tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/central-america-11994/articlesCentral America – The Conversation2024-03-27T17:26:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239692024-03-27T17:26:37Z2024-03-27T17:26:37Z‘Bukelism,’ El Salvador’s flawed approach to gang violence, is no silver bullet for Ecuador<p>Ecuador’s unexpected <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67964229">gang-related security crisis</a> has resurrected the debate on <a href="https://advox.globalvoices.org/2023/05/19/unfreedom-monitor-report-el-salvador/">what’s known as Bukelism</a>, the supposedly miraculous anti-crime strategy named after El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. </p>
<p>Bukelism is credited with dramatically reducing El Salvador’s drug-related homicide rates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/el-salvador-bukele-election.html">from 38 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 7.8 per 100,000 in 2022</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvador-young-maverick-bukele-wins-presidential-election-but-countrys-future-remains-uncertain-111775">El Salvador: young maverick Bukele wins presidential election, but country's future remains uncertain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This model has, however, come at the cost of an authoritarian drift in El Salvador and <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/from-bad-to-worse-nayib-bukeles-split-with-washington/">American sanctions for corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, on April 21, Ecuador will hold a <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-02-14/ecuador-sets-april-21-for-referendum-on-tightening-security">landmark referendum</a> to change its constitution in order to emulate the Salvadorean model. </p>
<p>If Ecuadorans vote in favour of these unprecedented reforms on security, they will not only give permanent and extensive powers to the country’s armed forces — along with immunity measures and the dismantlement of democratic checks and balances — but they will also normalize Bukelism, even though recent studies question its effectiveness.</p>
<h2>Eroding democracy</h2>
<p>Ecuador is among <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/nayib-bukeles-growing-list-of-latin-american-admirers/">a growing number of countries in the region</a> that want to implement this seemingly successful new style of the war on drugs. They’re apparently willing to disregard the impact on <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/el-salvador">freedom of the press and democracy</a> to curb the narco-trafficking crisis. </p>
<p>In 2022, El Salvador declared states of emergency several times and incarcerated more than 73,000 people, giving it the <a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/prisoners/">highest incarceration rate in the world</a>. </p>
<p>These strong-arm tactics against crime give the public a reassuring image of control, even though the massive arrests targeted <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/thousands-of-innocent-people-jailed-in-el-salvadors-gang-crackdown">thousands of innocent people</a> and 327 citizens were forcibly disappeared, according to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/el-salvador-policies-practices-legislation-violate-human-rights/#:%7E:text=Among%20its%20recommendations%2C%20Amnesty%20International,process%20and%20nullify%20judicial%20guarantees">a recent Amnesty International report</a>. In addition, almost 200 died in state custody.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.omct.org/es/recursos/comunicados-de-prensa/comit%C3%A9-de-las-naciones-unidas-pide-a-el-salvador-prevenir-las-detenciones-arbitrarias-e-investigar-todos-los-actos-de-tortura">United Nations has called on El Salvador to stop torturing detainees</a>. <a href="https://www.americas.org/52204/">Attacks on female journalists by authorities and supporters of Bukele’s methods have also increased dramatically</a>, illustrating how Bukelism’s aggressive rhetoric has had a significant impact on journalists, especially women, in a country <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/el-salvador-women-abortion-obstetric-problems-prison-fight/">where abortion has also been completely banned</a> since Bukele’s election.</p>
<p>Yet, even the country’s worst infringements on the rule of law, including hundreds of show trials and laws <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/el-salvador-press-censorship-gang-law">threatening journalists with 10- to 15-year prison sentences for criticizing law enforcement</a>, are often regarded as evidence of <a href="https://insightcrime.org/investigations/how-bukele-government-overpowered-gangs-major-findings/">Bukelism’s effectiveness</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-facade-of-democracy-crumbles-as-president-purges-his-political-opponents-161781">El Salvador's façade of democracy crumbles as president purges his political opponents</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Bukelism’s popularity</h2>
<p>According to experts like Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica’s former minister of public security and justice, the popularity of Bukelism <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/02/el-salvador-elections-bukele-bitcoin-crime-gang-policy/">is rising</a> largely because it’s frequently described in the media as the only effective model to fight gangs. Chinchilla argues that the Salvadorean model <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cpw79166j9go">is only a “mirage</a>” that ignores other efficient security strategies that don’t dismantle the rule of law, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/OXAN-DB201595">such as her country’s efforts a decade ago</a>. </p>
<p>This myth of Bukelism’s effectiveness creates a dilemma for other democratic countries plagued by drug-trafficking violence: should they opt for the successes of Bukelism despite human rights violations, or choose other strategies that uphold democratic norms?</p>
<p>But this is a false dilemma based on incorrect assumptions, because Bukelism is not as effective as it seems.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://icg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2022-10/096-el-salvadors-prison-fever.pdf">recent report</a> from the International Crisis Group, one of the world’s most trusted non-governmental organizations on security issues, shows that drug-related homicide rates had already fallen by 60 per cent before Bukele’s massive crackdown in 2022. The report also points out that democratic countries like Ecuador can’t duplicate Bukelism without trading off democracy. </p>
<p>In fact, by stifling political opposition, imposing presidential control over the judicial, executive and legislative branches and muzzling the media, El Salvador has slipped to the <a href="https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/country/el-salvador">bottom 25 per cent of countries worldwide in terms of democracy</a> since Bukele was first elected in 2019.</p>
<p>Freedom House’s well-known annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide rated El Salvador as “<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores">partly free</a>” in 2023, along with countries such as Kuwait, Malaysia and Hong Kong.</p>
<h2>Bukelism’s questionable results</h2>
<p>Data from the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/departamento-de-justicia-anuncia-operaci-n-contra-l-deres-clave-de-grupo-criminal-ms-13">U.S. task force Vulcan</a> also show homicide rates have been steadily declining in El Salvador since 2016 due to deals with drug-trafficking gangs. </p>
<p>Bukele’s 2022 crackdown “<a href="https://insightcrime.org/investigations/el-salvador-keeping-lid-on-prisons/">frenzy,” as the think tank Insight Crime calls it</a>, was therefore merely a reaction to the cartels’ decision to disregard the deals they had previously made with the government. </p>
<p>El Salvador’s small population and its unique geography are also key factors in Bukelism’s purported success that don’t always exist elsewhere. Ecuador, for example, has three times El Salvador’s population and a completely different landscape. What’s more, the country’s drug gangs <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/1/11/24034891/ecuador-drugs-cocaine-cartels-violence-murder-daniel-naboa-columbia-crime">can’t be compared to other Latin American drug cartels</a> in terms of financing, weapons and equipment. </p>
<p>The importance of these factors is evident in failed attempts to implement Bukelism elsewhere. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/04/honduras-gangs-crackdown-xiomara-castro">Recent data shows that neighbouring Honduras</a> has failed to achieve significant results adopting similar measures. After more than six months of duplicating El Salvador’s war on gangs, the country still has the <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/honduras-makes-few-advances-against-crime-during-6-month-state-of-exception/">second-highest homicide rate in Latin America</a>. </p>
<p>At the opposite end, Colombia seems to be on track to achieve its new “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/petros-total-peace-plan-turns-one-good-bad-and-ugly">total peace plan</a>” by negotiating with its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cm5rlrgvkyno">most iconic drug cartels, including the Clan del Golfo</a>, and providing education for impoverished young people.</p>
<h2>Corruption is part of Bukelism</h2>
<p>But perhaps Bukelism’s biggest flaw is its widespread corruption. Despite <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-sanctions-officials-close-el-salvadors-bukele-alleged-corruption-2022-12-09/">U.S sanctions in 2022</a>, the rampant corruption among state entities, the armed forces and the private sector is too often ignored by the media.</p>
<p>This contributes to the false image of Bukele’s efficiency. Given that new laws restricting the <a href="https://rsf.org/en/serious-decline-press-freedom-el-salvador-rsf-and-its-partners-call-national-authorities-safeguard">freedom of the press</a> were recently adopted, and checks and balances such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">judicial independence are under attack</a>, corruption is unlikely to receive the media attention it warrants in El Salvador.</p>
<p>This perfect storm of corruption, human rights violations, extended military powers, institutional impunity and <a href="https://ovcd.org/en/criminalisation/">criminalization of journalists</a> poses <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/states-of-exception-new-security-model-central-america/">serious risks</a> to the region.</p>
<p>Mexico embraced a model similar to Bukelism in the 2010s, and its war on drugs failed, transforming the country into <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/standing-firm/">one of the three worst in the world</a> in terms of the level of violence and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X17719258">human rights violations against environmental activists and journalists</a>.</p>
<p>Ecuador and other nations flirting with Bukelism must not make the same mistake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie-Christine Doran receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-SSHRCC. </span></em></p>Ecuador is soon holding a referendum to decide whether to follow El Salvador’s controversial strategy to end drug trafficking.Marie-Christine Doran, Full Professor of Compared Politics, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254222024-03-13T12:41:26Z2024-03-13T12:41:26ZWhat is the Darien Gap? And why are more migrants risking this Latin American route to get to the US?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581331/original/file-20240312-22-hvlt6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C140%2C3347%2C2084&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants wade through the Tuquesa River as they traverse the Darien Gap.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PanamaMigrants/2c51a3fc202e44459d50d668897f80eb/photo?Query=Darien%20Gap&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=288&currentItemNo=62">AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Much of the discussion over illegal immigration to the U.S. has in recent weeks <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-latin-america-venezuela-ukraine-mexico-712d00c90114568fe8a1b5c9e26fdadd">moved its focus south to the Darien Gap</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>This treacherous route that spans parts of Central and South America has seen an increasing number of people attempting to pass on their way to claiming asylum in the U.S.</em></p>
<p><em>To explore the reasons why, The Conversation turned to Sara McKinnon, an <a href="https://commarts.wisc.edu/staff/mckinnon-sara/">immigration scholar at University of Wisconsin-Madison</a>, who knows the region well and has interviewed people who have traversed the jungle crossing.</em></p>
<h2>Where is the Darien Gap?</h2>
<p>The Darien Gap is a stretch of densely forested jungle across northern Colombia and southern Panama. Roughly 60 miles (97 kilometers) across, the terrain is muddy, wet and unstable.</p>
<p><iframe id="QA5lJ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QA5lJ/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>No paved roads exist in the Darien Gap. Yet despite this, it has become a major route for global human migration.</p>
<p>Depending on how much they can pay, people must walk anywhere from <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/dari%C3%A9n-gap-migration-crossroads">four to 10 days</a> up and down mountains, over fast-flowing rivers and through mud, carrying everything they have – and often carrying children who are too young to walk – to make it through the pass. Those who make it through then take buses through most of Central America and make their way north through Mexico to the U.S. border zone.</p>
<p>Cellphone service stops once people enter the dense forest; migrants rely on the paid “guides” and fellow migrants to make it through. </p>
<p>In the decade prior to 2021, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/dari%C3%A9n-gap-migration-crossroads">10,000 people annually</a> took this route on their way north to seek residence in the United States and Canada. </p>
<p>Then, in 2021, the Panamanian government documented <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/number-migrants-who-embarked-dangerous-darien-gap-route-nearly-doubled-2022">133,000 crossings</a>, a dramatic increase in human movement in such a volatile stretch of land. In 2023, more than <a href="https://www.datosabiertos.gob.pa/dataset/migracion-irregulares-en-transito-por-darien-por-pais-2023">half a million people</a> transited through this part of the Isthmus of Panama.</p>
<h2>Why is it so dangerous?</h2>
<p>The route, and really the entire trajectory that people take when they migrate from South America to North America, is controlled by criminal organizations that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/immigration-crisis-migrant-smuggling-darien-gap-cfb40940">make millions, if not billions of dollars</a>, annually in the human migration economy.</p>
<p>It is impossible to cross this stretch of land without the help of a smuggler, or guide, because the criminal organizations who control the territory demand payment for passage.</p>
<p>Payment does not, however, assure safe passage. Sometimes the very people paid to facilitate the journey extort migrants for more money. There are also <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/andes/colombia-central-america/102-bottleneck-americas-crime-and-migration">reports of armed groups</a> ambushing those in transit to seize their belongings and steal what money they may have stowed away and sewn into clothing seams.</p>
<p>Extortion and kidnapping are common occurrences, and the medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders recently reported a surge in instances of <a href="https://www.msf.org/lack-action-sees-sharp-rise-sexual-violence-people-transiting-darien-gap-panama">mass sexual assault</a> in which hundreds of people have been captured, assaulted and raped – often in front of family members. In December 2023, one person was sexually assaulted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/05/darien-gap-sexual-attacks-panama-colombia-migrants">every 3½ hours</a> while crossing, according to Doctors Without Borders.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-risk-death-journey-us">extreme nature of the swamplike jungle</a> also makes the journey dangerous.</p>
<p>The paths can be very muddy, especially in the rainy season. In mountainous sections, it is often necessary to climb over steep rocks, or cling to a rope to not slip and fall off a cliff. </p>
<p>The Missing Migrant Project reported <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl601/files/publication/file/MMP%20Americas%20briefing%202022%20-%20ES_3.pdf">141 known deaths</a> in the Darien Gap in 2023, which is likely a fraction of the actual number due to the challenges in reporting and recovering bodies.</p>
<p>Many of the people I interviewed who had made the journey talked about seeing bodies along the path covered in mud, likely the result of slipping or falling to their death. </p>
<p>Fellow migrants left markers close to the bodies, such as pieces of fabric tied to a tree, and took photos of the dead in the hopes that this evidence might someday help recover the bodies.</p>
<p>The rivers are also dangerous. Flash floods and rushing rapids mean that many people are swept away and drown in the muddy waters. Bruises, cuts, animal bites and fractures are common. The high humidity and heat each day, combined with a lack of clean drinking water, mean that many fall sick with symptoms of severe dehydration. </p>
<p>Vector-borne, water-borne and fungal-related illnesses are <a href="https://www.unocha.org/news/migration-through-darien-jungle-7-things-know-about-perilous-trek">also quite common</a>.</p>
<h2>What is behind the recent surge in crossings?</h2>
<p>Violence, insecurity and instability in their home countries cause many people to move. They may move to elsewhere in their region. But when the level of violence and insecurity is similar in that country, they keep moving to find a safer place to live.</p>
<p>Options for legally allowed immigration are increasingly limited for those in low-income countries. For example, when governments implement travel visa restrictions for certain nationalities, it impacts the options available to the people of that country for movement. </p>
<p>In 2021, with pressure from the United States, Mexico started requiring <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/mexico-restrictive-visa-policy-limits-venezuelans-ability-flee-us/">Venezuelans traveling to Mexico to carry travel visas</a>. This meant that Venezuelans hoping to seek asylum in the United States could no longer first fly to Mexico as a tourist and then present themselves at the border to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent to express their fear of returning to their home country.</p>
<p>Venezuelans had to find another route to move, and for many, that was and continues to be irregular transit through the Darien Gap without travel documents. </p>
<h2>Who is making the journey?</h2>
<p>In 2023, of the 520,085 people who moved through the region, <a href="https://www.migracion.gob.pa/images/img2023/pdf/IRREGULARES_X_DARIEN_2023.pdf">Venezuelans counted for over half at 328,650</a>. But the total also included 56,422 Haitians, 25,565 Chinese, 4,267 Afghans, 2,252 Nepali, 1,636 Cameroonians and 1,124 Angolans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A child is hoisted onto an adult's shoulders as a woman and man wade through water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581334/original/file-20240312-28-i0czkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/YEMigration/4294f14f09a24ca0beeba0b14dc0120f/photo?Query=Darien%20Gap&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=288&currentItemNo=95">AP Photo/Ivan Valencia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Human migration in the Americas is a global phenomenon.</p>
<p>It is also increasingly gender and age diverse, as <a href="https://www.migracion.gob.pa/images/img2023/pdf/IRREGULARES_X_DARIEN_2023.pdf">figures from the Panamanian government</a> show. Adult men made up just over half of those moving through the Darien Gap in 2023, and adult women counted for 26% of the population. </p>
<p>Children under 18 constituted 20% of those crossing, with half of those children under the age of 5. Parents may be carrying children for long stretches of the journey, or children may have to walk even though they are tired. The stress and fatigue add to the likelihood of injury along the way. </p>
<h2>How have authorities responded?</h2>
<p>The travel visa restrictions of many governments has only pushed more people to attempt this dangerous route. Governments have also been lukewarm to the presence of humanitarian groups who assist migrants in transit. On March 7, 2024, <a href="https://www.msf.org/msf-forced-suspend-medical-care-people-move-panama">Doctors Without Borders reported</a> that the Panamanian government would no longer permit the organization to provide medical support to those in transit through the Darien Gap. This reduced access to health care will certainly mean a more dangerous passage.</p>
<p>In May 2022, countries across the Americas jointly announced the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/10/fact-sheet-the-los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-and-protection-u-s-government-and-foreign-partner-deliverables/">Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection </a> to improve regional coordination to manage migration.</p>
<p>Through this, the U.S. government implemented a series of <a href="https://migrationamericas.commarts.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2087/2023/09/MIAP-Policy-Report-0923-1.pdf">new legal programs to move to the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration">application processing offices</a> in South American and Central American countries that give people the opportunity to apply for U.S. refugee resettlement, humanitarian parole and family reunification, and have the visas processed while waiting abroad. </p>
<p>But these programs are not available to people of all nationalities. And some of the programs also require official documents like passports, a requirement that excludes many of those who make their way through the Darien Gap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara McKinnon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than half a million people made the treacherous crossing in 2023 – far higher than in previous years.Sara McKinnon, Professor of Rhetoric, Politics & Culture, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235132024-02-21T17:28:02Z2024-02-21T17:28:02ZThe 100-hour war between El Salvador and Honduras is famous for starting with a football match – the truth is more complicated<p>A recent football match in Hong Kong has flared geopolitical tensions. A sell-out crowd was left disappointed when Inter Miami’s Argentinian superstar, Lionel Messi, did not come onto the field. Their disappointment soon turned to anger as, just days later, Messi played in another game in Japan.</p>
<p>Chinese state media, Hong Kong politicians and frustrated fans interpreted the act as a sign of disrespect, suggesting that there were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/lionel-messi-injury-return-japan-anger-china-benching-unfit">political reasons</a> for Messi’s absence. Two Argentina friendlies that were scheduled to take place in China in March <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/09/sport/china-cancels-argentina-match-messi-backlash-intl-hnk/index.html">have been cancelled</a>. Some Hong Kong officials have demanded an “explanation and apology” from the player, while fans <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/china/lionel-messi-china-backlash-hong-kong-japan-miami-intl-hnk/index.html">claimed</a> that Messi should no longer be welcome in China.</p>
<p>Football has flared up tensions before, with lasting political consequences. In 1990, a game between Zagreb’s Dinamo team and Belgrade’s Red Star <a href="https://www.croatiaweek.com/33-years-ago-today-the-most-famous-derby-never-played/">erupted into violence</a> between fans and the police. The violence is believed by some to have sparked the ensuing Croatian war of independence (1991–95). </p>
<p>But one case in particular holds the reputation for a war that was started over a series of football matches. </p>
<p>In 1969, El Salvador and neighbouring Honduras played each other three times in the qualifying stages of the 1970 Fifa World Cup. The two matches that took place in Tegucigalpa (June 8) and San Salvador (June 15) were marred by violence between fans. </p>
<p>On the same day as the third match, in Mexico City on June 29, the Salvadoran government cut diplomatic ties with Honduras. Military action began two weeks later with aerial bombardment and a ground invasion, before coming to an end after a ceasefire was negotiated four days later. For its brevity, the conflict is known as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27868774">100-hour war</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, it would be silly to look for the causes of war in an ugly tackle, or in questionable decisions by referees. More than silly, to reduce the causes of war to a football match is disrespectful to the memories of the thousands of civilians displaced and killed in the conflict. </p>
<p>For that reason, as pivotal as these matches might have been for that war, it is essential to understand the broader context in which such an escalation of conflict becomes possible.</p>
<h2>The war of the dispossessed</h2>
<p>El Salvador is a fraction of the size of Honduras. But, despite the difference in area, El Salvador has a much larger population. At the start of the 20th century, Salvadoran farmers began migrating to Honduras in large numbers, primarily because of the greater availability of land across the border.</p>
<p>By the 1960s, the issue of land ownership had fuelled social tension in Honduras against the large population of Salvadoran migrants. The National Federation of Farmers and Livestock Farmers of Honduras was created to promote a land reform aimed at <a href="https://html.rincondelvago.com/la-guerra-no-fue-de-futbol_eddy-jimenez-perez.html">expelling Salvadoran peasants</a> from Honduran land. </p>
