sales of US weaponry to other countries. Also considered, the statement continued, was the "promotion of American industry". 

But in the end, profit always trumps human rights - and while the US arms industry is presumably feeling pretty secure right about now, it is safe to say many people in "safe third countries" are not.

Author: Belen Fernandez

Reference: Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/called-safe-countries-unsafe-191228125542912.html

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

Palm oil industry expansion spurs Guatemala indigenous migration

Death of Jakelin Caal in US custody highlights how land conflicts and displacement fuel flight from indigenous villages.

• San Antonio Secortez & Guatemala City - The plantations' outer edges begin fewer than 20km from where seven-year-old Jakelin Caal is buried. The deep green rows of oil palm stretch along rural roads in the Alta Verapaz department of Guatemala was buried  in late December in San Antonio Secortez, a remote community in the municipality of Raxruha. The Maya Q'eqchi' girl died in US border patrol's custody after crossing into New Mexico with her father, in search of better economic opportunities.

The family survives from subsistence agriculture, farming corn and other staples in a small patch of land. They make about $90 every six months from selling the part of the corn harvest left over after feeding the family.

"We could not plant any more since there was not any more land," Caal's mother, Claudia Maquin, told Al Jazeera the week of her daughter's burial in December.

Q'eqchi' communities throughout eastern and northern Guatemala face a similar predicament. Families do not have enough land to survive from subsistence and market agriculture. The land in Q'eqchi' territory is largely in the hands of ranchers, large landowners and mining and palm companies.

Land inequality and conflicts, low wages on plantations, food insecurity and displacement have fueled migration from Guatemalan farming communities including indigenous villages like Jakelin Caal's.

Q'eqchi' families in San Antonio Secortez cannot make ends meet, Martin Tut, a local Community Development Council representative, told Al Jazeera.

"Everything is expensive here and we do not receive anything for our corn," said Tut, explaining that farmers in San Antonio Secortez make less than $10 per 100-pound (45kg) sack of corn.

"We are forced to work in palm," he said, standing under a traditional palm-thatched roof for shelter from the incessant rain.

Conflicts

Plantations of oil palm, also known as African palm, are taking over large swaths of southwestern and northeastern Guatemala, including the Alta Verapaz, Izabal, and Peten departments home to Q'eqchi' communities. 

The oil extracted from the palm fruits is used for biofuel and in all kinds of household products, from ice cream and instant noodles to lipstick and detergents.

Land, labour and environmental conflicts around oil palm plantations worldwide have sparked consumer campaigns to push companies to remove palm oil from their products' ingredients.

Indonesia and Malaysia dominate the global palm oil industry, together producing more than 80 percent of the world's total, but production in Latin America has more than doubled since 2000.

Colombia is the fourth-largest palm oil producing country in the world, and despite their small size, Honduras and Guatemala are still among the top five top producers in the western hemisphere.

The palm industry in Guatemala represents 1.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product and is largely comprised of Guatemalan companies supplying US and multinational corporations.

Expansion of oil palm plantations

The expansion of oil palm plantations has been accompanied by a host of problems around Guatemala, and the municipality of Raxruha is no exception.

The rapid expansion there has intensified and sparked land conflicts, water shortages and labour disputes, according to a 2015 study about land tenure and palm in Raxruha commissioned by Congcoop, a network of non-governmental organisations.

Home to more than 30,000 people, the majority of whom are indigenous, Raxruha is one of the country's newest municipalities. Before breaking off from neighbouring Chisec in 2008, large estates used primarily for cattle ranching dominated the area. 

Jakelin Caal's grandfather, Domingo Caal, grew up in the area and struggled to gain access to land for subsistence farming. Residents later won the right to land owned by former dictator General Romeo Lucas Garcia, and 16 communities were established.

Lucas Garcia and his successor General Efrain Rios Montt both took power by military coup during the height of the 36-year armed conflict between leftist guerrilla forces and the US-backed army, which launched a counterinsurgency campaign.

The conflict left 200,000 dead, most of them Mayan civilians killed by the army.
A UN-backed truth commission resulting from the 1996 Peace Accords concluded that military forces carried out acts of genocide.

And just last year, a Guatemalan court ruled that the state was responsible for genocide, though Rios Montt died before the verdict and his co-defendant was acquitted.

Q'eqchi' communities were hard hit. The first major masters of indigenous civilians occurred in 1978, when military forces opened fire on Q'eqchi' farmers marching for land rights.

