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

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

Social drama and emigration in Honduras

Honduras is a Central American country with a population of 

7,500,000 inhabitants and the area is 112,500 km2. The main cities are Tegucigalpa (the capital) with 2 million people in its metropolitan area and San Pedro Sula, Honduras with 1,450,000.  

San Pedro Sula is located in the banana producing region of the country and has been for some time a maquila city with a number of industries providing employment which attracted  

internal migration during the last decades. In the last years jobs in San Pedro Sula decreased and social environment considerably deteriorated with increased crime feeding the emigration and forming "caravans" directed to the North.

  

San Pedro Sula: main source of migrants San Pedro Sula

It was still dark when hundreds of Hondurans set out for the border with Guatemala  as part of new caravan of US-bound migrants and asylum seekers.

"The economic crisis has been tremendous, with unemployment going up and corruption getting worse," Daniel Munoz, a 38-year-old from Honduran department of Cortes, said as he joined his 16-year-old daughter and others on the second group of the caravan on Tuesday. Another group, which eventually grew to more than a 1,000 participants, left late on Monday.

"These are the reasons why we must migrate to another country," Munoz told Al Jazeera.

The family, like so many that joined him on Tuesday morning, has seen their cost of living steadily increase in the last three years, but the amount that Munoz earned transporting sawdust was not enough to cover their bills.

"The cost of water and energy went up," Munoz said. "There are times when we did not have enough to cover the costs."

His daughter, Stephanie, hopes that she will be able to continue with her studies in the United States, and attend university where she wants to study journalism, and then get a job.

Youth like Stephanie face a difficult reality in Honduras where there are few opportunities for work.

"There are so many youth looking for work, but they are unable to find work," she said.

"People look, but they don't have the education that is required," she said. "It makes me sad that they are unable to find work."

Others caravan participants are fleeing violence or political persecution.

Migrants and asylum seekers part of a new caravan leaving Honduras set off from San Pedro Sula [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera]

Marta Grady, who departed on Monday, said she cannot "endure this crisis (in Honduras) any more".

"There is no work here. How are we going to eat. Since (Honduran President) Juan Orlando (Hernandez) entered office, things have gotten worse. There are no solutions," she told Al Jazeera. 

The 35-year-old has owned different businesses, including selling fruit and selling fresh meat, but failed to earn enough to support her family. She began planning on leaving with the caravan in December when she first learned about the caravan.

"We were not prepared when the first caravan left," she said, referring to the thousands of Central Americans who left the region in October of last year. "Now we are ready to go. We are leaving everything."

The group will make their way to the US border over the next several weeks. They will eventually join the thousands from October's exodus still at the border awaiting processing by US immigration authorities, who have implemented a "metering system", limiting the number of asylum applications that are processed each day. Others from last year's group have either crossed the border between official ports of entry, found work in Mexico or returned home.

US President Donald Trump has attempted use the caravans as a way to sow fear among Americans and make his case for a wall on the US-Mexico border. Key parts on the US government shut down on December 22 after Trump refused to back down on his demand for $5.7bn in wall funding on the US southern border, saying there is a "humanitarian crisis" at the border. Critics, including Democrats, argue the wall is immoral and a vast overreaction. 

Carlos Maldonado, a 26-year-old from Paradiso, sat next to Grady holding a sign addressed to US President Donald Trump.

"Trump, we request humanitarian asylum," the sign read. "We are fleeing gangs, extortion, sexual discrimination, violence and insecurity and corrupt politicians."

Maldonado said this is the only opportunity he has.

"I need to take advantage of it," he told Al Jazeera.

Exodus from Central America

Caravans from Central America are not rare. Those fleeing hope to find safety in numbers as they travel more than 2,000km north. According an Associated Press tally, nearly 4,000 migrants and refugees have died or gone missing along the route since 2014. 

The Trump administration deployed thousands of active duty US troops to the border, falsely labelling the collective exodus an "invasion".

After a number of large caravans left Honduras in October, the Trump administration pressured the governments of Central America to stop the caravans from advancing. As a result, the governments of Honduras and Guatemala deployed military and police to the border crossing to turn back potential migrants and refugees headed towards the US.

A family migrating with the Honduran caravan tails behind the rest of the group as it leaves San Pedro Sula [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/live-crisis-honduras-bound-caravan-forms-190115201938465.html

Honduras, a desperate situation

Honduras a country with 112,000 km2 and 9.100,000 inhabitants is suffering a very difficult moment. Thousands of people are escaping from a critical political, social and security environment.

Donald Trump threats

US President Donald Trump's threats against a caravan of thousands of Honduras migants  headed to the United States will not deter people from fleeing the Central American country, activists say, adding they would welcome a cut in US military and security aid to Honduran security forces.

"With regard to the threats of the United States government, I don't even think people listen to that," human rights activist Yessica Trinidad told Al Jazeera over the phone.
"People leaving have no certainty as to whether or not they will arrive. It is like leaping into an abyss, but for them, it is better than living here," said Trinidad, coordinator of the Honduran Network of Women Human Rights Defenders.