<p>This allowed large property owners, including foreign companies like the US-based United Fruit Company, to increase their ownership share of arable land. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Central America." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Honduras is roughly five times as large as El Salvador.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/central-america-map-150994196">Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a coup in 1963, the then Honduran president, General Oswaldo López Arellano, pursued the interests of these agrarian elites through the suppression of political opposition and systematic institutionalised violence. </p>
<p>Arellano’s brutal repression of peasant movements, with a specific nationalist sentiment mobilised against Salvadorans, <a href="https://catalogosiidca.csuca.org/Record/UCR.000022943/Description">caused the displacement</a> of thousands of rural workers in the years before those football matches. This is why <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/87/3/889/95948?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research</a> on the topic usually refers to the conflict as the “war of the dispossessed”. </p>
<h2>Escalating conflict</h2>
<p>The level of violence against Salvadorans led the government in San Salvador to formally accuse Honduras of genocide. The <a href="https://www.diariocolatino.com/una-guerra-breve-y-amarga/">communication</a> sent by the Salvadoran chancellor to inform Tegucigalpa of the severed diplomatic ties in 1969 clearly frames the conflict in these broader terms.</p>
<p>“In this republic [Honduras] there is still … homicide, humiliation and violation of women, dispossession, persecution, and mass expulsion that have targeted thousands of Salvadorans due simply to their nationality, in events that have no precedents in Central America, nor in America as a whole.”</p>
<p>The football matches simply added a mobilising element that contributed to escalating an already existing conflict. The number of displaced Salvadoran peasants after the conflict reached hundreds of thousands. After the ceasefire, El Salvador had to deal with this large population of refugees. </p>
<p>The conflict also increased the Salvadoran nationalistic sentiment and the political role of the armed forces, setting the stage for the political disputes in the 1970s that would culminate in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war">Salvadoran civil war</a> in 1979.</p>
<p>Many of the Salvadoran refugees already had experience of political organisation from the land disputes in Honduras and ended up joining the <a href="https://prism.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/port/items/686599?query=el+salvador+civil+war&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Del%2Bsalvador%2Bcivil%2Bwar">Farabundo Martí Popular Forces of Liberation</a>. This was a faction of the Salvadoran Communist Party that later became a left-wing military organisation with support from Cuba and the Soviet Union.</p>
<h2>Messi will not start a war in China</h2>
<p>The idea that football started a war is misguided. The violence in those matches in 1969 would not have escalated without the broader sociopolitical context of violent dispossession. Lacking a similar context, the declarations of frustrated fans who expected to see Messi in Hong Kong will not escalate. </p>
<p>This is not to say that football lacks political relevance. The inflamed reaction by fans and Chinese authorities shows the effect that a political statement (or one perceived as such) by a celebrity can have on global politics. Messi himself recently published a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/messi-sets-record-straight-over-hong-kong-absence-2024-02-19/">statement</a> on Weibo (China’s most popular microblogging site) denying any political motivation for not playing in Hong Kong. </p>
<p>Messi has avoided getting involved with politics, especially during Argentina’s heated general election in 2023. But others have done the opposite. Perhaps former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52072592">calling</a> for a ceasefire in Ivory Coast in 2007 can serve as an inspiring example of how footballers can use their popularity to influence global politics and even stop wars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pedro Dutra Salgado does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Messi will not start a war in China, but this is not to say that football lacks political relevance.Pedro Dutra Salgado, Lecturer in International Relations, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210922024-01-29T13:36:08Z2024-01-29T13:36:08ZEl Salvador voters set to trade democracy for promise of security in presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571693/original/file-20240126-23-8oa48x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C424%2C3165%2C1990&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">El Salvador President Nayib Bukele looks set to be reelected.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-of-el-salvador-nayib-bukele-looks-on-during-the-news-photo/1801400527?adppopup=true">Hector Vivas/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is little doubt who will win the El Salvador presidential election when <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/meet-the-candidates-el-salvador/">voters go to the polls</a> on Feb. 4, 2024.</p>
<p>Incumbent <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0241105c-ab30-40f6-ac87-b879ffb6c84c">Nayib Bukele</a> has the initiative heading into the vote, having made a series of eye-catching decisions <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/04/el-salvador-anti-corruption-candidate-nayib-bukele-wins-presidential-election">since coming to power</a> in 2019, such as making <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202311/el_salvador/27164/Crypto-Turmoil-Pushes-Bukele-Back-Toward-Traditional-Financial-Institutions.htm">bitcoin legal tender</a>, issuing <a href="https://elfaro.net/tuits/los-tuits-eliminados/">policy through social media</a>, and most significantly, declaring a nationwide “<a href="https://www.wola.org/2022/09/corruption-state-of-emergency-el-salvador/">state of emergency</a>” in response to gang violence.</p>
<p>The Bitcoin experiment has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/el-salvadors-bitcoin-holdings-down-60percent-to-60-million-one-year-later.html">all but failed</a>. But that hasn’t dented his prospects of victory.</p>
<p>The reason: A majority of Salvadorans <a href="https://uca.edu.sv/iudop/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Bol.-Eva-de-anio-2023.pdf">feel safer</a> than they have in years. Under Bukele’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/12/the-rise-of-nayib-bukele-el-salvadors-authoritarian-president">authoritarian rule</a>, the homicide rate has officially decreased, many street vendors no longer pay a gang tax, and taxi drivers aren’t as worried about hijackings or assault. And that has led to Bukele’s widespread popularity across the country. In an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-bukele-looks-set-cruise-controversial-presidential-reelection-poll-2024-01-16/">early January 2024 poll</a>, the incumbent was ahead by 71%. He is, in other words, a shoo-in.</p>
<p>But this sense of safety has come at a cost. Bukele’s program to curb crime has led to an erosion of civil rights – <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-30/bukeles-hell-in-el-salvador-a-country-submerged-in-a-police-state.html">tens of thousands of people have been detained</a> in a crackdown on organized crime, with those imprisoned <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">subjected to overcrowding and alleged human rights abuses</a>, including torture.</p>
<p>Critics also point to the <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202105/columns/25464/This-Is-How-a-Republic-Dies.htm">breakdown of democratic checks and balances</a> across government since Bukele first took office. He <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-appointment-new-judges-raises-fears-power-grab-2021-06-30/">replaced members of the judiciary</a> with allies, and he is running for president again despite constitutional law banning a <a href="https://www.cispes.org/article/why-consecutive-reelection-unconstitutional-el-salvador">second consecutive presidential term</a>.</p>
<p>So when Salvadorans cast their votes, they’ll be faced with the question: Is the short-term security Bukele is offering worth the <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/latin-america-erupts-millennial-authoritarianism-in-el-salvador/">serious backslide</a> on democracy taking place in El Salvador?</p>
<h2>Presidential abuse of power</h2>
<p>Bukele’s rollback of democratic norms has been relentless. As soon as his political party Nuevas Ideas won a supermajority in the legislature, he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-appointment-new-judges-raises-fears-power-grab-2021-06-30/">purged the Supreme Court of five justices</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56970026">removed the attorney general</a>, actions that have allowed him to reinterpret articles of the Salvadoran Constitution that ban him from running in this election.</p>
<p>There are, in fact, six articles of the constitution prohibiting presidents from serving a second consecutive term in office. Bukele specifically took aim at <a href="https://www.cispes.org/article/why-consecutive-reelection-unconstitutional-el-salvador">Article 152</a>, which stipulates that presidents can’t seek immediate reelection if they served in the previous term for more than six months.</p>
<p>Bukele circumvented the rule by going on <a href="https://www.lawg.org/international-organizations-echo-salvadoran-civil-society-bukele-stepping-down-as-president-of-el-salvador-does-nothing-to-change-the-unconstitutionality-of-his-reelection-bid/">leave from presidential duties</a> on Nov. 30, 2023, a move widely regarded as a stunt since he was still campaigning and maintaining the trappings of his office, such as <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202312/opinion/27182/Fraud-upon-Fraud-Bukele-Is-Not-on-Presidential-Leave.htm">presidential immunity and a security detail</a>. He and members of his administration also pointed to a <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202312/opinion/27182/Fraud-upon-Fraud-Bukele-Is-Not-on-Presidential-Leave.htm">so-called “hidden article” in the constitution</a> that would allow him to run again, but international <a href="https://www.state.gov/salvadoran-re-election-ruling-undermines-democracy/">legal experts have refuted</a> such a loophole.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/mneesha-gellman">scholar who studies comparative politics and violence</a> in the Global South and the U.S, I’ve been following the plight of democracy in El Salvador for many years. My <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y9F6SeYjZUkoF-T4VaDBOXMzQIjQa8WW/view">working paper</a> in 2022 on Bukele’s democratic backsliding notes, in addition to his remaking of the Supreme Court and firing of the attorney general, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/02/el-salvador-new-laws-threaten-judicial-independence">legislation that forced into retirement</a> judges and prosecutors over the age of 60. This <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">stalled the trial of the El Mozote massacre of 1981</a>, a lingering trauma from the Salvadoran civil war. </p>
<h2>El Salvador’s history of violence</h2>
<p>Bukele was elected following two presidents representing the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a former rebel group that’s now a recognized political party. Like Bukele, both of these presidents tried for years to <a href="https://saisreview.sais.jhu.edu/negotiating-gangs-el-salvador-truce/#:%7E:text=The%20gang%20truce%20in%20El,of%20the%20initiative%20are%20undeniable">negotiate with gangs</a> while cracking down on them, providing <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/evidence-of-gang-negotiations-belie-el-salvador-presidents-claims/">perks for incarcerated gang members</a> in exchange for state input about how and where gang violence transpired. Neither was successful.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wears a hat showing the image of President Nayib Bukele." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nayib Bukele has many supporters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-wears-a-headband-with-nayib-bukeles-electoral-campaign-news-photo/1782807423?adppopup=true">Aphotografia/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, for the majority of Salvadorans, physical violence has been a frequent part of daily life for generations. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Democratization-and-Memories-of-Violence-Ethnic-minority-rights-movements/Gellman/p/book/9781138597686#:%7E:text=Democratization%20and%20Memories%20of%20Violence%20draws%20on%20six%20case%20studies,consideration%20of%20minority%20rights%20agendas.">I have written</a> about the 1932 massacre of Indigenous and working-class people, and the <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/">civil war</a> from 1980 to 1992 as critical junctures that inform contemporary Salvadoran politics. The war forced families to flee to the U.S., where <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/el-salvador/life-under-gang-rule-el-salvador">boys and young men formed gangs for protection</a> and then were eventually deported back to El Salvador. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/el-salvador">Gang violence, as well as state violence</a>, has made El Salvador unsafe in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Bukele’s safety agenda and violation of civil rights</h2>
<p>Bukele’s “territorial control plan,” launched in 2019 shortly after he was elected, did little to diminish this gang violence. So after gangs <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089390179/el-salvador-grabs-1-000-gang-suspects-in-response-to-weekend-killings">murdered 87 people in a single weekend</a> in March 2022, Bukele declared a “state of emergency.” Aimed not only at gangs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/el-salvador-press-censorship-gang-law">but journalists and anyone Bukele considers opposition</a>, the state of emergency has, for the past 22 months, seen the suspension of many constitutional rights – including the right to assemble, due process, and privacy in telecommunications.</p>
<p>By the end of 2023, over <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-30/bukeles-hell-in-el-salvador-a-country-submerged-in-a-police-state.html">74,000 people were incarcerated</a> in the crackdown, with less than a third of those arrested during the state of emergency estimated to be gang members. Many others were charged without proper evidence – on the testimony of neighbors, on the basis of prior arrest records, or simply for having tattoos, as many Salvadorans told me in my 2024 fieldwork.</p>
<p>And once in prison, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">human rights abuses abound</a>, including torture, inadequate food supply and poor sanitation, according to human rights groups. Family members of incarcerated people I’ve interviewed say that to keep their loved ones alive, they are expected to send food, clothing and hygiene products via packets into the prison at a cost of $100-$300 per month, despite a national monthly minimum wage of just $365. </p>
<p>Meanwhile women, children, LGBTQ+ people and others across El Salvador continue to be victimized.</p>
<p>My interviews in January 2024 in various parts of El Salvador suggest that police and <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Procuradora----condena-violacion-de-nina-por-militares-20230929-0082.html">military personnel</a> have <a href="https://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/nacional/sargento-violo-nina-13-anos-amenazo-regimen-excepcion/1092614/2023/">taken over previously gang-held terrain</a>, replacing gang violence with state violence.</p>
<h2>Public opinion and a return to dictatorship</h2>
<p>Many Salvadorans say they <a href="https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/El-SalvadorsPerpetual-State-of-Emergency-How-Bukeles-Government-Overpowered-Gangs-InSight-Crime-Nov-2023.pdf">feel safer</a> since Bukele instated a state of emergency – now called the “state of exception.” A December 2023 poll found that most citizens are now more <a href="https://uca.edu.sv/iudop/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PPT-Ev-Anio-2023.pdf">concerned with the economy</a>. Bukele timed announcement of his crackdown well, right after his <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Encuesta-UCA-regimen-es-el-pilar-de-popularidad-de-Bukele-20230119-0087.html">popularity began to wane</a>.</p>
<p>But more recently, I’ve spoken with dozens of civil society stakeholders – including human rights workers, journalists, former lawmakers and current government employees – who say that the <a href="https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-deception-human-rights-under-bukele/">picture of an eminently safer El Salvador</a> doesn’t reflect the lives of Salvadorans living behind bars or in communities exploited by police and armed forces. </p>
<p>Still, on Feb. 4, Salvadorans are likely to overlook those abuses and cast their vote in favor of security for the majority. And, to some extent, who can blame them? After years of civil war and then gang war, many Salvadorans are traumatized by violence. The promise of safety is compelling, even if it means living in a dictatorship. </p>
<p>But if and when the international community recognizes the legitimacy of the election, it will do so in the face of severe constitutional and procedural irregularities. Bukele’s efforts to dismantle those safeguards have already left El Salvador’s regime on shaky ground. A fresh mandate by the electorate might push Bukele further down an authoritarian path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mass arrests and the suspension of constitutional rights have been a feature of President Nayib Bukele’s tenure. A fresh mandate from voters will likely entrench his hardline approach.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176142023-12-19T13:17:06Z2023-12-19T13:17:06ZGuatemala’s anti-corruption leader-to-be could be prevented from taking office, deepening migration concerns for US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566364/original/file-20231218-17-s6fipw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C416%2C4154%2C2319&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guatemala's President-elect Bernardo Arévalo waves to supporters. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/guatemalas-president-elect-bernardo-arevalo-waves-to-news-photo/1735484556">Orlando Estrada/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Guatemala is in the <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/guatemala-prosecutors-claim-presidential-election-203740355.html">midst of a democratic crisis</a> so severe that it may prevent the new president from taking office, as planned, on Jan. 14, 2024.</p>
<p>On Dec. 8, 2023, prosecutors and the Guatemalan Congress <a href="https://twitter.com/lahoragt/status/1733196649005035932?s=20">called for the nullification</a> of the election results. A few weeks earlier, the attorney general’s office in Guatemala <a href="https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-election-bernardo-arevalo-f7a7537e15e7f8692de8dd62ee9b666b">tried to remove</a> President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s immunity from prosecution. The attorney general alleged that the center-left politician, who won the election on an anti-corruption ticket, made posts on social media in 2022 that encouraged students to occupy the country’s public university. In an unprecedented attempt to prevent him from assuming power, officials accused Arévalo of complicity in the takeover of the university, illicit association and damaging the country’s cultural heritage.</p>
<p>During the presidential election in September, the Public Ministry <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/guatemalan-authorities-raid-electoral-facilities-open-boxes-of-votes">raided electoral offices</a>. These actions “appear to be designed to overturn the will of the electorate and erode the democratic process,” <a href="https://www.oas.org/en/about/speech_secretary_general.asp?sCodigo=23-0037">concluded</a> the Organization of American States, a group that represents 35 countries in the region and promotes human rights, fair elections, security and economic development. </p>
<p>These developments follow a democratic backslide in Guatemala that has been going on since 2019, when the government <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46789931">expelled an anti-corruption commission</a> backed by the United Nations. </p>
<p>Ordinary Guatemalans, meanwhile, are fed up with rampant corruption and electoral interference. On Oct. 2, 2023, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-election-protest-bernardo-arevalo-07025036d506ec51be1d7426812be1ad">thousands of protesters</a> filled the streets of Guatemala City and blockaded more than 100 roads and highways to demand respect for the election. The demonstrators represented a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204800590/after-8-days-of-peaceful-protests-in-guatemala-demonstrations-turn-violent">broad cross-section</a> of urban and rural society, including both Maya and non-Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>As a professor of history who studies <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y9TnHZkAAAAJ&hl=en">social movements in Latin America</a>, I see the current climate of protest as part of a long history of instability and political mobilization in Guatemala. As in the past, these anti-democratic actions will likely lead more Guatemalans to migrate to the United States.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crowd of protesters waving Guatemala flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563472/original/file-20231204-29-fqy8k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters demand the attorney general’s resignation on Oct. 9, 2023, in Guatemala City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-demonstrate-to-demand-the-resignation-of-attorney-news-photo/1715813995">Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Civil war and kleptocracy</h2>
<p>Guatemala’s recent past is marked by violent political unrest and activism.</p>
<p>Between 1960 and 1996, the country endured a <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Unfinished_Conquest/-ojiw8UP-X0C?hl=en&gbpv=1">bloody armed conflict</a> between leftist insurgents and the army. About <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Terror_in_the_Land_of_the_Holy_Spirit/BXWwm7jo-hEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=200,000">200,000 Guatemalans were killed</a> – most of them <a href="https://hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CEHreport-english.pdf">from the Indigenous Maya population</a>. </p>
<p>The armed confrontation, which was rooted in <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3decc9724.html">land conflicts</a> and opposition to the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Battle_For_Guatemala/gwlQDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=popular+movement+in+guatemala+during+the+civil+war&printsec=frontcover">military dictatorship</a>, led to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Guatemala_la_infinita_historia_de_las_re/I0MjEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">mass mobilization</a> in favor of fair working conditions and democratic rule.</p>
<p>Guatemala’s democracy in the post-1996 years was marked by <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/securing-the-city">neoliberal policies</a> that favored free market economics and privatization. It also saw the rise of a cadre of careerist politicians who, in the words of the jailed journalist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/world/americas/jose-ruben-zamora-journalist-guatemala.html">Rubén Zamora</a>, created a “<a href="https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/el-hombre-que-le-susurra-al-poder-y-viceversa">kleptocracy</a>.” This system hinged on corrupt <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2015/05/19/repudiating-corruption-guatemala-revolution-or-neoliberal-outrage">political dealings</a>, nurtured <a href="https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Crimen-y-Violencia-GT-ENG-8.9.pdf">criminal activity</a> and perpetuated <a href="https://apnews.com/article/0b7f28a8ab5645e58fb2d708d27e3adf">high poverty levels</a>.</p>
<p>Guatemalans have taken an active – perhaps even activist – posture toward the kleptocracy. </p>
<p>In 2015, they <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/9/3/people-power-and-the-guatemalan-spring">took to the streets en masse</a> to protest government corruption. Their mobilization bolstered the actions of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/09/guatemala-president-otto-perez-molina-cicig-corruption-investigation">International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala</a>, or CICIG, a U.N.-backed body tasked with investigating and prosecuting crime and strengthening Guatemala’s judicial system. </p>
<p>The commission’s probe led to the prosecution of Guatemalan officials for corruption, including former President <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-president-to-prison-otto-perez-molina-and-a-day-for-hope-in-guatemala">Otto Pérez Molina</a> and former Vice President <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/guatemala-president-implicated-in-customs-fraud-scandal/">Roxana Baldetti</a>. However, the government expelled CICIG in 2019. In response, the Guatemalan public accused political elites, high-ranking bureaucrats and business leaders of forming a “<a href="https://nomada.gt/pais/la-corrupcion-no-es-normal/el-pacto-de-corruptos-2-0-resumido-en-5-puntos/">pact of the corrupt</a>” to thwart the fight against corruption.</p>
<h2>Anti-corruption candidate’s surprising win</h2>
<p>Guatemala’s 2023 general elections were held amid this fragile political climate. </p>
<p>In the weeks leading up to election day, the constitutional court, on what <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/24/americas/guatemala-elections-president-corruption-intl-latam/index.html">critics say</a> were questionable grounds, disqualified two rising political outsiders: <a href="https://nacla.org/thelma-cabrera-we-are-fighting-plurinational-state-and-well-being-peoples">Thelma Cabrera</a>, an Indigenous leftist candidate, and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-elections-carlos-pineda-df6ee50218f10b5fc8398a7531ea2d39">Carlos Pineda</a>, a conservative businessman and populist who gained a large following on social media. </p>