Root causes persist

More than 40 years later, the unequal land distribution, displacement and structural racism that were among the root causes of the armed conflict still remain. Long-standing land conflicts and the expansion of export crop plantations have continued unabated under the administration of President Jimmy Morales, which has done little to address indigenous concerns.

Q'eqchi' families are now increasingly joining the US-bound exodus of Guatemalans. The overwhelming majority of them have fled quietly, not with the highly visible caravan groups of predominantly Honduran migrants and refugees over the past three months.

Last year, more than 70,000 Guatemalans were apprehended either at the US border or in Mexico, according to data from the US Custom and Border Protection and the Mexican National Institute of Immigration. Jakelin Caal and her father Nery Caal were among them.

The father and daughter were detained by US border patrol agents in early December along with dozens of other migrants and refugees. Jakelin suddenly became extremely ill during transport in custody and subsequently died. Autopsy results have not yet been released.

People go to work on the palm plantations and then begin to consider going to the United States.

Prior to heading to the US, Nery Caal and his brother Carlos Caal, Jakelin's uncle, had worked on a palm plantation in the area. Aside from subsistence farming, it is the only source of work for San Antonio Secortez residents.

"The work was more intense every day and we were paid very little," Carlos told Al Jazeera outside his father's house, where people had gathered to mourn the death of Jakelin.

They were paid 65 quetzales ($8.50) for a 12-hour workday, less than the minimum wage, but they also had to pay for lunch, leaving them with even less income, said Carlos. 

"There were nine of us who tried to demand better pay, but the company didn't want to listen," he said.

"Nery was the one who took the initiative to ask for a pay increase. They accused him of inciting [unrest], and fired him. Those who raise their voices are fired," he said.

Nery was fired after working on the plantation for six months. He is far from the only one in the area to see migration as his family's only chance to escape extreme poverty following underpaid work in the plantations.

"People go to work on the palm plantations and then begin to consider going to the United States," Pedro Ico, the Raxruha municipal government spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

The expansion of export crop plantations has also spurred US-bound migration of small-scale farmers from southern Guatemala, from lowland Pacific coastal areas home to large-scale plantations of oil palm, sugar cane, bananas and plantains.

Devastating farming communities

The rapid expansion of palm and sugar cane has devastated local farming communities, according to Abelino Mejia, a community leader from Champerico, a municipality in the Retalhuleu department. 

Part of a multi-community council confronting the agribusiness sector, Mejia is also a member of the National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala.

"Before there was palm and before there was sugar cane, which are the principal crops in the Champerico area, we farmed watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, tomato, chile, papaya and other crops that helped our families subsist and also generated work," Mejia told Al Jazeera.

Most subsistence and small-scale farmers in the area do not own the land, instead the lease plots of state and private lands to farm, he said.

That began to change in 2005, when palm and sugar cane companies moved in to take over land rights for plantations, raising lease rates and draining water sources used by those small farmers who still had access to land.

"People have been displaced. Most of them have had to migrate," said Mejia.

"They migrate to other countries like Mexico and the United States because here in
Guatemala there are really no opportunities," he said.

By Jeff Abbott & Sandra Cuffe

Reference:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/palm-oil-industry-expansion-spurs-guatemala-indigenous-migration-190122160154738.html

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

The Maya people today
D.Anton

During a visit to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, we attended a Mayan ceremony on top a volcano. Today in Guatemala 40% of the population identify themselves as Mayas, over 6 million people. In Mexico the Mayans are concentrated in Chiapas and Yucatan with more than 2 million individuals. There are also numerous Mayan communities in Honduras, Belize and El Salvador. The total population of the Mayan world is approximately 10 million.
It is normally considered that at the time of the Spanish invasion Maya states grouped 12-15,000,000 inhabitants. After the conquest there was high mortality due to the massacres perpetrated by the conquerors (Pedro de Alvarado with indescribable cruelty was one of the main culprits) and the brutal burning of many codices ordered by the Franciscan Bishop Diego de Landa (they contained much of the documentation of this rich culture).
An invaluable cultural and human wealth was lost and millions of Maya died during the colonial period. Beyond death, contempt and forgetting, the Maya have survived preserving their culture and ceremonies. In spite of everything, today the Maya, along with the Quechua in the South, are the largest indigenous ethnic group in the Americas.
D.Antón