The caravan set out Saturday from northwestern Honduras. More than 2,000 people reached Guatemala Monday after a standoff with Guatemalan police at the border. The caravan, now in waves at different points on the route, continues to grow, with some estimates putting it at more than 5,000.

Honduran migrants cross the Lempa river, on the border between Honduras and Guatemala, to cross into Guatemala to join a caravan trying to reach the US [Jorge Cabrera/Reuters]

On Thursday, Trump ramped up his threats against the caravan, tweeting that "in addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in strongest terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught - and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!"

Earlier in the week, he had threatened to cut aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if the caravan wasn't stopped before it reached the US border.

The warnings came less than a week after the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala met in Washington for the second Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America. As part of its Strategy for Central America, the US has committed about $2.6bn in aid to Central America for 2015 through 2018.

According to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), US aid to Honduras totalled more than $181m last year. The category of security, the justice sector, and violence prevention received more funding than any other, without including funding for borders and drug control. Most of the aid is channelled through the Department of State and US Agency for International Development, but there was also $47m via the Department of Defense last year, according to WOLA. 

Adam Isacson, director of WOLA's defence oversight programme, said the number earmarked for this year is likely close to that of 2017. The organisation has not yet been able to obtain country breakdowns of regional security funding but does not expect the final tally will be a big shift from last year.

Isacson said Trump's comments show he does not understand how aid works.

"Trump's tweets betray that our president actually thinks that US aid is a big cash transfer to those countries, like we're just giving them money. And I think a lot of people think that," he told Al Jazeera over the phone. 

"The president's tweets seem to [suggest] that you're just turning off a cash spigot and there's this river of cash flowing to Honduras," Isacson said.
"But of course not a dime goes to Honduras because of the fear it will be stolen. It's all in kind. It's all training or technical services or contractors or equipment for specific things," he said.
Reference: Aljazeera.com

Mexican hospitality: the Southern brothers

A migrant boy, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, walks through a makeshift camp in Mexico City [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

Mexico City - Jairo Mauricio Ramirez did not have to say many goodbyes in Honduras. A 16-year-old orphan, he joined thousands of US-bound migrants and refugees last month when they came through Ocotepeque, his hometown.

Ramirez hopes to make it to the United States to find work and continue his schooling beyond the Grade 7 level he was able to complete. He would like to be a doctor or an engineer.

"I always liked studying, but I could not afford to continue," Ramirez told Al Jazeera.

When Ramirez was eight years old, his father died in an accident. When he was 12, his mother died of a heart attack. He has no siblings.

Ramirez lived with an uncle, but his uncle left Honduras a few months ago to migrate to the US. Ramirez has not heard from him since. He had a job at a local hardware store for a while, but was let go.

"There is no work these days," he said.

When Al Jazeera spoke with Ramirez, he was waiting in line for a donated blanket to stay warm during the cold Mexico City nights. He and several thousand other Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty were staying in a stadium that had been transformed into a makeshift refugee camp.

Jairo Mauricio Ramirez, a 16-year-old Honduran orphan, waits in line for a blanket at the Mexico City stadium migrant and refugee camp [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera]

Managed by the Mexico City government and the city human rights commission, the camp was abuzz with activity all week, as groups large and small trickled into the capital city.

Migrants and refugees rested in the stadium bleachers, large tents in the field, and grassy areas outside the stadium. Others received medical attention, watched their kids being entertained by clowns, or waited in line for food, clothing and blankets. Little cheering circles formed around impromptu dance and song performances here and there on the sports complex grounds.

An estimated 5,000 Central Americans stayed at the stadium this week, and thousands more are slowly making their way up through southern Mexicoin subsequent caravans from Honduras and El Salvador. Preparations for more caravans are in the works. Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, and other Latin Americans have also joined the various waves of the ongoing exodus.

Ramirez made it through the first 1,650km through Guatemala and up to Mexico City. Like most of the thousands of migrants and refugees, he wants to make it through the next 2,700km to theUS border.

At an assembly on Thursday evening, the migrants and refugees voted to choose a route to the Tijuana border crossing. It is more than 1,000km further away than the closest points of entry to the US, but it is a safer route. It avoids parts of northeastern Mexico with high rates of homicides and forced disappearances, including that of migrants and refugees.

Central American migrants taking part in a caravan towards the US, watch a film as they rest during a stop in the journey at a shelter, set up at the Sports City in Mexico City [Alfredo Estrella/AFP]

The assembly chose to depart at 5am local time (11:00 GMT) on Friday, but plans changed overnight and the majority of migrants and refugees at the stadium chose to stay in the hopes of obtaining bus transport to the border.

Many people chose not to wait, however, and hundreds of people set out towards Queretaro on Friday morning, along the route to Tijuana. The remaining thousands plan to leave before dawn on Saturday, migrant and refugee caravan spokespeople said at a press conference on Friday.

Sandra Cuffe

From. Aljazeera.com