<p>This judicial meddling in the electoral process, however, opened the way for another political outsider, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/primavera-democratica-conversation-president-elect-bernardo-arevalo-guatemala">Bernardo Arévalo</a> of the left-of-center <a href="https://arevalopresidente.com/">Seed Movement party</a>. An increasing number of Guatemalans, including young voters, saw Arévalo and his <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/137QmBdLM70p_5ZhTsAYffbin--URNfcZ/view">anti-corruption platform</a> as an alternative to establishment candidates such as former first lady <a href="https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-election-sandra-torres-74ce43addf2ec3f36f356fd034546cc0">Sandra Torres</a>, who led most polls in the weeks before the election.</p>
<p>The election results <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/202307/columnas/26958/la-primera-vuelta-en-guatemala-marco-record-en-latinoamerica">sent shock waves</a> through the political system. Arévalo received 11.8% of the general vote, second only to Torres’ 15.9%. Because no candidate received a majority, a runoff election was held on Aug. 20. Arévalo won handily with <a href="https://segundaeleccion.trep.gt/#!/tc1/ENT">58% of the vote</a> compared with Torres’ 37%. </p>
<p>Arévalo is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/guatemalas-unlikely-presidential-victor-follows-fathers-footsteps-2023-08-21/">not a political neophyte</a>. He has served as a diplomat and currently occupies a seat in Congress. He is also the son of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/08/obituaries/juan-jose-arevalo-is-dead-at-86-guatemala-president-in-late-40-s.html">Juan José Arévalo</a>, the country’s first democratically elected president.</p>
<h2>Guatemalans take to streets</h2>
<p>After the election, political elites, including members of Torres’ National Unity of Hope party and President Alejandro Giammattei’s Vamos party, alleged – <a href="https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/07/10/corte-suprema-guatemala-tribunal-electoral-resultados-elecciones-presidenciales-orix/">incorrectly</a>, it turned out – that the electoral software <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2023-07-02/la-sala-constitucional-de-guatemala-suspende-la-oficializacion-de-los-resultados-electorales-y-ordena-depurarlos.html">had favored Arévalo’s candidacy</a>. They attempted to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-election-court-president-35acfbf1a26f905c99f4e05b4578c288">stop the results</a> from being made official.</p>
<p>More consequently, the Public Ministry, led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, accused Arévalo’s party of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/guatemala-attorney-general-determined-block-arevalo-office-sources-2023-10-19/">using false signatures</a> during its registration process. It contended that up to 100 out of the 25,000 signatures required for registration were falsified. On July 21, one month before the runoff election, Public Ministry officials <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/21/guatemala-police-raid-office-of-semilla-presidential-candidate">raided the Seed Movement’s headquarters</a> and asked a judge to suspend the party. </p>
<p>Despite Arévalo’s resounding victory on Aug. 20, the Public Ministry continued to try to suspend his party. On Sept. 29, it took the unprecedented action of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/guatemalan-authorities-raid-electoral-facilities-open-boxes-of-votes">raiding the offices of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal</a>, the highest electoral authority.</p>
<p>Disgusted by this interference in the electoral process and fearful over the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1212635508/guatemala-president-elect-bernardo-arevalo-interview">prospect of a coup</a>, Guatemalans took to the streets. The protests that began on Oct. 2 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204800590/after-8-days-of-peaceful-protests-in-guatemala-demonstrations-turn-violent">brought the country to a standstill</a> for more than 10 days and united the urban and rural population.</p>
<p>Echoing a long-standing <a href="https://www.unmpress.com/9780826348661/for-every-indio-who-falls/">history of Indigenous activism</a> in Guatemala, prominent Indigenous groups such as the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=222887414099385">Peasant Committee for Development</a> and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/guatemalas-indigenous-leaders-take-to-the-street-in-nationwide-protests">48 Cantones of Totonicapán</a> played a vital role in the protests. Indigenous people, who make up nearly half of Guatemala’s population, face <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/guatemala/overview">high poverty rates</a>, <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/guatemala/our-work/health-and-nutrition">poor access to health care</a> and environmental degradation of their lands caused by <a href="https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/extractive-industries-in-guatemala-historic-maya-resistance-movements/">mining and hydroelectric projects</a>. </p>
<p>For many Indigenous voters, the election interference highlighted the relationship between government corruption and their socioeconomic inequality. The central role of Indigenous communities in the protests signaled a new grassroots movement with the potential of replicating the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X8000700212">multiracial and multiclass coalitions</a> that had emerged during the armed conflict in the 1970s.</p>
<h2>Key driver of migration</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/19/report-on-the-u-s-strategy-for-addressing-the-root-causes-of-migration-in-central-america/">U.S. officials</a> and <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/guatemala/migration#:%7E:text=Corruption%3A,migrate%20among%20victims%20of%20corruption.">agencies</a> report that political corruption in Guatemala is a <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/guatemala/migration#:%7E:text=Corruption%3A,migrate%20among%20victims%20of%20corruption">root cause of migration</a>. In 2023, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/IF11151.pdf">200,000</a> Guatemalans trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.</p>
<p>Guatemalans themselves understand all too well how kleptocracy reinforces the country’s social ills. They realize that democratic backsliding not only may prevent Arévalo from assuming the presidency, but it can also rob their communities of resources needed to <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/guatemala/our-work/health-and-nutrition#:%7E:text=More%20than%20six%20million%20people,basic%20health%20and%20nutrition%20services.">strengthen health care</a>, <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/guatemala/our-work/education">improve education</a>, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/guatemala/overview#:%7E:text=Poverty%20is%20estimated%20at%2055.2,at%2049%20percent%20of%20GDP">create jobs</a>, <a href="https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/stories/guatemala-search-cases-child-malnutrition-are-hidden-pandemic">reduce malnutrition</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/hungry-desperate-climate-change-fuels-migration-crisis-guatemala-rcna2135">fight climate change</a>. Without these improvements, many will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/lens/central-americans-migrate-united-states.html">continue to migrate</a>, despite the many perils of doing so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bonar Hernández Sandoval does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anti-democratic actions and government corruption are key reasons many Guatemalans migrate to the US.Bonar Hernández Sandoval, Associate Professor of History, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155202023-10-30T19:03:52Z2023-10-30T19:03:52ZDarien Gap: As migrants take deadly risks for better lives, Canada and the U.S. must do much more<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/darien-gap-as-migrants-take-deadly-risks-for-better-lives-canada-and-the-us-must-do-much-more" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller recently announced that as many as 15,000 displaced people with extended family connections in Canada — most of them from Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela and located in Central or South America or the Caribbean — <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/10/statement-from-minister-miller-on-canadas-commitment-to-support-migrants-in-the-americas.html">are now eligible to apply to immigrate to Canada</a> on a humanitarian basis. </p>
<p>By announcing this measure, Canada affirmed its commitment to <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration">a joint initiative, known as Safe Mobility</a>, launched by the United States in April 2023 to stem the irregular crossings of hundreds of thousands of people into the U.S. by offering alternatives.</p>
<p>These 15,000 people represent a small number of as many as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/americas-migration-crisis-panama-texas-1.6982215">400,000 displaced people</a> expected to cross the Darien Gap, a 100-kilometre stretch of treacherous jungle shared by Colombia and Panama, in 2023 in search of safety, security and protection.</p>
<p>Forced to migrate by political instability, repression and other hardships, people from Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Haiti represent most of the displaced people who have crossed the Darien Gap in the last few years. </p>
<p>As many migrants told us when <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2441">we interviewed </a> them in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12701">Tijuana</a> in northern Mexico and Tapachula in the south of Mexico between 2018 and 2022, crossing the continent is not for the faint of heart. </p>
<p>They may experience harassment, extortion or detention by migration authorities, violence perpetrated by criminals and abuse by deceitful unscrupulous smugglers. The number of lives lost in the Darien Gap, including children and adolescents, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01635-5">is increasing</a>. </p>
<h2>Cracking down in Costa Rica</h2>
<p>In the past, at least for Venezuelans, it was not necessary to cross the jungle. They were able to travel to Costa Rica, for instance, by air. As many as 12,533 Venezuelans <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/costa-rican-migration-immigrant-integration-policy">applied for refugee status</a> in Costa Rica between 2015 and August 2021. </p>
<p>But to curtail this flow, the Costa Rican government introduced a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2023.100151">visa requirement</a> in 2022 for Venezuelans, forcing people who wished to travel to the country to undertake the dangerous journey through the Darien Gap.</p>
<p>But the problems for Venezuelan asylum-seekers don’t end there. As the migrants and NGO representatives in our study told us, the current wait time for the first eligibility interview with Costa Rican immigration officials is 10 years. The Costa Rican refugee unit is <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/costa-rican-migration-immigrant-integration-policy">severely under-resourced and heavily reliant on international assistance</a>. </p>
<p>Further curtailing refugee rights, Costa Rica introduced <a href="https://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&param2=1&nValor1=1&nValor2=98356&nValor3=133735&strTipM=TC&lResultado=2&nValor4=1&strSelect=sel">reforms in late 2022</a> that prevent asylum-seekers who have travelled through third countries from making refugee claims.</p>
<h2>Nicaraguan refugees</h2>
<p>Ironically, the vast majority of the refugee applications Costa Rica receives today are not from people who cross the Darien Gap. The <a href="https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/17/nicaragua-on-the-brink-protests-elections-and-mass-atrocity/">political violence and repression in Nicaragua since 2018</a> have propelled many to flee to Costa Rica. </p>
<p>As of June 2022, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/record-emigration-nicaragua-crisis#:%7E:text=The%20erosion%20of%20democracy%20and,of%20the%20Cold%20War%20era.">Costa Rica hosted</a> 205,000 asylum seekers — 89 per cent of them from Nicaragua. </p>
<p>To deter new arrivals from Nicaragua from presenting refugee claims or obtaining the status, the Costa Rican reforms announced on December 2022 changed certain rules and regulations. These measures were criticized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and NGO representatives we interviewed in Costa Rica in 2023. In fact, the <a href="https://delfino.cr/2023/02/sala-iv-condena-al-estado-por-decreto-de-chaves-que-limita-libertad-de-transito-de-refugiados">Costa Rican Supreme Court</a> found some provisions of these reforms unconstitutional.</p>
<h2>The scene in Mexico</h2>
<p>Unlike Costa Rica, Mexico, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/02/executive-order-creating-a-comprehensive-regional-framework-to-address-the-causes-of-migration-to-manage-migration-throughout-north-and-central-america-and-to-provide-safe-and-orderly-processing/">under pressure from the U.S.</a>, encourages migrants in transit toward the U.S. border to seek asylum in Mexico. </p>
<p>By the end of 2022, the <a href="https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/792337/Cierre_Diciembre-2022__31-Dic.__1.pdf">number of refugee claimants</a> in Mexico from other Central American countries, Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba had reached 120,000. </p>
<p>However, they were forced to remain in the southern state of Chiapas while their claims were reviewed, and the migrants we interviewed reported harassment by official authorities and destitution.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/FINAL-Struggling-to-Survive-Asylum-Seekers-in-Tapachula.pdf">Other studies</a> support their claims. Furthermore, most migrants we interviewed in Mexico told us they had no intention of staying in Mexico even if recognized as refugees because they did not consider the country safe.</p>
<h2>U.S., Canada, must step up</h2>
<p>In April 2023, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security announced new measures to deport all migrants and asylum-seekers who crossed the southern U.S. border by irregular means. The U.S. also introduced the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration">Safe Mobility initiative</a> to process applications for admissions submitted in offices set up in Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala.</p>
<p>The U.S. promised to admit up to <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/CHNV">30,000 people</a> a month from <a href="https://movilidadsegura.org/en/">Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba and Haiti</a>. Not only is this protection status temporary — a two-year <a href="https://helpspanish.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1639?language=en_US#:%7E:text=Humanitarian%20Parole%20is%20granted%20to,reason%20or%20significant%20public%20benefit.">humanitarian parole</a> rather than permanent residency — but it’s conditional upon a “supporter” present in the U.S. </p>
<p>Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/10/statement-from-minister-miller-on-canadas-commitment-to-support-migrants-in-the-americas.html">recent announcement</a> fails to make it clear whether admitting 15,000 displaced people is a one-off measure or whether Canada is setting an annual target.</p>
<p>Regardless, it doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the needs of the displaced people in the Americas. Canada should consider expanding its refugee resettlement program to assist more asylum-seekers in desperate conditions in this region, not only those with family ties in Canada.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Basok receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guillermo Candiz receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Migrants who cross the treacherous Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia often experience violence and abuse, extortion or detention by migration authorities.Tanya Basok, Professor, Sociology, University of WindsorGuillermo Candiz, Assistant Professor, Human Plurality, Université de l'Ontario françaisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1935082022-11-11T13:14:02Z2022-11-11T13:14:02Z‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ continues the series’ quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494547/original/file-20221109-11077-dnjqha.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=109%2C2%2C791%2C523&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Talokan is inspired by Mesoamerica, a vast area that encompasses Central America and parts of Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://boundingintocomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022.10.04-09.56-boundingintocomics-633cac0bc8998.png">Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UlX5LEoAAAAJ&hl=en">As someone who teaches and writes about Afrofuturism</a>, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>.” I’m particularly excited about the introduction of Namor and the hidden kingdom of Talokan, which he leads.</p>
<p>The first “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a>” film adhered to a longstanding practice in Afrofuturist stories and art by engaging in what I call “acts of recovery” – the process of reviving and celebrating elements of Black culture that were destroyed or suppressed by colonization. This practice is often linked to “<a href="https://www.berea.edu/cgwc/the-power-of-sankofa/">Sankofa</a>,” an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that roughly translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”</p>
<p>“Wakanda Forever” pulls from the past in the same way, but with a twist: Talokan is inspired not by African cultures, but by <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-mesoamerica">Mesoamerica</a>, a vast area that covers most of Central America and part of Mexico.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A theory of time</h2>
<p>The idea that African knowledge and contributions to science and culture have been erased and must be recovered is central to Afrofuturism. The term, which was <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-afrofuturism-an-english-professor-explains-183707">coined in 1994</a>, describes a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history.</p>
<p>On its home page, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160411045955/https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/afrofuturism/info">the Afrofurist listserv</a>, an email list organized by social scientist <a href="http://www.alondranelson.com/">Alondra Nelson</a> in 1998, pointed to this process of recovery as a central tenet of the genre:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, cultural producers of the African diaspora composed unique visions on the world at hand and the world to come. This speculation has been called AfroFuturism – cultural production that simultaneously references a past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation; celebrates the unique aesthetic perspectives inspired by these fractured histories; and imagines the possible futures of black life and ever-widening definitions of ‘blackness.’” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This fascination with uncovering the ways in which Black contributions have been erased and suppressed means that Afrofuturist works often mine the past as a first step toward creating visions of the future. </p>
<p>Afrofuturist scholars such as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kinitra-Brooks">Kinitra Brooks</a> even describe Afrofuturism as <a href="https://d.lib.msu.edu/vbi/7">a theory of time</a>. For her, the “present, past, and future” exist together, creating the opportunity to push against the systemic devaluation of Black people that occurred during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and persists in contemporary anti-Black violence.</p>
<h2>Looking back to see tomorrow</h2>
<p>This recovery can take many forms. </p>
<p>Several Black writers published serialized novels of speculative fiction, such as Martin R. Delany’s “<a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/blake-or-the-huts-of-america-1859-1861/">Blake: Or the Huts of America</a>,” a slave revolt story written between 1859 and 1861. Pauline Hopkins’ “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69255">Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self</a>,” published in 1903, tells the story of mixed-race Harvard medical students who discover Telassar, a hidden city in Ethiopia, home to an advanced society possessing technology and mystical powers.</p>
<p>Both narratives refuse to depict Black culture as backwards or impotent, and instead celebrate Black empowerment and the rich cultural legacies of Black people.</p>
<p>Curator <a href="https://www.ingridlafleur.com/">Ingrid Lafleur</a> has long talked about how Afrofuturist visual aesthetics relies on recovering ancient <a href="https://youtu.be/x7bCaSzk9Zc">African cosmology</a>. You can see this practice in the work of musical artists such as <a href="https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/sun-ra">Sun Ra</a>, who used Egyptian symbolism throughout his work, and visual artists such as <a href="https://youtu.be/IktCTXffjIc">Kevin Sipp</a>, who remixes and reimagines African cultural symbolism to create sculptures and visual work that fuse past styles and symbols with contemporary practices.</p>
<p>Simply put, a reverence for ancestral knowledge and culture is the beating heart of Afrofuturism, and has become an integral part of Afrofuturism’s mission to forge a better future.</p>
<h2>Mesoamerica takes center stage</h2>
<p>The first “Black Panther” film celebrated an array of African cultures. </p>
<p>Costume designer Ruth Carter deliberately infused elements from across the continent <a href="https://youtu.be/mmP1aHJjJ-U">in every scene</a>. For example, the headdress worn by Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett, was inspired by the <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/533926">isicholo</a>, a South African hat traditionally associated with married women. And Lupita Nyong'o’s Nakia wore clothing inspired by <a href="https://www.atlasofhumanity.com/suri">the Suri tribe</a>. </p>
<p>And so the film highlighted African cultures not by depicting them as fragile or foundering, but as paragons of artistry and sophistication.</p>
<p>In “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” these themes are explored both in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri, and in the depiction of Namor and the kingdom of Talokan. </p>
<p>While Talokan is an underwater society inspired by <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/classical-literature-mythology-and-folklore/folklore-and-mythology/atlantis">the myth of Atlantis</a>, Marvel Studios has signaled that the people of Talokan sought refuge underwater in response to colonial invasion. </p>
<p>By invoking the complexities of this history – and seemingly leaning heavily on parallels to Mayan culture – the film celebrates a society that scholarship has long noted for its <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/kislak/tortuguerobox/index.html">achievements</a> in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-6326/">architecture</a>, <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016ASPC..501..265V/abstract">mathematics</a>, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/the-heavens-and-time.html">astronomy</a> and <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/language-and-context.html">language</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman with feathered hat stands next to soldiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The costumes of Talokan soldiers were inspired by Mesoamerican culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wakanda_Forever_Talokan.jpg">Marvel Studios</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>History books <a href="https://www.americanyawp.com/text/01-the-new-world/">reference these accomplishments</a>. But in popular culture, there’s little attention given to this cultural landscape.</p>
<p>Namor and the kingdom he leads are poised to remind a global audience of the rich world of Mesoamerica that thrived – until European <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/explorations-and-encounters.html">contact</a> beginning in 1502 led to conquest, decline and eradication. </p>
<p>Today, immigration, trade and drug trafficking dominate discussions of Central America and Mexico in the U.S. media. This film, on the other hand, invites the viewer to appreciate the profound cultural legacy of Mexican and Central American civilizations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian C. Chambliss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whereas the first ‘Black Panther’ film celebrated an array of African cultures, the follow-up seeks to also highlight the rich legacy of Mesoamerican cultures destroyed by colonial conquest.Julian C. Chambliss, Professor of English, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1898582022-10-27T19:42:12Z2022-10-27T19:42:12ZCanadian mining project in Guatemala opposed in local vote over environmental concerns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491600/original/file-20221025-18-ne5qnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C476%2C1751%2C850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Cerro Blanco mining site is located in Guatemala's department of Jutiapa, which borders El Salvador and the Pacific ocean.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bluestoneresources.ca/cerro-blanco-project/photo-gallery/#&gid=1&pid=2">(Bluestone Resources)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent historic move, locals from Asunción Mita, Guatemala, voiced their opposition in a referendum on the mining projects that have affected their community for decades. <a href="https://www.prensacomunitaria.org/2022/09/acciones-de-bluestone-resources-se-derrumban-tras-rechazo-a-mineria-en-asuncion-mita/?fbclid=IwAR0lRfugLkmyLnA6ZbGiTyLNWMOsM6rd22TLakin8vjvGVXDk93IfbQYm7s">Eighty nine per cent</a> of them voted “no” to the development of mining activities, like the Cerro Blanco gold and silver open-pit mine owned by Bluestone Resources — a Canadian mining company — in a municipal consultation held last month.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1577746948660117507">arsenic liberated in the proposed open-pit mine’s gold extraction process</a> can cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-21729-0_3">toxic leaching</a>
and long-lasting contamination that affects the supply of water for drinking, agriculture and cattle rearing by local communities.</p>
<p>Despite the resistance, Bluestone Resources, <a href="https://mem.gob.gt/blog/el-ministerio-de-energia-y-minas-mem/">Guatemala’s Ministry of Energy and Mines</a> and a local pro-mining group tried to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/guatemalans-strongly-reject-mining-project-in-local-referendum/">contest the legality of the voting process in an attempt to illegitimize it</a>. </p>
<p>While this consultation is binding for the municipal council and the mayor — <a href="http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/40VtLRev597-Aldana-Abate.pdf">responsible for issuing local mining permits</a> — the Guatemalan Constitutional Court <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/guatemala-court-nullifies-mining-referendum">nullified the consultation results</a> after an injunction filed by a Bluestone Resources subsidiary, Elevar Resources. </p>
<p>The community, along with social and environmental organizations in the neighbouring countries of El Salvador and Honduras, plan to take the <a href="https://twitter.com/malayerbacom/status/1581382359785406464?s=20&t=q6YHMX3lYg6fShhy6iXPJQ&fbclid=IwAR00QgLdJ1UmMmFDFqu7Z17yQIDZQiQsbWVoX8H9vzC7NR9ilmYRE_i1dPw">consultation case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights</a>. Local consultations like these remain the most effective instrument for communities to express their consent, and they need to be supported.</p>
<h2>From tunnel to open-pit mining</h2>
<p>After <a href="https://ilas.sas.ac.uk/research-projects/legal-cultures-subsoil/2019-meeting-congress-question-government-officials-cerro">denying Goldcorp, the former owner of Cerro Blanco,</a> a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2011.00529.x">licence to conduct large-scale mining projects</a> due to scarce and inconsistent information on environmental impacts, Guatemala’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources granted the mining company a 25-year licence in 2007.</p>
<p>The ministry <a href="https://acafremin.org/es/noticias-regionales/el-salvador/487-rios-majestuosos-con-arsenico-y-sin-oro">approved an Environmental Impact Assesment</a> that overlooked the concerns, such as the pollution of the Lempa river, presented by the Guatemalan MadreSelva environmental collective and locals from Asunción Mita. Goldcorp was, however, unable to extract minerals from these tunnel mines due to heat and other issues.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Miners enter a mining site" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483401/original/file-20220908-13-snqyrv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miners enter the Cerro Blanco site. According to the 2021 environmental impact assessment, the tunnel mining process will shift to an open-pit one.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(ACAFREMIN)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bluestone Resources took over the mine from Goldcorp in 2017. In November 2021, the company submitted a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2022-01-12/bluestone-reviews-progress-at-cerro-blanco-during-2021-and-submits-permit-amendment">permit amendment application</a> — spanning more than 3,000 pages — that spoke of an open pit rather than a tunnel-mining extraction process.</p>
<p>While the tunnel mine would extract thermal water, flowing at a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282862065_Mita_a_Newly_Discovered_Geothermal_System_in_Guatemala">temperature of 80 C to 120 C </a> with a high content of arsenic and heavy metals, the recently approved open pit mining uses a dry stack tailings storage technique. The silty, sandy material left over after metal extraction, called <a href="https://www.tailings.info/disposal/drystack.htm">filter tailings</a>, are compacted in a mound and stored at the base of a dam in upstream construction methods.</p>
<p>When waterlogged, the tailings can liquefy and reduce the friction that binds an earthen dam together, risking <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/09/world/americas/brazil-dam-collapse.html">disastrous collapses</a>. <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/catastrophic-failures-raise-alarm-about-dams-containing-muddy-mine-wastes">That’s why this method</a> has been banned in Chile and Brazil in South America. </p>
<h2>Strategic support in the consultation process</h2>
<p>Historically, <a href="https://earthworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NDG_DirtyMetalsReport_HR.pdf">communities closest to mining projects suffer</a> severe consequences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/economia/proyecto-minero-cerro-blanco-la-polemica-en-jutiapa-por-una-consulta-municipal-sobre-una-mina-canadiense/">Julio González</a>, from the MadreSelva environmental collective, says Bluestone Resources has publicly stated there’s local support for the project, blaming any opposition on external sources. But local organizations <a href="https://acafremin.org/es/blog/893-poblacion-organizada-de-asuncion-mita-exige-consulta-ciudadana-para-determinar-futuro-de-mina-cerro-blanco">collected more than 4,000 signatures from registered voters</a> to request the municipal authorities of Asunción Mita to carry out a consultation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A community meeting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483397/original/file-20220908-9316-trpuk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Communities organized a municipal consultation on Sept. 18, 2022 as per the municipal code.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(ACAFREMIN)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These groups have been receiving the support, advice and inspiration from the <a href="https://acafremin.org/es/prensa/comunicados/880-la-mineria-a-cielo-abierto-del-proyecto-cerro-blanco-amenaza-el-agua-de-las-y-los-salvadorenos">Central American Alliance Against Mining</a>, <a href="https://www.caritas.sv/nuestro-trabajo/noticias/380-iglesia-catolica-se-une-en-defensa-del-agua-y-la-vida">Salvadoran and Guatemalan Catholic Church representatives</a> and Pope Francis’s letter, <a href="https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/encyclical-letter-laudato-si-holy-father-francis-care-our-common-home"><em>Laudato Si</em></a>. </p>
<p>Preparing a plan for any major extractive project requires consulting <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/sites/amnesty/files/mining-in-guatemala-rights-at-risk-eng.pdf">affected Indigenous groups in the area</a>. The lack of consultation in the mining industry, as in Asunción Mita, has added to socio-environmental conflicts in Guatemala. </p>
<h2>Lack of consultation</h2>
<p>Until now, the Guatemalan government has never conducted a consultation before awarding an extraction license. </p>
<p>But it started suspending the licences of mines that failed to secure community support through consultation following the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_008061/lang--en/index.htm#:%7E:text=169%2C%201989">International Labour Organization Convention 169</a> that requires “governments to respect the traditional values of tribal and Indigenous peoples and to consult with them on decisions affecting their economic or social development.” Guatemala ratified it in 1996.</p>
<p>This was evident when the Guatemalan constitutional court <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/guatemalan-president-suspends-civil-rights-facilitate-nickel-mine-demand-battery-minerals">suspended the mining license for Fénix nickel mine in 2019</a> and ordered a consultation. </p>
<p>The Ministry of Energy and Mines plans to begin consultations on previously licensed projects such as <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/will-fenix-consultation-spur-mining-restart-in-guatemala">Kappes, Cassiday & Associates’ Tambor gold asset and 24 other non-metallic mining projects</a>.</p>
<h2>Transboundary necessities</h2>
<p>Cross-border issues, like shared watersheds and climate change, have started <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X21000249">new and crucial discussions on the sovereignty and safety of natural resources</a>. The Cerro Blanco mining activity in Guatemala poses a great threat to El Salvador and Honduras as well because they rely on the <a href="https://www.alharaca.sv/actualidad/proyecto-minero-cerro-blanco-amenaza-a-la-cuenca-del-lempa/?fbclid=IwAR2uRcIgJiDWQqBx8x-B4gdxlcWxC5jmh7Dbseu9KRZgY9Jqb-cek4sYmFI">Lempa river</a> to meet the water requirements of their 3.8 million residents.</p>
<p>Bluestone Resources said an <a href="https://bluestoneresources.ca/news/index.php?content_id=192">independent international consulting firm collected data from locals</a> and found “a positive attitude toward the project.” The company obtained the support of some locals by <a href="https://bluestoneresources.ca/_resources/presentations/Sustainable-Development2020.pdf">investing in infrastructure, education and promises of employment</a>, <a href="https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/environment/it-pains-me-to-tell-you-that-the-image-of-canada-is-severely-damaged/">creating divisions</a> within the community as those who oppose the mine are stigmatized and further marginalized.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A narrow river with green shrubbery on both sides and mountains in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483650/original/file-20220909-24-tavou1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The arsenic liberated from the ore while extracting gold in the Cerro Blanco mining project could result in toxic leaching and long-lasting contamination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(ACAFREMIN)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Establishing a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/10/el-salvador-mining-ban-water-security?_ga=2.8874677.1024722598.1642887606-1086285700.1642887606">regional agreement</a> about the Cerro Blanco mine’s impact on the Ostua basin, Lake Guija and the Lempa river, in the <a href="https://www.trinacionalriolempa.org/mtfrl/archivos/documentos/Trifinio-Mayors%20statement-06-JUN-2022.pdf">Trifinio-Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere</a>, is crucial. </p>
<p>Local citizens need to be able to exercise their constitutional right to participate in the consultation process for projects in their neighbourhoods that affect their environment, health and well-being. They need to be able to convey the voice of their community across borders.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://justice-project.org/the-canada-brand-violence-and-canadian-mining-companies-in-latin-america/">tendency to under-report social conflict in Latin America to foreign investors</a>, including those of Canadian mining companies, needs to change. </p>
<p>Canadian shareholders and concerned citizens should be aware of the impact and inadequacy of their mining companies in meeting international standards. And all of this starts with community consultation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giada Ferrucci consults to the Central Alliance on Mining (ACAFREMIN).</span></em></p>Locals from Asunción Mita, Guatemala recently voted against the development of mining activities in their municipality, in a referendum contested by a Canadian mining company that owns a gold mine.Giada Ferrucci, PhD Candidate, Media Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893412022-08-30T12:17:59Z2022-08-30T12:17:59ZAmazon, Starbucks worker wins recall earlier period of union success – when Central American migrants also expanded US labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480911/original/file-20220824-10117-pwpqn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=214%2C223%2C6281%2C4041&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of a union representing workers who clean New York City offices march in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UnionRally/aa4c7fffe7b54fffa5b90f35134d6013/photo?Query=justice%20for%20janitors&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tech workers, warehouse employees and baristas <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/recent-us-union-wins-amazon-starbucks-more-2022-04-01/">have notched many victories in recent months</a> at major U.S. companies long deemed long shots for unions, including Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. </p>
<p>To me, these recent union wins recall another pivotal period in the U.S. labor movement several decades ago. But that one was led by migrants from Central America.</p>
<p>I’ve been researching human rights and immigration from Central America since the 1980s. In today’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/26/president-trump-migrant-caravan-criminals/2112846002/">polarized debates</a> over immigration, the substantial contributions that Central American immigrants have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years rarely come up. One contribution in particular is how Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped expand the U.S. labor movement in the 1980s, organizing far-reaching workers’ rights campaigns in immigrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.</p>
<h2>Migrants and unions</h2>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-americans-and-asylum-policy-reagan-era">1 million</a> Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the United States from 1981 to 1990, fleeing army massacres, political persecution and civil war. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, I have <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-professor-s-trial-testimony-highlights-importance-of-public-scholarship">researched, taught and written about</a> this wave of migrants. Back then, President Ronald Reagan warned apocryphally that Central America was a threat to the United States, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/world/president-reagan-s-address-on-central-america-to-joint-session-of-congress.html">telling Congress</a> in 1983 that “El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts.”</p>
<p>Just 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who applied <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-20/news/mn-9376_1_asylum-cases">received asylum in the 1980s</a> – so few that a 1990 class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination compelled the U.S. government to reopen tens of thousands of cases. In recent years, about <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/fact-sheet-us-immigration-and-central-american-asylum-seekers">10% to 25%</a> of their asylum petitions were granted.</p>
<p>Then, as now, many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. worked in agriculture or service industries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-care-about-undocumented-immigrants-for-one-thing-theyve-become-vital-to-key-sectors-of-the-us-economy-98790">often under exploitative conditions</a>. Unionization barely touched these sectors in the 1980s.</p>
<p>More broadly, the bargaining power of labor unions was suffering under Reagan, whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/trump-is-no-reagan-when-it-comes-to-union-busting">presidency</a> started with his <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-012292">firing of 11,0000 striking air traffic controllers</a>. Downsizing and outsourcing at American companies in the 1980s also <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/618-an-injury-to-all">eroded union membership</a> and pushed wages down. </p>
<p>Many Guatemalans and Salvadorans were veteran community organizers. They had faced down government terror to participate in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-El-Salvador-Strife-Second/dp/0813300711">unions</a>, peasant leagues, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cry-People-Struggle-Catholic-Conflict/dp/0140060472">Catholic social justice campaigns</a> or <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/every-indio-who-falls/9780826348654">Indigenous rights</a> initiatives – all currents in 1980s revolutionary Central America. </p>
<p>Drawing on these experiences, many Central American immigrants began to organize in their U.S. workplaces, demanding higher wages and safer conditions. </p>
<h2>Salvadorans led Justice for Janitors to victory</h2>
<p>Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/16/justice-for-janitors">Justice for Janitors</a>, a <a href="https://www.seiu.org/about#campaigns">pioneering</a> low-paid workers’ movement that inspired today’s <a href="https://fightfor15.org">US$15 minimum wage campaign</a>. </p>
<p>Justice for Janitors began in Los Angeles in 1990. It aimed to reverse the wage drops that janitors suffered over the past decade. </p>
<p>Rather than do battle with the small subcontractors that hired cleaning crews for big office buildings, Justice for Janitors targeted the corporations that owned those buildings. Led by experienced Salvadoran unionists – some of whom had <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-03/news/ls-42727_1_yanira-merino/2">fled death squad violence</a> back home – the movement used nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes to expose exploitative labor practices. </p>
<p>Speaking out could be dangerous. Police once clubbed participants at a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/25-years-later-lessons-from-the-organizers-of-justice-for-janitors/">peaceful march</a> through Los Angeles’ Century City neighborhood on June 15, 1990. Undocumented workers feared deportation. </p>
<p>But it worked. Janitors in Los Angeles won a <a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/justice-for-janitors-seiu-raise-america/">22% raise</a> after their 1990 citywide strike, <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">showing</a> mainstream labor unions that even the city’s most marginalized workers – undocumented Central Americans, many of them women – had real organizing power. </p>
<p>Over the next decade, some <a href="http://socialjusticehistory.org/projects/justiceforjanitors/items/index/page/2">100,000 janitors nationwide joined the campaign</a>, under the banner of the <a href="http://www.seiu.org/justice-for-janitors">Service Employees Industrial Union</a>. The movement negotiated contracts that increased wages and health benefits for janitors across the U.S. </p>
<h2>Guatemalans defended Florida farmworkers</h2>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of people fled Guatemala during the early 1980s, escaping a <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403964472">genocidal army campaign</a> against Indigenous communities that left entire regions of its highlands charred and empty.</p>
<p>Roughly 20,000 of these Guatemalan refugees, many of whom spoke <a href="https://mayanlanguageimmigrationlawinfo.wordpress.com/languages/">Mayan languages</a>, landed in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maya-Exile-Guatemalans-Allan-Burns/dp/1566390362">Florida</a> in 1982, finding work in sweltering tomato farms and citrus groves. </p>
<p>Up to 90% of the fresh tomatoes in U.S. supermarkets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html">come from Florida</a>. </p>
<p>Working conditions in the state’s tomato fields were dismal in the 1980s. Migrants <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">earned just 40 cents</a> per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked. Some were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-project/index.html">forced by armed guards to work against their will</a>, as a 1997 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1997/November97/482cr.htm.html">court case about the use of slave labor in Florida’s tomato fields</a> exposed. </p>
<p>In 1993, Guatemalan immigrants joined with Florida’s Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a>, a community worker alliance that began in the basement of a local church in Immokalee, Florida. It <a href="https://legacy-etd.library.emory.edu/view/record/pid/emory:cr197">used strategies</a> common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Florida’s agricultural workers.</p>
<p>After five years of work stoppages, hunger strikes and marches, Florida’s tomato pickers won wage increases of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">up to 25%</a>. A multiyear nationwide boycott of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18187-2005Mar8.html">Taco Bell</a> convinced the fast-food chain in 2005 to increase the earnings of the farmworkers who supply its ingredients. Other fast-food giants followed suit. </p>
<p>In 2015, the Immokalee coalition launched the <a href="http://www.fairfoodprogram.org/">Fair Food Program</a>, an industrywide agreement with Florida tomato growers to promote strict health and safety standards and allow outside monitors to oversee working conditions. That same year, President Barack Obama gave the Coalition of Immokalee Workers the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/slavery/">Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts</a> in Combating Modern Day Slavery. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a farmworker on the ground passes a bucket of tomatoes to a worker in a truck full of tomatoes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, one of the United States’ most successful agricultural labor unions, collect tomatoes in Naples, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ImmigrationFlosridaAgriculturalWorkers/ab05c294590d44ca8f949ec97019ebf0/photo?Query=Immokalee%20farmworker&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=39">AP Photo/Wilfredo Leef</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guatemalans organized North Carolina poultry plants</h2>
<p>As Guatemalan migrants <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Faces-Places-Geography-Immigration/dp/0871545683">spread across the South</a> during the late 1980s, recruited by labor contractors in other states, they soon became a powerful organizing force in North Carolina, too. </p>
<p>Case Farms, a poultry company that supplies KFC, Taco Bell, Boar’s Head and the federal school lunch program, was a <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/08132015-0">notoriously dangerous</a> place to work. Safety regulations were routinely ignored to increase output, and workers suffered serious injuries – including losing limbs to cutting machines.</p>
<p>In 1990, the Guatemalan immigrants at Case Farms’ plant in Morganton, North Carolina, organized a union drive.</p>
<p>As labor historian Leon Fink describes in his book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807854471/the-maya-of-morganton/">The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South</a>,” Guatemalan poultry workers drew on prior organizing experiences back home – including coffee plantation strikes and Mayan pride movements – to organize workers. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://sohp.org/research/past-projects/listening-for-a-change/new-immigrants-and-labor/">five years</a> of walkouts, marches and hunger strikes, the Case Farm workers voted in 1995 to join the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The company refused to negotiate, however, and the union pulled out of contract talks after six years. </p>
<p>In 2017, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio challenged Case Farms to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-from-case-farms">explain its alleged violations of U.S. law</a>, after a New York Times and ProPublica investigation exposed ongoing abusive labor practices there. </p>
<p>These unionization stories show Central American migrants in a new light – not as criminals or victims, but as people who have helped make the U.S. a safer place for workers.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-central-american-migrants-helped-revive-the-us-labor-movement-109398">article originally published</a> on Jan. 18, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Oglesby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Often overlooked in the immigration debate are the contributions of migrants, such as how they helped organize workers in the 1990s.Elizabeth Oglesby, Associate Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1885732022-08-12T12:17:16Z2022-08-12T12:17:16ZWhat’s a banana republic? A political scientist explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478789/original/file-20220811-14242-18oqco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=299%2C59%2C3689%2C2697&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. banana growers heavily influenced several Central American governments in the early 20th century.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/undated-b-w-photo-shows-man-harvesting-bananas-underwood-news-photo/530848788?adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When someone mentions a “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/banana-republic-definition-4776041">banana republic</a>,” they’re referring to a small, poor, politically unstable country that is weak because of an excessive reliance on one crop and foreign funding. </p>
<p>The term originated as a way to describe the <a href="https://visualizingtheamericas.utm.utoronto.ca/key-moments/banana-republics/">experiences of many countries in Central America</a>, whose economies and politics were dominated by <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/where-we-got-term-banana-republic-180961813/">U.S.-based banana exporters at the turn of the 20th century</a>.</p>
<p>After the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/us/politics/fbi-search-trump.html">FBI’s August 2022 search of the residence of former President Donald Trump</a>, some Republicans <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1556788388828684295">compared the U.S. to a banana republic</a>. And in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, <a href="https://www.trendsmap.com/historical?q=bananarepublic">a surge of tweets</a> did the same.</p>
<p>Political instability within the U.S. has little to do with fruit. So why is the term being used?</p>
<h2>Subverting democracy to keep the cash flowing</h2>
<p>In the 1880s, the Boston Fruit Company, which later became the United Fruit Company and then Chiquita, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320900/banana-rise">began importing bananas from Jamaica</a> and launched a successful campaign to popularize them in the U.S. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pixelated portrait of man wearing a hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478783/original/file-20220811-20-b2ip4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Cuyamel Fruit Company hired mercenary Lee Christmas to overthrow the government of Honduras and install one friendlier to foreign business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Lee_Christmas.jpg">The New York Times via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As demand for bananas grew, large companies made deals with governments across Central America to fund infrastructure projects in exchange for land and policies that would allow them to expand production. </p>
<p>The growers often depended on authoritarian rule to protect land concessions and quell labor unrest that might shrink their profits. Sometimes, they would actively subvert democracy to reassert their influence. The Cuyamel Fruit Company, for example, supported a <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250033314/thefishthatatethewhale">coup in Honduras in 1911</a> that replaced its president with someone more aligned with U.S. interests. </p>
<p>Another well-known example is the 1954 <a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/07/the-controversial-history-of-united-fruit">CIA-orchestrated plot</a> on behalf of the United Fruit Company against Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. That coup ended the first real period of democracy that Guatemala had known. </p>
<p>The tight relationship between banana exporters and repressive and corrupt leaders ultimately undermined development in the region, exacerbated inequality and left Central American countries weak and misgoverned.</p>
<h2>Hyperbolic rhetoric?</h2>
<p>Responding to the events that unfolded leading up to and during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/07/05/gen-russel-honor-coup-attempt-put-us-in-the-banana-republic-club/">current and former government officals</a> commented that they resembled the instability of banana republics that were known for ignoring election results and overturning those results with coups – that’s exactly <a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.616.395&rep=rep1&type=pdf">what happened in Costa Rica in 1917</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1346912246291603465"}"></div></p>
<p>When American politicians and political commentators use the term, they’re often trying to conjure up images of corruption, repression and failures to stop executive overreach. They’re equating government officials with the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/tinpot-and-the-totalitarian-an-economic-theory-of-dictatorship/D461528F9B6C51D862ADE67D88A95DBB">tinpot dictators</a> supported by foreign interests who acted with impunity to govern by force and persecute their opponents. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1557190100353785856">A number</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RonDeSantisFL/status/1556803433939755010">of Republican politicians</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1556795946683580416?s=20&t=4iR9vXDJc9lkzI6LNqGtYw">invoked the term</a> in response to the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fbi-raid-maralago-live-updates-today-1732050">FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1556795946683580416"}"></div></p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/trumps-mar-lago-raid-doesnt-make-banana-republic/671082/">comparison isn’t apt</a>. It’s true that outgoing leaders are more likely to be investigated and punished by their political opponents in countries with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920905640">strong executives</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920905640">weak judiciaries</a>.</p>
<p>However, holding elected officials accountable for their actions and not allowing anyone to be above the law is actually <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/global-investigating-former-leaders-trump-sarkozy/">characteristic of a healthy democracy</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US grows hardly any tropical fruit. So why are politicians and political commentators saying the country is at risk of devolving into a banana republic?Matthew Wilson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837932022-06-09T14:12:57Z2022-06-09T14:12:57ZCentral America’s caravan of mothers: Personal grief and political grievance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467772/original/file-20220608-11-5i4dwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C73%2C5242%2C2899&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Nicaraguan mother holds a photograph of her son in Mexico City during the mother's caravan in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Mexican Mother’s Day on May 10, 2022, Central American and Mexican mothers searching for their disappeared children marched through the streets of Mexico City. </p>
<p>They demanded <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/10/mexico-women-march-to-demand-justice-answers-for-disappeared">answers from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador</a> and are seeking justice for their loved ones who suffer violence across the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVMR2l0Qoc">vertical border</a>, a reference to how the <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/06/migrants-trapped">U.S.-Mexico border has been extended</a> across all of Mexico territory to block Central American migrants.</p>
<p>Beyond their aim to find or at least learn what happened to their children, they grieve and collectively contest the brutalities that migrants in search of safety and protection are experiencing in Mexico today.</p>
<h2>Migrants disappearing</h2>
<p>The disappearances of Central American migrants in Mexico <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/migrant-disappearances-quadruple-mexico-2021-says-report-2022-05-11/">quadrupled in 2021</a>. This is a direct outcome of Mexico’s enhanced policing of unwanted migrant flows and directly related to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/08/the-race-to-dismantle-trumps-immigration-policies">selective, racist outsourcing migration policies</a> by the United States and Canada. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-role-of-canadian-mining-in-the-plight-of-central-american-migrants-120724">The role of Canadian mining in the plight of Central American migrants</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In recent years, I have witnessed the outcomes of a staggering number of kidnappings, arbitrary detentions, incarcerations and gendered violence in the region. Women’s rights and activist groups in Mexico stress that the government is both overseeing and actively concealing the situation.</p>
<p>They argue that exceptionally high rates of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2022/5/3/why-is-femicide-in-mexico-on-the-rise">both femicide</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/opinion/international-world/mexico-femicides-amlo.html">and impunity for its perpetrators</a>, along with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/world/americas/mexico-women-femicides.html">efforts to thwart feminist organizations</a>, are part of Mexico’s historical patriarchy and structural racial state violence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-mexico-how-erasing-black-history-fuels-anti-black-racism-175315">In Mexico, how erasing Black history fuels anti-Black racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1118382">National Centre for Human Identification</a> was recently established to improve and centralize the search for missing people. The centre <a href="https://nomorebloodinmexico.org/2022/05/01/mexico-creates-the-national-centre-for-human-identification-collectives-and-activists-see-it-as-a-big-step/">has been celebrated</a>, though the fact that it was established without a budget, as well as the role that the state itself plays in many of the disappearances, are disregarded.</p>
<p>Data collected by the National Search Commission recently reported that <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/mexico-disappeared-and-missing-people/">100,000 persons are officially listed as missing</a> in Mexico. Mothers, and groups supporting their search, believe the actual number — which is growing daily — is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-live-searching-mexico-families-look-missing-52000-arent-identified-rcna1836">much higher</a> while efforts to find missing people are largely inadequate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three women, all in masks, hold up photos of their loved ones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467779/original/file-20220608-24-o13vfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants of the caravan of mothers hold photos of their missing children in Mexico City in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The latest caravan of mothers</h2>
<p>In May 2022, I accompanied the <a href="https://pledgetimes.com/caravan-of-central-american-mothers-resumes-search-for-their-missing-children-in-mexico/">XVI Caravan of Mothers</a> from Central America through four Mexican states as they called attention to and demanded action for their disappeared children.</p>
<p>The final march in Mexico City ended a long list of political actions carried out in multiple cities by this year’s caravan, which was co-organized by <a href="https://movimientomigrantemesoamericano.org">el Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/PPEsperanza">Puentes de Esperanza</a> and national search committees from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. </p>
<p>Some of the mothers have participated in the caravan since it was <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1025051">first established in 2005</a>. Others, whose daughters and sons have disappeared in the last couple of years, joined for the first time as the COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions prevented them from initiating their search earlier.</p>
<p>Carrying portraits of their missing children, more than 60 mothers and other family members publicly displayed both their grief and their political grievances. In the words of Mayan community feminist Lorena Cabnal, <a href="https://porunavidavivible.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/feminismos-comunitario-lorena-cabnal.pdf">to “acuerpar”</a> involves taking personal and collective action via the gathering of mothers, outraged by the injustices experienced by their children, and generating political pressure. The closeness and collective indignation results in revitalization and new strength.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People hold up signs of their missing loves ones in a city square." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467785/original/file-20220608-24-rtbc8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participans of a caravan of Central American mothers hold photos of their missing children during a demonstration in Mexico City in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As one of the mothers told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This shared fight of grievance and hope momentarily displaces my pain. It gives me strength to continue the search and to denounce the systemic violence towards migrants.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The power of mothers</h2>
<p>Employing maternalism in political protests isn’t unique, but something seen in Latin America and other parts of the world throughout history. This includes mothers searching for their <a href="https://www.borderlinesicilia.it/en/news-en/jusqau-bout-tunisian-women-against-the-border-regime/">disappeared migrant children in Tunisia</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.44.3.0713">African-American mothers</a> calling out police brutality that has result in the murders of their children in the U.S. and families demanding answers about missing and murdered <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/red-dress-day-2022-bc-1.6443456">Indigenous women and girls in Canada</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mmiwg-the-spirit-of-grassroots-justice-lives-at-the-heart-of-the-struggle-118424">MMIWG: The spirit of grassroots justice lives at the heart of the struggle</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What is special about the Central American caravan of mothers, however, is how it is also an important space for collective self-care across borders. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-8601506">That concept</a> involves self-defence and political agency employed by those practising it.</p>
<p>This makes the caravan a space where, along with grieving, both personal and collective care are cultivated among the mothers who share the pain and indignation of not knowing if their children are dead or alive, and if still living, what they’re enduring. </p>
<p>Two disappeared people, in fact, <a href="https://allworldnews.site/2022/05/27/the-caravan-of-central-american-mothers-found-two-of-their-missing-children-in-mexico/">were found and reunited with their families during this year’s caravan</a>. Both had been arbitrarily incarcerated for years in Coatzacoalcos, in southeastern Mexico, and in Reynosa, near the Mexico-U.S. border.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1530320681853931520"}"></div></p>
<p>Collective self-care creates relationships and understanding that are not commonly seen elsewhere, according to <a href="https://ecologiesofmigrantcare.org/catalina-lopez/">Kata Lopez, a psychosocial worker from Guatemala</a> accompanying the searching mothers.</p>
<p>The caravan that takes place two weeks every year receives a lot of media attention, she says, while all the work that is done throughout the rest of the year is less known. </p>
<h2>Insights from three mothers</h2>
<p>I spoke often with the three co-ordinators of the national search committees — Eva from Honduras, Anita from El Salvador and Maria from Guatemala. Their search, together with other mothers and family members, is constant. </p>
<p>Every day there is something new happening, my phone never stops ringing, says Eva. And the more we work, the more cases of disappeared persons are reported to us. </p>
<p>This is the “other, less known pandemic,” adds Maria.</p>
<p>Anita points out that the world is only aware of a small fraction of Central American migrants who disappear in Mexico. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1521957587905761281"}"></div></p>
<p>The three mothers agree that their fight is difficult, but that they cannot and do not want to leave #HastaEncontrarles (until we find them in English), until their children are found.</p>
<p>It’s a cause that should affect us all, they say, since it illustrates what so many people are experiencing as they navigate a violent and unjust world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linn Biorklund is affiliated with York University Centre for Refugee Studies and Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean. She receives funding from Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). </span></em></p>Migrant disappearances in Mexico have quadrupled. Here’s how Central American mothers searching for their disappeared children grieve and call out injustices in politically effective ways.Linn Biörklund, PhD candidate in Geography, Research Fellow at the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1741532022-01-02T12:58:08Z2022-01-02T12:58:08ZGuatemala: 25 years later, ‘firm and lasting peace’ is nowhere to be found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438892/original/file-20211222-13-azfmuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5184%2C3313&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Mayan spiritual guide arranges crosses, marked with the names of people who died in the nation's civil war, in a circle in preparation for a ceremony marking the National Day of Dignity for the Victims of Armed Internal Conflict. Guatemalans annually honor the victims of the 36-year civil war that ended in 1996 on Feb. 25. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dec. 29 marked the 25th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.c-r.org/accord/guatemala">signing of a peace accord</a> that effectively brought 36 years of armed conflict in Guatemala to an end. When <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/guatemala-firmlastingpeace96">what’s known as the Firm and Lasting Peace Accord</a> was signed, the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/latin_america-jan-june11-timeline_03-07">Guatemalan Civil War</a> was one of the longest, bloodiest conflicts in 20th-century Latin America.</p>
<p>A quarter century later, the peace that was supposed to be “firm and lasting” is anything but. If any peace prevails in Guatemala, it is a peace resembling war.</p>
<p>As a researcher with long-standing interests in the historical geography of Latin America, I have studied Guatemala for many years. A <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/beauty-that-hurts254">2019 memoir I wrote</a> revisits the impact of Guatemala’s military-dominated state on its Indigenous Maya Peoples.</p>
<h2>A legacy of violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/26/guatemalan-genocide-survivors-march-for-justice">More than 80 per cent</a> of the civil war casualties were unarmed Indigenous Mayas. A <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/1997/02/truth-commission-guatemala">United Nations-backed commission</a> charged the Guatemalan military forces with genocide and held them responsible for 93 per cent of the killings. Guerrilla insurgents, fighting to overthrow the regime, were attributed three per cent of the atrocities.</p>
<p>American anthropologist Victoria Sanford <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754830802070192">summed up the dire situation</a> following the war this way: if the number of victims kept rising, “more people will die in the first 25 years of peace” than during the country’s brutal civil war, which a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/357870-guatemala-memory-of-silence">UN inquiry documented at more than 200,000</a>. </p>
<p>Sanford’s grim reckoning is manifested in Guatemalan <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=GT">homicide rates</a>. In 2009, murders amounted to a staggering 45 for every 100,000 inhabitants. By comparison, Canada’s homicide rate was 1.95 per 100,000 people in 2020, and in the United States it was 7.8.</p>
<p>Most violent deaths in Guatemala are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/guatemala">never investigated</a>, let alone brought before the courts. The cause of most deaths is no longer overtly political in nature, but instead related to gang violence, drug trafficking, extortion rackets, fraudulent dealings and <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2021/12/talks-planned-to-end-100-year-guatemala-indigenous-dispute">the settling of age-old scores.</a></p>
<p>During some of the post-accord years — in 2006 for example — there were as many as 500 murders, amounting to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7081312.stm">17 a day</a>.</p>
<h2>Neoliberalism and massive inequality</h2>
<p>Álvaro Arzú was the president of Guatemala when the peace accord was signed in 1996. Although he was one of the officials who signed it, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-26-mn-12004-story.html">three years later he refused to acknowledge that the atrocities committed during the conflict actually occurred</a> — at least not to the extent alleged, and not by the Guatemalan army.</p>
<p>Under his neoliberal policies, not only did widespread poverty and massive inequality — the primary reasons for confrontation in the first place — remain unaddressed, but they actually increased. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1999, the <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/beauty-that-hurts254">findings of a UN survey of human development ranked Guatemala</a> 117th globally in terms of quality of life, well behind Central American neighbour Costa Rica (ranked 45th) and trailing two others known to be desperately poor, El Salvador (107th) and Honduras (114th).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in suits shaking hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438895/original/file-20211222-48178-9v88or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales (2016-2020), right, shakes hands with former President Alvaro Arzu (1996-2000) during an official ceremony to mark the 21st anniversary of the 1996 peace accords that ended Guatemala’s civil war on Dec. 29, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Over-exploited, not under-developed</h2>
<p>Guatemala is not an under-developed country. On the contrary, Guatemala is a country rich in resources, natural and human. But it has been crippled by the distribution of its resources, especially land, and is rife with inequality. </p>
<p>Unequal land distribution lies at the heart of Guatemala’s problems. The country is still strikingly rural, with the lives of thousands of low-income families and those of a privileged few connected by the politics of land ownership. </p>
<p>In Guatemala, 90 per cent of farms account for 16 per cent of total farm area, while two per cent of the total number of farms occupy 65 per cent of total farmland. The best land is used to grow coffee, cotton, bananas and sugar cane for export, <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/beauty-that-hurts254">not to feed malnourished local populations</a>. Until this imbalance is redressed, problems will endure.</p>
<h2>Corrupt leadership</h2>
<p>Five presidents who succeeded Arzú all promised economic and social improvement, especially for the 85 per cent of their 17 million citizens <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/beauty-that-hurts254">deemed by the UN</a> to live in poverty — 70 per cent of them in a state of extreme poverty. None has done any better than Arzú. </p>
<p>Mired by charges of corruption, two former presidents (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-portillo-idUSKBN0LT28F20150225">Alfonso Portillo</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/americas/guatemala-corruption-colom-oxfam.html">Álvaro Colom</a>) were imprisoned after leaving office. Another, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/guatemala-president-molina-jail-1.3215316">Otto Pérez Molina</a>, was removed from office and jailed for accepting bribes so businesses could avoid paying import duties. </p>
<p>An International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-what-cicig">established in 2006</a> to investigate virulent wrongdoing. The UN-backed CICIG dismantled 60 criminal bands and prosecuted 680 prominent individuals for corrupt activities. In 2019, however, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/9/1/guatemalas-anti-corruption-cicig-body-to-shut-down-what-to-know">its mandate was revoked and its officers banished</a> by then-president Jimmy Morales. </p>
<h2>‘Witch hunt’</h2>
<p>Current president Alejandro Giammattei operates similarly to his predecessors. He <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/24/guatemala-attorney-general-fires-top-anti-corruption-prosecutor">dismissed anti-corruption prosecutors</a> brave enough to hold tax evaders and money launderers to account. </p>
<p>Giammattei asserts that anti-corruption initiatives have become a witch hunt in which left-leaning lawyers — like judge Juan Francisco Sandoval, who served as Head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity — vilify those on the opposite end of the political spectrum. </p>
<p>“Everybody has a right to their own ideology,” Giammattei said in a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/exclusive-guatemalan-president-says-graft-fighter-biased-ahead-harris-visit-2021-06-02/">recent media interview</a>. “The problem is when you transfer that ideology to your actions, and worse when you are in charge of justice.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people sit huddled together in the middle of a road" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438893/original/file-20211222-50538-x4cvb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters block a highway in Guatemala, after Indigenous leaders called for a nationwide strike to pressure Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to resign on July 29, 2021. The protest came in response to the firing of Special Prosecutor Against Impunity Juan Francisco Sandoval.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After being relieved of their duties, <a href="https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/07/24/anti-corruption-prosecutor-praised-by-us-flees-guatemala/">Sandoval and other prosecutors fled the country</a>, fearing for their safety. United States President Joe Biden’s administration has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-07-15/biden-expands-fight-against-corruption-central-america">expressed concern over corruption in Central America</a>, linking it to the despair Guatemalans feel about how they are governed and prompting many to seek a better life in <em>El Norte</em> (North America). </p>
<p>In the past year alone, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/guatemala-politics-corruption/">280,000 Guatemalans have been apprehended by American border officials</a> in failed attempts to enter the U.S. from Mexico, their journey north fraught with danger. </p>
<p>As 2021 drew to a close, given the precarious manner in which Guatemala continues to be governed, the 25th anniversary of the signing of its peace accord was no cause for celebration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. George Lovell receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Twenty-five years after the signing of a peace accord that ended a 36-year civil war, Guatemala is still struggling with violence and corruption.W. George Lovell, Professor, Department of Geography and Planning, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693362021-11-02T16:11:09Z2021-11-02T16:11:09ZSecond-generation Central Americans in Toronto are dealing with historic trauma from civil war and migration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429204/original/file-20211028-15-1rthsv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C0%2C8575%2C5716&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An activist holds a portrait of a man who was allegedly disappeared by the Guatemalan Army. She waits to join a march organized in remembrance of the hundreds of thousands who died in the decades long civil war, in June, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After seven years of community-based research with <a href="https://archive.kpcc.org/blogs/multiamerican/2012/03/21/7963/what-is-a-1-5-where-an-immigrant-generation-fits-i/">people who immigrated as children and adolescents</a> (called 1.5-generation immigrants) and second-generation Central Americans in Canada, something I see repeatedly come up is the impact of past <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0020764013486750">violence on people whose families lived through the civil war and migration</a>. This is historic trauma.</p>
<p>Historic trauma can be defined as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2011.628913">cumulative emotional and psychological pain across generations</a> stemming from immense collective trauma. This persists through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461514536358">institutionalized practices and unjust economic circumstances</a>. Second-generation Central American experiences can be informed by an analysis of historic trauma. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, civil wars between military governments and leftist guerrilla movements raged in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520247017/seeking-refuge">Millions of Central Americans fled to the Global North as refugees</a>.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, studies have documented the <a href="https://contensis.uwaterloo.ca/sites/courses-archive/1179/SDS-251R-SWREN-251R/media/documents/salvadorian-women-speak-2008.pdf">long-lasting psychological impacts of the civil war and migration on Central American people in North America</a>. These wounds from the civil war are passed on through relationships, lessons and conversations <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113662">shared between survivors and their offspring</a>.</p>
<h2>Experiences as a second-generation Central American</h2>
<p>I am the son of Salvadorian immigrants to Toronto. My parents migrated as refugees first to Atlanta, Ga., with <a href="https://jubileepartners.org/">the Jubilee partners</a>, and later to Toronto in 1991. </p>
<p>I was in high school when the Toronto District School Board published the “<a href="http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/%7Elared/fourinten2009F.pdf">Grade 9 Cohort Study: A Five-Year Analysis, 2000-2005</a>” in 2008, which said the drop-out rate for Spanish speaking students was 40 per cent. After the report was released, I joined a study <a href="https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=NR88694&op=pdf&app=Library&oclc_number=910984273">documenting young Central American men’s experiences with schooling and belonging in Toronto</a>. These experiences made me want to conduct my own research.</p>
<p>Since then I have been involved in several research projects with Toronto’s Central American community. The first in 2014 was an oral history project on youth experiences with violence (yet to be published). And in 2020, I was a lead facilitator for a project called “<a href="https://wherearetheynow4home.wordpress.com/">Picturing Our Realities: Arts-based reflections with Central American youth in Canada</a>,” which documented the perspectives of Central American youth through photography and writing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="From the 'Picturing Our Realities' project, a blue poster that reads 'Respeta mi existencia oespera resistencia' which means 'Respect my existence or wait for resistence' in Spanish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429128/original/file-20211028-21-9dsjvf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster reads ‘Respeta mi existencia’ which means ‘Respect my existence’ from the Picturing Our Realities project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Juan Carlos Jimenez)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stories from second-generation Central Americans</h2>
<p>These projects have given me the opportunity to meet many Central Americans in Toronto and hear their stories. Manuel (a pseudonym), migrated to Canada with his family. His father had been a guerrilla <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/latin_america-jan-june11-timeline_03-07">during the civil war in the 1980s</a>. Manuel spoke of his strained relationship with his father and of watching Saturday morning soccer together, interspersed with anecdotes from the war. </p>
<p>Xavier (also a pseudonym), shared a story of his first year in high school. He was bullied by a senior student, who physically attacked him one day. The school administration expelled Xavier, a dark-skinned Salvadorian, instead of the senior who was Caucasian. After being expelled Xavier joined a gang, which he eventually left.</p>
<p>Natalie (a psuedonym) shared stories of her father’s severe PTSD from being in the Salvadorian military in the 1980s. She shared this story along with stories of hardships from growing up in a working-class immigrant family in Toronto. </p>
<p>Every second-generation Central American I spoke with shared traumas that relate back to the civil war. They also all spoke of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0197918318764871">the pain and discrimination that comes with being a new immigrant to Canada</a>. </p>
<h2>The legacy of colonialism</h2>
<p>Many of the traumas mentioned by second-generation Central Americans are rooted in the legacies of colonialism. After Spanish colonization, Central America was subject to military rule <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781442601802/the-paradox-of-democracy-in-latin-america/">that privileged elites and foreigners over local people</a>. The civil wars were partially a product of the Cold War, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Central-America-Global-Forces-and-Political-Change/Booth-Wade-Walker/p/book/9780367361709">with the United States spending over US$400 million on military assistance in the region in the 1980s to combat leftist guerrillas</a>.</p>
<p>These experiences have <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.20698">left many Central American immigrants to deal with historic trauma</a>. We also carry the weight of our own experiences with discrimination and marginalization. Stoires of being <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.26165">racially profiled</a> by police, store owners and teachers were narratives shared in both the oral history and photography projects. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People stand with red flags holding photos of loved ones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429202/original/file-20211028-18-mucx72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guatemalan activists take part in a march organized in remembrance of the hundreds of thousands who died in the decades long civil war as the country marks Army Day on June 30, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Healing from historic trauma</h2>
<p>Despite this, I have seen many ways in which young people, 1.5- and second-generations, choose to heal and respond to this ongoing trauma with care.</p>
<p>In “Picturing Our Realities,” it was uplifting to see how youth learned about trauma, resistance and resilience and would share what they had learned with previous generations. Many participants engaged in volunteer work with community organizations, and some involved their families in <a href="https://generationsworkingtogether.org/about/intergenerational-practice">intergenerational knowledge practices</a> — like making vegan pupusas or planting red beans in their backyards to make Salvadorian red-bean soup. Many participants also took up careers where they felt that they could give back to their community, including law, social work and psychology. </p>
<p>While colonial legacies and historic trauma remain on the minds of 1.5- and second-generation migrants, they also inform the ways in which younger generations understand social justice and what is required for reconciliation and healing. </p>
<p>Reconciliation requires the recognition of harm in order for trauma to begin to heal. Historic trauma is one way to name the colonial violence at the root of many painful experiences of belonging to 1.5- and second-generation Central Americans in Canada.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan Carlos Jimenez was a Research Assistant in a position funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>Canadians of Central American descent choose to heal and respond to ongoing trauma with care and community.Juan Carlos Jimenez, PhD Student, Human Geography, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617812021-06-04T12:18:36Z2021-06-04T12:18:36ZEl Salvador’s façade of democracy crumbles as president purges his political opponents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404291/original/file-20210603-27-1kmaw5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6048%2C4010&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele promised voters change. Instead, he seems to be reviving El Salvador's authoritarian past.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/salvadoran-president-nayib-bukele-delivers-a-press-news-photo/1231446086?adppopup=true">Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>El Salvador is in crisis after President Nayib Bukele on May 1 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-05/el-salvador-s-bukele-defends-firing-attorney-general-top-judges">fired five Salvadoran supreme court justices and the attorney general</a>.</p>
<p>The court and attorney general’s office were among the only checks on presidential power remaining since Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party won a supermajority in Congress in March 2021, with more than <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/8/how-nayib-bukele-won-over-voters-unlikely-place">65%</a> of votes. During the pandemic, the Salvadoran judiciary <a href="https://www.latinousa.org/2020/06/10/elsalvadorpresidentcourt/">repeatedly ruled</a> that the president’s uses of emergency powers were unconstitutional; Bukele defied the courts and ultimately dismissed the justices and the attorney general.</p>
<p><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/12/central-america-rule-of-law-under-attack-el-salvador-nicaragua-guatemala-honduras/">Salvadoran lawmakers supported Bukele’s purge</a> of his perceived opponents. And recent polls show more than <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2021/0506/Blank-check-for-El-Salvador-s-Bukele-Court-dismissals-spark-concern">90% of Salvadorans</a> still support the president.</p>
<p>But the move drew sharp criticism from <a href="https://www.univision.com/univision-news/opinion/opinion-the-us-approach-to-authoritarianism-in-el-salvador-must-be-bold">other countries</a>. </p>
<p>“An independent judiciary is essential to democratic governance,” the U.S. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-7f36ddc643beb49707c3a0a5887f7d4b">State Department said of the justices’ dismissal</a>.</p>
<p>Bukele came to power in 2019 on a tide of voters exhausted by the Salvadoran status quo – deep inequality, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-el-salvador-so-dangerous-4-essential-reads-89904">chronic violence and endemic corruption</a>. Voters were <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-new-president-must-tackle-crime-unemployment-and-migration-but-nation-is-hopeful-111499">hopeful for something different</a>. Soon after, the authoritarian power grabs began. </p>
<p>On Twitter, Bukele defended the recent firings as “getting our house in order” – the kind of sweeping change he was elected to enact. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202105/columns/25471/There-Is-No-Democratic-Tradition-in-El-Salvador.htm">Bukele’s anti-democratic behavior</a> is actually business as usual in a country that never fully realized its precarious democracy, as I documented in my <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Democratization-and-Memories-of-Violence-Ethnic-minority-rights-movements/Gellman/p/book/9781138597686">2017 book on memory and violence in El Salvador, Mexico and Turkey</a>.</p>
<h2>A long struggle</h2>
<p>El Salvador struggled through <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19402222">centuries</a> of Spanish colonization before becoming an independent state in 1821, followed by economic manipulation and the concentration of land in the hands of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpj7923">wealthy elites</a>.</p>
<p>In 1980, <a href="https://larrlasa.org/articles/10.25222/larr.782/">civil war</a> began. Leftist revolutionaries of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front – FMLN in its Spanish acronym – attempted to overthrow the country’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/trump-and-el-salvador/550955/">U.S.-backed</a> dictatorial and corrupt government. The war <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26850667.pdf">lasted until 1992 and killed 75,000</a> Salvadorans. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young people, some in fatigues carrying weapons, stand in formation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404300/original/file-20210603-19-1pijy7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salvadoran guerrillas in Chalatenango Province, El Salvador, in February 1981.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-popular-forces-of-liberation-guerrillas-as-they-news-photo/595391345?adppopup=true">Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the 1992 peace accords, the FMLN converted from guerrilla group to political party, surrendering its weapons and competing electorally to change the country’s path. Many in the country and abroad believed El Salvador was becoming a democracy. </p>
<p>However, the FMLN lost repeatedly to the right-wing ARENA party that had governed El Salvador through the civil war. Under ARENA leadership, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2014.976027">culture of silence about the war</a> persisted in El Salvador. Soldiers who had committed wartime atrocities and the politicians who had authorized them <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2018.1457006">avoided investigation and prosecution</a>.</p>
<h2>Democracy in process</h2>
<p>Finally, in 2009, the <a href="https://paulalmeida.thescholr.com/files/paulalmeida/files/almeida_nacla_2009.pdf">FMLN won the presidency</a>. The peaceful transfer of power raised hopes that El Salvador had finally become a full democracy. </p>
<p>Political scientists routinely count countries as <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0224.xml">“consolidated” democracies</a> once they achieve peaceful changes of presidential party rule through free and fair elections.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/el-salvador/freedom-world/2020">elections-focused definitions</a> of democracy don’t account for how a country’s vulnerable social groups – like Indigenous people, women and girls, people with disabilities and political activists, for example – are faring. </p>
<p>The foundation of any democracy is the <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/">social contract</a> — that is, the agreement about rights and responsibilities that citizens and states enact toward one another.</p>
<p>In El Salvador, vulnerable groups are often marginalized and do not benefit much from the protection that governments are supposed to provide their people. Their experience of democracy is superficial at best. </p>
<p>For all Salvadorans, the social contract is undermined by the state’s inability to keep them safe. El Salvador’s weak institutions are frequently unable to protect people from bodily harm, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43616.pdf">whether by gangs or police</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A farmer casts his ballot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404297/original/file-20210603-15-1uvuzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">El Salvador has regular, free and fair elections – a good thing, but no guarantee of a healthy, functional democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/farmer-casts-his-vote-at-a-polling-station-in-the-news-photo/1093403662?adppopup=true">Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No post-conflict government has yet accomplished the kind of structural transformation necessary for El Salvador to address its most pressing problems. Only recently, for example, was a critical investigation reopened into the most gruesome atrocities of the civil war, in the <a href="https://www.wola.org/2021/04/trial-expert-el-salvador-mozote/">El Mozote massacre, in which the army slaughtered more than 800 villagers</a>. </p>
<p>Successive leaders in El Salvador – including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/former-guerrilla-commander-wins-el-salvador-presidential-election/2014/03/14/ddaa0dda-b77c-4f33-bb2d-225330c3745a_story.html">the two FMLN presidents</a> who <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mauricio-Funes">broke the ruling party’s grasp</a> – have maintained their power while <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/202105/el_salvador/25492/Bukele-se-acerca-m%C3%A1s-a-China-tras-la-divulgaci%C3%B3n-de-lista-estadounidense-de-pol%C3%ADticos-corruptos.htm">failing to root out corruption</a>, implement the rule of law or build independent public institutions. </p>
<p>For his part, Bukele’s actions have been openly anti-democratic. For example, he brought <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-elsalvador-politics/el-salvador-presidents-power-play-stokes-democracy-concerns-idUSKBN2042M4">armed soldiers into parliament</a> in 2020 while trying to push through legislation, and he regularly <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/120/823/64/115918/A-Populist-President-Tests-El-Salvador-s-Democracy">attacks press freedom</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>._]</p>
<h2>Failed state?</h2>
<p>It would take substantial political will – <a href="https://theconversation.com/money-alone-cant-fix-central-america-or-stop-migration-to-us-157953">and a lot of money</a> – to fix Salvadoran poverty, gang violence, the education system and limited upward mobility. Gender-based violence is a pervasive social disease; El Salvador’s <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/03/04/femicides-el-salvador-pandemic">femicide rate</a> is one of the highest in the world.</p>
<p>On top of that, <a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/sponge-city-san-salvador-uses-nature-fight-floods">climate change-fueled storms</a> have destroyed homes and <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/climate-food-insecurity-migration-central-america-guatemala">livelihoods</a>. That problem requires an international solution. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two armed soldiers in full fatigues and face masks walk down a street lined with vendors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404301/original/file-20210603-17-1a56eme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers patrol historic downtown San Salvador in March 2021 – a common sight in militarized El Salvador.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soldiers-patrol-the-historic-centre-of-san-salvador-on-news-photo/1207986261?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bukele – who at 37 was the world’s youngest president and belonged to neither major party – pledged to tackle all these problems. </p>
<p>But life for most Salvadorans has not improved under his leadership. <a href="https://igs.duke.edu/news/migration-el-salvador-us-background-brief">People are still fleeing El Salvador en masse</a>. Last year, during the pandemic, 12,590 Salvadorans were deported by U.S. immigration enforcement; in 2019, nearly 19,000 were. </p>
<p>Some analysts consider El Salvador a “<a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/23960/ending-u-s-protections-for-salvadorans-could-tip-el-salvador-into-a-failed-state">failed state</a>,” while others have labeled it a “<a href="https://infographics.economist.com/2017/DemocracyIndex/">flawed democracy</a>.” </p>
<p>In my analysis, Nayib Bukele’s presidency has simply removed the <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/202105/el_salvador/25478/%E2%80%9CMe-ofrecieron-una-embajada-para-que-me-callara%E2%80%9D.htm">façade</a> that El Salvador ever became a full democracy. Free and fair elections aside, its regime is a work in progress. Under Bukele’s leadership, El Salvador is inching back toward its authoritarian past, while Salvadorans continue to hope for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>El Salvador ‘is inching back toward its authoritarian past’ after President Nayib Bukele fired five supreme court justices and the attorney general – essentially the only checks on his power.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1583582021-05-06T14:00:53Z2021-05-06T14:00:53ZEnvironmental activists are being killed in Honduras over their opposition to mining<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398516/original/file-20210504-21-1trgysc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=150%2C120%2C6559%2C4345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists and supporters of Honduran environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Caceres hold signs with her name and likeness during the trial against Roberto David Castillo, an alleged mastermind of her murder, outside of the Supreme Court building in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on April 6, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/ Elmer Martinez)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two men shot Arnold Joaquín Morazán Erazo <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/killing-defender-arnold-joaquin-morazan-erazo-who-had-been-criminalised-his-defense-river">to death</a> in his home in Tocoa, Honduras, one night in October 2020. Morazán was an environmental activist and one of 32 people criminalized by the Honduran government for defending the Guapinol River against the environmental impacts of a new iron oxide mine in the Carlos Escaleras National Park. </p>
<p>So far, at least eight people who have opposed the mine have been killed, putting its owner, Inversiones Los Pinares, at the centre of a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/honduras-mine-conflict/">deadly environmental conflict</a> in the mineral-rich Bajo Aguán region. Local communities are concerned about the mine’s potential ecological damage. In their attempts to defend their territories, <a href="https://tierraderesistentes.com/en/">local leaders have been surveilled, threatened, injured and imprisoned</a>, and some, like Morazán, have been killed. </p>
<p>Honduras is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/how-honduras-became-one-of-the-most-dangerous-countries-to-defend-natural-resources">deadliest place in the world for environmental defenders</a>. Hundreds of them have been killed since 2009, including the Indigenous environmental leader Berta Càceres, who was assassinated in 2016. </p>
<p>The details are murky for some of the killings. In 2019, as a member of a <a href="https://www.acafremin.org/images/documentos/Guapinol_ESP_Baja_Res.pdf">fact-finding delegation</a>, my colleagues and I documented that national police and military forces have patrolled the territory surrounding the mining project. We have recommended a thorough, prompt and impartial investigation of the human rights abuses by military police and paramilitary forces against human rights defenders and journalists in Tocoa.</p>
<h2>The roots of conflict</h2>
<p>Communities in Tocoa have persisted in organizing against the mines since 2011, when the Carlos Escaleras was declared a national park. The next year, congress reduced the park’s no-development zone to accommodate the mine’s development, following a permit process mired by irregularities. </p>
<p>Inversiones Los Pinares is owned by Lenir Pérez, a businessman previously accused of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman/">human rights violations</a>, and Ana Facussé, daughter of the late palm oil magnate, Miguel Facussé. Even though the mine hasn’t yet exploited the iron oxide <a href="https://www.iwmf.org/reporting/the-hidden-connection-between-a-u-s-steel-company-and-the-controversial-los-pinares-mine-in-honduras/">in the 200-hectare concession</a>, community water supplies are polluted, trees have been flattened and landslides and flooding are more frequent. </p>
<p>In 2018, Los Pinares began to build an access road to the mine. In response, community members in Tocoa, including Morazán, <a href="https://www.acafremin.org/es/blog/773-otro-defensor-ambiental-asesinado-en-la-comunidad-guapinol-en-la-region-del-bajo-aguan-honduras">established the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Public and Common Goods</a> to campaign against the dispossession of natural resources by extractive industries. They submitted five requests for public consultations and held demonstrations in front of city hall. They also erected a “Camp in Defence of Water and Life” to block access to the mine. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="View of the Camp in Defense of Water and Life" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394559/original/file-20210412-17-1boqhq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">View of the Camp in Defence of Water and Life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(ACAFREMIN: Central American Alliance Against Mining)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The government response to the protesters was swift and brutal. It violently <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/hondurans-flee-climate-change-violence-and-mining-project">broke up the protest camp, militarized the entire region and arrested 32 local environmental activists</a>. </p>
<p>In 2019, 12 of the accused environmentalists appeared voluntarily before authorities to <a href="https://www.elclip.org/la-conexion-escondida-de-una-siderurgica-de-ee-uu-con-la-polemica-mina-de-los-pinares-en-honduras/?lang=en">face the charges against them</a>: usurpation, arson, robbery, unlawful detention, illicit association and aggravated robbery. Eight of them remain imprisoned, although the prosecution has not presented any solid evidence to justify such prolonged detention. </p>
<p>The state also deployed the police and the army to protect the interests of Inversiones Los Pinares, <a href="https://international-allies.net/news/128-regional-news/617-honduran-state-intensifies-persecution-against-defenders-of-the-guapinol-river">eschewing the internationally recognized rights</a> of the communities to organize, defend the environment and protest peacefully against the mine. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A poster of the members of the Municipal Committee in Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa imprisoned for their participation in a peaceful protest against Los Pinares" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394550/original/file-20210412-21-83e1p2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Municipal Committee in Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa imprisoned for their participation in a peaceful protest against Inversiones Los Pinares.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(GuapinolResiste)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The international community</h2>
<p>International organizations have acknowledged the important democratic roles of the environmental defenders in Tocoa. </p>
<p>The Institute for Policy Studies, Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank, awarded the community committee with the international <a href="https://ips-dc.org/celebrating-environmental-defenders-at-the-letelier-moffitt-human-rights-awards/">Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights award</a>. In 2020, the committee members were nominated for the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200917STO87301/sakharov-prize-2020-the-nominees">Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought</a> awarded annually by the European Union. </p>
<p>Yet, in Honduras, these same activists are victims of defamation campaigns, criminalization, social media attacks and constant threats. Several residents have been forced to flee Honduras to escape criminal persecution. Meanwhile, the state uses corruption and police repression to guarantee impunity for those persecuting defenders. </p>
<p>The United States and Canada play a key role in the current crisis. They have <a href="https://www.acafremin.org/images/documentos/Guapinol_ESP_Baja_Res.pdf">geostrategic and economic interests</a> in Honduras, through trade agreements and <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/07/09/ShameOnCanada/">aid programs implemented after a 2009 coup</a>. Afterwards, President Juan Orlando Hernandez declared Honduras “open for business.”</p>
<p>The country sold its natural resources, fuelling the expansion of extractive industries and causing conflicts with communities. The corporate-friendly General Mining Law lifted a seven-year moratorium on new mining projects — it was developed with technical assistance and <a href="https://miningwatch.ca/blog/2015/2/26/honduran-organizations-fight-have-canadian-backed-mining-law-declared">funding from the Canadian government</a>.</p>
<h2>A call for justice</h2>
<p>The conflict in Tocoa has increasingly gained the attention and support of the United Nations, particularly the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LAC/HRDAmericas/GHRC-USA.pdf">Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://honduras.oxfam.org/latest/press-release/alerta-asesinatos-defensores-de-derechos-humanos-en-honduras">Oxfam</a> and the <a href="https://pbiusa.org/content/guapinol-river-defenders-honduras-express-their-solidarity-haudenosaunee-land-defenders">Canadian Peace Brigades</a>. </p>
<p>Under the Geneva Convention rules, the international community should condemn the state’s violence against environmental defenders and accept asylum applications. </p>
<p>It should pressure the Honduran government to enable free, prior and informed consent, and call for free and fair elections. Until then, the international community should suspend non-humanitarian economic aid to Honduras. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="'Let's safeguard the forests' painted on a rock along the Guapinol River" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394557/original/file-20210412-19-1wn2lqx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Let’s safeguard the forests’ is painted on a rock along the Guapinol River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(ACAFREMIN)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A UN working group recently ruled that the <a href="https://www.guapinolresiste.org/post/un-immediately-release-guapinol-defenders-investigate-those-responsible-for-illegal-detention">the detention of the eight defenders is arbitrary</a>. The defenders have since launched legal action, and Blanca Izaguirre, the country’s human rights ombudsperson commissioner, has urged the state of Honduras to release them immediately. </p>
<p>Since it launched its project in Tocoa, Inversiones Los Pinares has reinforced <a href="https://www.guapinolresiste.org/post/filing-of-constitutional-appeal-freedom-for-guapinol-now">patterns of violence, stigmatization, defamation and criminalization</a> of environmental defenders. At the same time, state authorities have failed to meet human rights obligations. </p>
<p>“We feel vulnerable. While we were always protesting pacifically, here in Honduras you are criminalized for defending nature. But we do believe that water cannot be negotiated, because water is life,” Reynaldo Dominguez, one of the Guapinol defenders, told me in a recent interview.</p>
<p>The persistent corruption, structural violence and impunity suggest that Morazán will not be the last victim assassinated for defending nature for the livelihood of the community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giada Ferrucci consults to the Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN)</span></em></p>Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists. Those who have opposed mining, hydroelectric, logging and tourism have faced violence and death.Giada Ferrucci, PhD Student, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1579532021-04-22T12:26:09Z2021-04-22T12:26:09ZMoney alone can’t fix Central America – or stop migration to US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396089/original/file-20210420-21-nrprby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C17%2C2982%2C1971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children play in Las Flores village, Comitancillo, Guatemala, home of a 22-year-old migrant murdered in January 2021 on his journey through Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/children-play-during-the-wake-of-marvin-tomas-a-guatemalan-news-photo/1231727366?adppopup=true">Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To stem migration from Central America, the Biden administration has a US$4 billion plan to “<a href="https://joebiden.com/centralamerica/">build security and prosperity</a>” in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – home to more than <a href="https://migrationpolicy.org/article/centralamerican-migrants-unitedstates-2017">85% of all Central American migrants</a> who arrived in the U.S. over the last three years.</p>
<p>The U.S. seeks to address the “<a href="https://joebiden.com/centralamerica/">factors pushing people to leave their countries</a>” – namely, violence, crime, chronic unemployment and lack of basic services – in a region of <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">gross public corruption</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden plan, which will be partially funded with money diverted from immigration detention and the border wall, is based on a sound analysis of Central America’s dismal socioeconomic conditions. As a <a href="https://lacc.fiu.edu/news-1/2018/the-future-of-the-americas-by-president-luis-guillermo-sols/">former president of Costa Rica</a>, I can attest to the dire situation facing people in neighboring nations. </p>
<p>As a historian of Central America, I also know money alone cannot build a viable democracy. </p>
<h2>Failed efforts</h2>
<p>Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador comprise Central America’s “Northern Triangle” – a poor region with <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/2020-homicide-round-up/">among the world’s highest murder rates</a>. </p>
<p>These countries need education, housing and health systems that work. They need reliable economic structures that can attract foreign investment. And they need inclusive social systems and other crime-prevention strategies that <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-migration-from-central-america-5-essential-reads-98600">allow people to live without fear</a>. </p>
<p>No such transformation can happen without strong public institutions and <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">politicians committed to the rule of law</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protesters hold Guatemalan flags and posters alleging corruption fo the president" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396091/original/file-20210420-17-17fdrpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guatemalans call for the resignation of President Alejandro Giammatei, whom they call corrupt, Nov. 21, 2020, Guatemala City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-gather-to-stage-a-protest-against-the-president-news-photo/1229722669?adppopup=true">Fabricio Alonzo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biden’s aid to Central America comes with strict conditions, requiring the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to “undertake significant, concrete and verifiable reforms,” including with their own money. </p>
<p>But the U.S. has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25661224?seq=1">unsuccessfully tried to make change in Central America for decades</a>. Every American president <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/alliance-for-progress">since the 1960s</a> has launched initiatives there. </p>
<p>During the Cold War, the U.S. aimed to counter the spread of communism in the region, sometimes militarily. More recently U.S. aid has focused principally on strengthening democracy, by investing in everything from the judiciary reform and women’s education to agriculture and small businesses.</p>
<p>The Obama administration also <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IN10237.pdf">spent millions on initiatives</a> to fight illegal drugs and weaken the street gangs, called “maras,” whose brutal control over urban neighborhoods is one reason migrants say they flee. </p>
<p>Such <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-cutting-central-american-aid-going-to-help-stop-the-flow-of-migrants-118806">multibillion-dollar efforts</a> have done little to improve the region’s dysfunctions.</p>
<p>If anything, Central America’s <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=theconversation.com+central+america+climate+change&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">problems have gotten worse</a>. COVID-19 is <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/12/15/na121720when-it-rains-it-pours-pandemic-and-natural-disasters-challenge-central-americas-economies">raging across the region</a>. Two Category 5 hurricanes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/world/americas/migration-honduras-central-america.html">hit Honduras</a> within two weeks in late 2020, leaving more than 250,000 homeless. </p>
<p>Some experts have been calling for a “<a href="https://fpif.org/central-america-needs-a-marshall-plan/">mini-Marshall Plan</a>” to stabilize Central America, like the U.S. program that rebuilt Europe after World War II. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A girl sits in a muddy, destroyed school chair on muddy, messy ground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C5236%2C3292&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396053/original/file-20210420-19-oxteu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hurricanes Eta and Iota flooded Honduras in late 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/girl-sits-on-a-school-chair-destroyed-during-hurricanes-eta-news-photo/1230539934?adppopup=true">Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Costa Rica counterpoint</h2>
<p>To imagine a way out of Central America’s problems, the history of Costa Rica – <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/costarica/88435.htm">a democratic and stable Central American country</a> – is illustrative. </p>
<p>Costa Rica’s <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Central-America-Global-Forces-and-Political-Change/Booth-Wade-Walker/p/book/9780367361709">path to success</a> started soon after independence from Spain in 1821. </p>
<p>It developed a coffee economy that tied it early to the developing global capitalist economy. While other Central American countries fought prolonged civil wars, Costa Rica adopted a liberal constitution and invested in public education. </p>
<p>Costa Rican democracy <a href="https://dsc.duq.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2090&context=dlr">strengthened in the 1940s</a> with a constitutional amendment that established a minimum wage and protected women and children from labor abuses. It also established a national social security system, which today provides health care and pensions to all Costa Ricans.</p>
<p>These reforms <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/149238774.pdf">triggered civil war</a>. But the war’s end brought about positive transformations. In 1948, Costa Rica <a href="https://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index.php/ri/article/view/7153">abolished its military</a>. No spending in defense allows Costa Rica to invest in human development.</p>
<p><iframe id="SfjaE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SfjaE/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The country also created a credible electoral system to ensure the legitimacy of elected governments. </p>
<p>Over the next seven decades, consecutive Costa Rican governments <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2513832?seq=1">expanded this welfare state</a>, developing a large urban and rural middle class. Already a trusted U.S. ally when the Cold War began, Costa Rica was able to maintain progressive policies of the sort that, in other countries, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/washington-has-meddled-in-elections-before-92167">American government</a> viewed as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-socialism-became-un-american-through-the-ad-councils-propaganda-campaigns-132335">suspiciously “socialist.”</a> </p>
<p>Today, Costa Rica invests nearly 30% of its annual budget in public education, from kindergarten to college. Health care represents around 14.8% of the budget. </p>
<p>The U.S. is not a draw for Costa Ricans. Instead, my country has itself received <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-anti-immigrant-attitudes-violence-and-nationalism-in-costa-rica-73899">hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants</a>.</p>
<h2>Predatory elites and authoritarian politics</h2>
<p>The migrants are fleeing political systems that are broadly repressive and prone to militarism, autocracy and corruption. In large part, that’s because many Central American countries are dominated by small yet powerful economic and political <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/04/03/the-influence-of-central-american-dynasties-is-ebbing">elites, many dating back generations</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A police officer in full SWAT gear with a machine guns stands outside a small store on a city street as people walk by" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396114/original/file-20210420-23485-4i1gzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A decade of militarized policing in El Salvador has not meaningfully improved safety.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-tactical-squad-of-the-national-police-stands-news-photo/1204305708?adppopup=true">Aphotografia/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These elites benefit from the status quo. In the Northern Triangle, they have <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/26/biden-rethinks-central-america-strategy/">repeatedly proven unwilling</a> to promote the structural transformations – from more equitable taxation and educational investment to agrarian reforms – that could end centuries of oppression and deprivation. </p>
<p>During the Cold War, they quashed popular revolutions pursuing such changes, often <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/trump-and-el-salvador/550955/">with U.S. support</a>.</p>
<p>Biden’s Central America plan requires the active participation of this “predatory elite,” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/26/981284187/predatory-elite-also-bear-the-blame-for-migrant-crisis-juan-gonzalez-says">in the words of Biden adviser Juan Gonzalez</a>.</p>
<p>Gonzales told NPR in March that the administration would take a “partnership-based approach” in Central America, using both “carrots and sticks” to push powerful people who may not share the U.S.’s goals to help their own people. The U.S. will also enlist local human rights organizations and pro-democracy groups to aid their cause.</p>
<p>Its too early to know if the expected partnerships with Central American leaders will materialize. </p>
<p>The Salvadoran president recently <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/americas/547176-el-salvador-president-refuses-to-meet-senior-us-diplomat-report">refused to meet</a> with Biden’s special envoy to the Northern Triangle. Honduras’ president <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/honduras-president-drug-conspiracy/">is named in a U.S. criminal investigation</a> into his brother’s alleged drug-smuggling ring.</p>
<p>Still, without the U.S. resources being offered, Central America’s troubles will persist. Money alone won’t solve them – but it is a necessary piece of an enormously complicated puzzle.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Guillermo Solis was the president of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018.</span></em></p>Biden’s $4 billion plan to fight crime, corruption and poverty in Central America is massive. But aid can’t build viable democracies if ‘predatory elites’ won’t help their own people.Luis Guillermo Solis, Distinguished Professor, Director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564842021-03-15T12:57:53Z2021-03-15T12:57:53ZEl Salvador’s abortion ban jails women for miscarriages and stillbirths – now one woman’s family seeks international justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389331/original/file-20210312-21-1x6pxv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C81%2C6020%2C3440&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of a Salvadoran feminist group watch a virtual hearing March 10 on El Salvador's abortion laws by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-representatives-of-the-feminist-collective-watch-on-a-news-photo/1231632765?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>El Salvador <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/wrd/wrd0106/index_old2384523.htm">outlaws abortion completely</a>, even in circumstances of rape or incest, with penalties ranging from two to 50 years. The abortion ban is so broadly enforced that even <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-unspeakable-cruelty-of-el-salvadors-abortion-laws-94004">women who suffer miscarriages and stillbirths can be prosecuted for murder</a>.</p>
<p>Now an international court will decide for the first time whether these laws violate the human rights of Salvadoran women. </p>
<p>On March 10 and 11, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – a regional tribunal of the Organization of American States created to adjudicate alleged human rights violations in member countries – heard arguments in <a href="https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2019/255.asp">Manuela and Family v. El Salvador</a>, regarding a 33-year-old mother of two who suffered a stillbirth following a fall at her home in rural El Salvador in 2008. </p>
<p><a href="https://reproductiverights.org/sites/default/files/documents/GLP_Manuela_Toolkit_English_FINAL.pdf">Manuela</a> – whose real name is not used to protect her family’s identity – was rushed to the hospital after losing consciousness and hemorrhaging. </p>
<p>Though she said she was unaware of her pregnancy, hospital personnel accused Manuela of <a href="https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/la-historia-de-manuela-la-mujer-que-murio-condenada-por-abortar-en-el-salvador/">intentionally inducing an abortion and called the police</a>. She was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-56360875">handcuffed to her hospital bed</a>, interrogated by both physicians and police, and charged with aggravated homicide. In 2008, Manuela was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. </p>
<p>Later that year, lawyers for her family started the <a href="https://elpais.com/sociedad/2021-03-10/manuela-la-salvadorena-que-no-debio-morir-en-prision.html">legal process that eventually ended up in the courtroom this month</a>. The claim: that criminal prosecution of a stillbirth is a human rights violation. </p>
<h2>Dangerous laws</h2>
<p>El Salvador is one of <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/worldabortionlaws?category%5B294%5D=294">three countries in Central America and 24 worldwide</a> with a total abortion ban. Obtaining an abortion is a crime, and obstetric emergencies resulting in miscarriage or stillbirth are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/world/americas/el-salvador-abortion-ban.html">regularly charged as aggravated homicide</a>.</p>
<p>Medical professionals involved in performing an abortion may face <a href="https://www.asamblea.gob.sv/sites/default/files/documents/decretos/83069FF9-4728-4EF5-87BB-F4771B293A92.pdf">six to 12 years in prison and can be barred from practicing medicine</a>. Family members who “support a woman” in getting an abortion can be punished with two to five years’ imprisonment. </p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/unsafe_abortion/article_unsafe_abortion.pdf">from across Latin America and the world shows</a> that abortion bans do not stop women from terminating unwanted or life-threatening pregnancies. Rather, they cause women to seek illegal, possibly dangerous abortions, and can lead hospitals to deny patients lifesaving reproductive health care. </p>
<p>Between 2000 and 2017, Latin American countries that prohibit abortion under all circumstances recorded a combined average of <a href="https://mmr2017.srhr.org">151 maternal deaths</a> per 100,000 live births, compared with about <a href="https://mmr2017.srhr.org">68 maternal deaths</a> per 100,000 live births across other countries. </p>
<p>Such laws also lead women to be prosecuted for both reproductive decisions and health emergencies.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/miscarriages-abortion-jail-el-salvador/">Hundreds of Salvadoran</a> women have been charged with abortion or aggravated homicide in the past 25 years. Under the 1997 penal code, the crime of abortion carries <a href="https://www.oas.org/dil/esp/Codigo_Penal_El_Salvador.pdf">a prison sentence of two to eight years</a>; aggravated homicide, <a href="https://www.oas.org/dil/esp/Codigo_Penal_El_Salvador.pdf">30 to 50 years</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman in a purple T-shirt sits on a swing, smiling with arms crossed" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389333/original/file-20210312-19-1uavh4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teodora Vasquez spent 10 years in jail after a miscarriage in El Salvador. She explored women’s suffering under the country’s draconian abortion laws in a 2019 documentary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/salvadorean-teodora-vasquez-who-served-a-sentence-handed-news-photo/1167635218?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A few years ago, we examined two such cases in El Salvador: the prosecutions of <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/human_rights/reports/trial-observation-report--criminal-trial-of-evelyn-hernandez-in-/">Evelyn Hernandez</a> and “<a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/human_rights/reports/trial-observation-report--criminal-proceedings-against-diana-in-/">Diana</a>,” both charged with aggravated homicide on the basis of apparent stillbirths. Our expert analysis, conducted at the request of the <a href="https://cfj.org/">Clooney Foundation for Justice</a>, found extensive human rights violations in both cases, including discrimination on the basis of gender, violations of the right to health and improperly shifting the burden of proof to the defendant women. </p>
<p>El Salvador guarantees all these rights in binding international treaties. We found that authorities violated them in prosecuting both Hernandez and Diana. </p>
<h2>Rights violations</h2>
<p>Based on these findings, we filed a <a href="https://cfj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IACtHR-Amicus-Brief-Manuela-and-Family-v.-El-Salvador-FINAL.pdf">“friend of the court” brief</a> in Manuela’s case, which is strikingly similar to the cases we studied. We advised the Inter-American Court to order El Salvador to vacate the judgment against Manuela and to reform its criminal law to comply with the <a href="https://www.cidh.oas.org/basicos/english/basic3.american%20convention.htm">American Convention on Human Rights</a>. </p>
<p>At the March 10 hearing in Manuela and Family v. El Salvador, held virtually because of COVID-19, Manuela’s attorneys asserted that their client’s prosecution violated numerous rights protected under Salvadoran and international law. </p>
<p>Prosecution for a stillbirth constituted gender-based discrimination, denied Manuela her right to health and violated the right to a life of dignity and integrity, her lawyers argued. The government also denied her the right to due process of law, the right to protection from inhumane treatment and the right to privacy, the attorneys asserted. </p>
<p>If the court’s seven judges rule in Manuela’s favor, they can order El Salvador to vacate her wrongful conviction and reform its penal code. </p>
<p>That could mean decriminalizing abortion, at least in extenuating circumstances such as rape or incest, as several <a href="https://theconversation.com/chile-the-long-road-to-abortion-reform-82990">Latin American countries have done</a> in recent years. Reform could also aim to stop the stream of wrongful convictions for aggravated homicide against woman who suffer an obstetric emergency.</p>
<p>The court’s ruling is likely to be handed down in the coming months.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women stand in a row in a plaza holding letters that spell out 'aborto legal'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389332/original/file-20210312-20-dpt8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salvadoran women demand legal abortion March 6, 2020, in San Salvador, El Salvador.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-choice-women-hold-up-letters-that-spell-aborto-legal-news-photo/1205517171?adppopup=true">Camilo Freedman/APHOTOGRAFIA/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Power of the court</h2>
<p>While the Inter-American Court has limited power to enforce its judgments, El Salvador is legally obligated to comply with its rulings and has done so in the past, including obeying orders tackling its punitive reproductive health laws. </p>
<p>In 2013, the <a href="https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/medidas/B_se_01.pdf">court ordered</a> El Salvador to preserve the life and health of “Beatriz,” a woman who suffered from lupus and kidney disease and sought an abortion because she was pregnant with a nonviable fetus. </p>
<p>The Salvadoran Supreme Court had rejected Beatriz’s request to terminate her pregnancy to save her own life. But when the Inter-American Court disagreed, ruling that Beatriz’s right to life required the state to act, <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/2013/06/05/inter-american-court-issues-provisional-measures-el-salvador-allows-caesarean-for-seriously-ill-pregnant-woman-denied-abortion/">El Salvador complied</a>. On June 3, 2013, “Beatriz” got a lifesaving cesarean. </p>
<p>El Salvador’s current president, Nayib Bukele, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/45d982cfb5814187970b2699da1627d1">stated in a 2018 presidential debate</a> that he is in favor of legalizing abortion when pregnancy threatens the life of the mother and said he was “completely against” criminalizing women who have miscarriages. </p>
<p>“If a poor woman has a miscarriage, she’s immediately suspected of having had an abortion,” he said. “We can’t assume guilt when what a woman needs is immediate assistance.” </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>His administration has done nothing to prevent convictions for miscarriages or ease the abortion ban, despite <a href="https://www.france24.com/es/20200929-feministas-salvadore%C3%B1as-exigen-despenalizaci%C3%B3n-del-aborto">pressure from feminists and human rights groups</a>. But Bukele is unlikely to snub an Inter-American Court ruling. </p>
<p>Whatever the judgment in Manuela’s case, it will come too late for the plaintiff and her family: Manuela <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WG/DeprivedLiberty/CSO/Center%20for%20Reproductive%20Rights-2.docx">died of cancer in prison</a> in 2010. If her conviction is vacated, as requested, it would be justice done posthumously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hundreds of Salvadoran women have been prosecuted for homicide for having abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths since 1997. Now an international court must decide: Is that legal?Juliet S. Sorensen, Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern UniversityAlexandra Tarzikhan, Schuette Clinical Fellow in Health and Human Rights, Northwestern UniversityMeredith Heim, Law Student, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1376732020-05-06T12:20:41Z2020-05-06T12:20:41ZMass arrests and overcrowded prisons in El Salvador spark fear of coronavirus crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332820/original/file-20200505-83775-hwiprn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C49%2C8256%2C5438&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even before COVID-19, El Salvador's prisons were contagious disease hotspots. Here, MS-13 gang members with tuberculosis at Chalatenango prison, March 29, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-ms-13-gang-infected-with-tuberculosis-are-news-photo/1137661013?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Governments around the world, from Brazil to the United States, are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/world/americas/coronavirus-brazil-prisons.html">releasing some prisoners</a> in an effort to reduce COVID-19 outbreaks in overcrowded prisons and jails. But <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/202005/columnas/24378/Autoritario-e-incapaz.htm">not El Salvador</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past month, thousands have been arrested and jailed for allegedly violating quarantine orders in this small Central American country. </p>
<p>El Salvador was one of the first countries in the Americas to declare a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic, in mid-March. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/el-salvador-nayib-bukele-coronavirus-quarantine/2020/03/12/d920e9a4-6404-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html">President Nayib Bukele announced</a> a mandatory national quarantine with few exceptions. </p>
<p>At first, his decisive action had broad support. But <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/central-america-unrest-repression-grow-coronavirus-crisis-200422202713659.html">Bukele’s use of police and soldiers</a> to enforce coronavirus restrictions has led to criticism that the president is abusing his emergency powers to <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-21771-salvadoran-government-reinforces-limits-freedom-expression-and-press-during-covid-19-p">curtail civil liberties and undermine democracy</a>. </p>
<h2>A tough response to coronavirus</h2>
<p>In April, the Salvadoran Supreme Court <a href="http://www.jurisprudencia.gob.sv/PDF/HC_148-2020.PDF">ruled that the government lacked the legal authority</a> to detain citizens indefinitely without suspicion of crime, despite the “extraordinary circumstances” presented by COVID-19. </p>
<p>In open <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/17/el-salvador-president-defies-supreme-court">defiance of the court</a>, the administration has continued to arrest thousands, allegedly for violating quarantine, and send them to ad hoc “containment centers.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332818/original/file-20200505-83721-1iowwvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National Civil Police enforce the coronavirus lockdown in historic downtown San Salvador, March 22, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/national-civil-police-officers-patrol-the-historic-centre-news-photo/1207986270?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mass detentions put further stress on the country’s already overburdened penal system, creating <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/04/13/covid-19-in-el-salvador-safeguarding-public-health-or-restricting-human-rights/">conditions ripe</a> for a public health crisis. </p>
<p>In 2018, a special observer sent by the United Nations described the conditions of El Salvador’s jails and prisons as “<a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/el-salvador-break-cycle-impunity-un-rep/">hellish</a>.”</p>
<p>I used to visit MS-13 designated Salvadoran prisons on a weekly basis in the early 2000s, when I was <a href="https://www.academia.edu/42941069/Super_Iron_Fist_security_discourse_dehumanization_and_the_uncanny_in_El_Salvadors_War_on_Gangs">in El Salvador and conducting research on the “war on gangs.”</a> Even then I found conditions in these cinderblock warehouses to be harsh, with overcrowding and poor food. </p>
<p>Running water was hit or miss. Sometimes, inmates would go days without access to water, leaving them to drink only what they’d stored.</p>
<p>Starting in 2016, the government banned almost all visitors to and observers in these kinds of prisons, claiming it was necessary for security. Since then incarcerated life has become even worse, from the little that outside groups like the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/global-opinions/salvador-prison-photos/">Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are able to document</a>.</p>
<h2>Explicit photos</h2>
<p>Recently, though, amid the global pandemic, the world got an unexpected glimpse into El Salvador’s prisons. </p>
<p>On April 25, the Salvadoran government’s official press secretary <a href="https://twitter.com/ComunicacionSV/status/1254039000836382721?s=20&fbclid=IwAR3YAaPGbwaBFzkxsW_Cl5k84gsA2GzrLB5tmMQv8dOY1SXjE5HNDQ7soP4">tweeted out disturbing images</a> of shirtless prisoners packed together like sardines – no chance of social distancing – hands cuffed behind their backs. Some had white surgical masks flapping uselessly. Many were unmasked. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1254039000836382721"}"></div></p>
<p>The images were touting a government <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-04-29/el-salvadors-jail-crackdown-on-gang-members-could-backfire">crackdown on incarcerated gang members</a> intended as reprisal for a recent uptick in the murder rate. But the draconian treatment they revealed <a href="https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/world/el-salvador-lines-up-semi-naked-gang-members-for-grim-prison-photos-442889/">raised outcry</a> among public health and human rights advocates. </p>
<p>To these chilling images, the Salvadoran prisons director Osiris Luna Meza added that cells would be sealed “<a href="https://twitter.com/OsirisLunaMeza/status/1254854519839526913?s=20">without a ray of sun</a>,” and promised to house members of rival gangs together in the same cells – a proposition almost certain to trigger violence. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1254853495078834176"}"></div></p>
<h2>Public enemy No. 1</h2>
<p>Inflammatory rhetoric, punitive law enforcement and the public humiliation of gang members have become more common in El Salvador over my two decades of <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/sociology/hallett_miranda.php">research on human rights and the rule of law in the country</a>. </p>
<p>So-called “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/311219">mano dura</a>” or “iron fist” policies are politically popular in El Salvador and other Central American countries <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/world/americas/el-salvador-throws-out-gang-truce-and-officials-who-put-it-in-place.html">grappling with gang violence</a>. For much of the past decade, El Salvador’s murder rate has ranked it among <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/its-so-dangerous-to-police-ms-13-in-el-salvador-that-officers-are-fleeing-the-country/2019/03/03/e897dbaa-2287-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html">the world’s most dangerous countries</a>.</p>
<p>But too often crime strategies allegedly meant to protect the public, like the recent mass arrests and the prison clampdown, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-el-salvador-so-dangerous-4-essential-reads-89904">create more problems than they solve</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/wolf-mano-dura">Research shows</a> that hard-line policing has actually exacerbated violence in El Salvador. According to a 2019 <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/el-salvador/">U.S. State Department report</a>, Salvadoran police and soldiers given free rein to repress gangs have committed assault, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions. </p>
<p>Bukele, a young leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-new-president-must-tackle-crime-unemployment-and-migration-but-nation-is-hopeful-111499">who took office last year</a>, promised to “turn the page” on the country’s rough history. Instead, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/americas/el-salvador-nayib-bukele.html">he has returned</a> to these old <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-16/el-salvador-s-reformist-president-takes-an-autocratic-turn">authoritarian tactics</a>.</p>
<h2>A brewing crisis</h2>
<p>Doing so during a global pandemic turns the country’s overcrowded prisons into a public health hazard.</p>
<p>El Salvador’s national prison system is built for approximately 18,000 inmates, and currently holds over 38,000, according to the <a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/el-salvador">World Prison Brief</a>, a database on prison populations worldwide. This number does not include those arrested for curfew violation, who are crammed into local facilities.</p>
<p>Even before COVID-19, infectious disease spread rapidly among Salvadoran prisoners. According to a 2016 <a href="https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/28200/v39n1a7_38-43.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&ua=1&ua=1">epidemiological study in El Salvador</a>, infection rates for tuberculosis were at least five times greater in prisons than in the general population.</p>
<p>That same year, the Salvadoran Supreme Court declared that prison overcrowding <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/court-rules-el-salvador-prison-crowding-unconstitutional/">violated prisoners’ basic human rights</a> and ordered the government to release some people and build more facilities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C12%2C8256%2C5475&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332814/original/file-20200505-83745-3djrfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No chance of social distancing in El Salvador’s prisons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-ms-13-gang-remain-in-chalatenango-prison-84-news-photo/1137660936?adppopup=true">Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neither has happened. By 2017, journalist Sarah Maslin wrote in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/how-an-innocent-man-wound-up-dead-in-el-salvadors-justice-system/2017/03/16/7144e7fc-dd13-11e6-8902-610fe486791c_story.html">The Washington Post that one Salvadoran jail</a> “had become a petri dish for outbreaks of scabies, pneumonia and tuberculosis.” </p>
<h2>Human cost of an iron fist</h2>
<p>The coronavirus outbreak makes infectious diseases in Salvadoran prisons an even more urgent concern. </p>
<p>Stuffing more people into overcrowded, unsanitary jails and prisons radically increases the risks for COVID-19 outbreaks. The disease inevitably spreads into broader society through prison staff and inmates who are released, according to <a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/1269633/data-is-key-to-stopping-covid-19-spread-in-prisons">recent analysis by data scientists</a> published on Law 360. </p>
<p>Bukele says his government’s harsh security measures <a href="https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1254511978544013312?s=20">are necessary to “defend the lives of Salvadorans.”</a> But now more than ever, such actions seem likelier to hurt the people they’re meant to protect. </p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miranda Cady Hallett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>El Salvador is arresting thousands of people for violating its COVID-19 quarantine, further packing a ‘hellish’ penal system once described as a ‘petri dish’ for infectious disease.Miranda Cady Hallett, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Human Rights Center Research Fellow, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1313452020-02-06T18:08:17Z2020-02-06T18:08:17ZDeported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314015/original/file-20200206-43123-1cnqaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5568%2C3684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Street gangs that operate with impunity make El Salvador one of the world's most violent countries. Few murders are ever solved.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soldier-stands-guard-at-the-crime-scene-where-five-market-news-photo/653621078?adppopup=true">MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/02/05/deported-danger/united-states-deportation-policies-expose-salvadorans-death-and">new report</a> by Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide. </p>
<p>The 117-page report also says researchers identified at least 70 deportees who were sexually assaulted, tortured or kidnapped. Many victims were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/05/803134436/human-rights-watch-more-than-200-salvadorans-were-abused-killed-after-deportatio">asylum-seekers attacked or killed by the gangs they originally fled</a>. </p>
<p>The findings show that “the U.S. is repeatedly violating its obligations to protect Salvadorans from return to serious risk of harm,” Human Rights Watch says. </p>
<p>The group used court records, police reports, interviews with victims and their families and news articles to document the fates of deportees. It is the first systematic effort to find out what happened to Salvadorans whose asylum claims were rejected in U.S. immigration courts because they failed to demonstrate “credible fear” of violence in El Salvador. </p>
<p>International <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-caravan-members-have-right-to-claim-asylum-heres-why-getting-it-will-be-hard-101005">asylum laws</a> created <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/837512/complicated-history-asylum-america--explained">after the Holocaust</a> require countries to take in people who are persecuted for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.</p>
<p>El Salvador has one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-el-salvador-so-dangerous-4-essential-reads-89904">world’s highest homicide rates</a>. It is one of the main sources of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-and-refugees-at-the-southern-border-5-questions-answered-123848">migration to the U.S.</a></p>
<p>As part of its immigration crackdown, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/us-asylum-el-salvador.html">Trump administration in September signed an agreement</a> with El Salvador requiring the Central American country to keep asylum seekers there while they await the results of their asylum claims. </p>
<p>But the murders of 138 deportees belie any notion that El Salvador can <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/59c4be077.pdf">protect citizens who are under threat</a>.</p>
<h2>Roots of impunity</h2>
<p>Roughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/">protected under international asylum law</a> cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.</p>
<p>Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/25/latin-america-is-the-worlds-most-violent-region-a-new-report-investigates-why/">go unsolved</a> in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/EL-SALVADOR-2018.pdf">rarely punished</a> for their wrongdoing.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=R00JOgwAAAAJ&hl=en">documented this culture of impunity</a> across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence. </p>
<p>This violence dates back centuries, to Spain’s bloody conquest of the Americas. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/reader-center/1619-project-slavery-jamestown.html">in the U.S.</a>, colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region’s race, class and gender divisions.</p>
<p>In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/remembering-massacre-el-salvador/9780826336040">left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead</a>.</p>
<p>Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2018.1457006">political corruption and unjust resource allocation</a>, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.</p>
<p>By the 1970s, dissident factions again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.</p>
<p>The subsequent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/27/world/massacre-of-hundreds-reported-in-salvador-village.html?pagewanted=all">Salvadoran civil war</a> killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/time-for-a-us-apology-to-el-salvador/">military support from the United States</a>, ARENA defeated the rebels. </p>
<p>The 1992 <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/elsalvador-chapultepec92">El Salvador peace accords</a>, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf">human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces</a> during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador’s ARENA-controlled congress passed an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/rebuffing-the-un-el-salvador-grants-amnesty.html">amnesty law</a> that excused most government and military officials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front transformed into a left-wing political party after the civil war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-SLV-APHS460298-El-Salvador-Civil-Wa-/0db9d5d82047445ab961eeb97cc18d27/134/0">AP Photo/Luis Romero</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, the root causes of El Salvador’s conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">very weak rule of law</a> that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.</p>
<p>Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.</p>
<p>El Salvador’s defense minister recently assessed that there are more <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Ministro-de-Defensa-dice-que-hay-mas-pandilleros-que-soldados-20151020-0027.html">gang members than soldiers in his country</a>. Police in El Salvador are extremely aggressive in pursuing them, and civilians can get <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/02/05/deported-danger/united-states-deportation-policies-expose-salvadorans-death-and">caught in the crossfire</a>, Human Rights Watch finds.</p>
<p>The resulting dangerous disarray sent <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/201909/el_salvador/23667/El-Salvador-Signs-Agreement-to-Accept-Asylum-Seekers-the-US-Won%E2%80%99t-Protect.htm">46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year</a>. Risking the unknown violence of migration over guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision. </p>
<h2>Human security</h2>
<p>Crime and violence in El Salvador has <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/gang-truce-behind-el-salvador-historic-murder-drop/">declined</a> since President Nayib Bukele took office in June 2019, according to the government.</p>
<p>The president credits his <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/el-salvador-flirts-with-mano-dura-security-policies-again/">tough-on-gangs</a> policing with improving security in the country. But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides is actually <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/el-salvador-omit-key-data-homicides/">a manipulation of crime data</a>. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/06/el-salvadors-tough-policing-isnt-what-it-looks-like/">confrontation with security forces</a> – police killings – from the homicide category. </p>
<p>In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/el-salvador">among the world’s highest</a>. </p>
<p>Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/15/how-gangs-have-become-a-trojan-horse-in-el-salvadors-security-forces-part-2/">corruption or concern for their own safety</a>. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence. </p>
<p>In these circumstances, deporting Salvadoran asylum-seekers may violate an international law called “non-refoulement.”</p>
<p>According to the 1954 <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1954-Convention-relating-to-the-Status-of-Stateless-Persons_ENG.pdf">United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees</a>, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory “where his life or freedom would be threatened.” </p>
<p>Migrants know El Salvador can’t protect them. That, of course, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrants-stories-why-they-flee-114725">why they flee</a>. Now the United States government has to know that, too.</p>
<p><em>This story has been modified to more accurately characterize the methodology used by Human Rights Watch. It is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-will-send-migrants-to-el-salvador-a-country-that-cant-protect-its-own-people-124475">article</a> originally published Oct. 10, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new Human Rights Watch report finds many Salvadoran deportees are killed once home, often by the gangs they fled. Rampant impunity means El Salvador can’t protect vulnerable people from violence.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1273942020-01-20T22:26:57Z2020-01-20T22:26:57ZRefugee stories reveal anxieties about the Canada-U.S. border<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311007/original/file-20200120-69543-1e9cc7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C55%2C3718%2C2287&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Congolese family approaches the unofficial border crossing with Canada while walking down Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y., in August 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Charles Krupa</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Charles Krupa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past two years, Roxham Road — a dead-end street between Champlain, N.Y., and Hemmingford, Que., — has received a lot of media attention as an irregular border crossing. The news media has told the story as if irregular border crossings were a new phenomenon, invoking a sense of loss of control for Canadian leaders. </p>
<p>By April 2019, the Canadian government rushed through an amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It made refugees ineligible to make a claim if they had already done so in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand. The rush was probably in response to Conservative Party claims that the Liberal government had “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/refugee-asylum-seekers-border-changes-1.5092192">failed to effectively manage our border</a>.” </p>
<p>We are a team of researchers conducting interviews with refugees — people originally from El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti who crossed the U.S.-Canada border to seek refuge, from the 1980s until now. We are building a multimedia educational tool and digital archive called <a href="https://www.rememberingrefuge.com">Remembering Refuge: Between Sanctuary and Solidarity</a>. We want to tell the stories of people traditionally forgotten by policy-makers and excluded from official accounts. </p>
<p>This summer we interviewed Maria (not her real name), originally from El Salvador. Maria shared memories of her escape from El Salvador to Canada in 1983. She told us she felt compelled to leave her home and country of birth because of the civil war in El Salvador and the country’s oligarch rulers supported by the U.S. government. </p>
<p>In the current life of the Canada-U.S. border, historical accounts of border crossings like Maria’s are prescient. </p>
<h2>Crisis mode</h2>
<p>Maria’s story encapsulates the complexity of border crossings and the fraught and entangled histories of the American continent. Her words capture how border crossings become framed as criminal acts. </p>
<p>Maria said: “I just crossed a border; I didn’t commit a crime,” referring to the brief time she spent in immigration detention in Detroit, Mich., after her unauthorized crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border. After she was released, she entered Canada as a refugee. She had left her daughter behind for her initial journey but was reunited with her in Windsor, Ont., about a year later. </p>
<p>Canadian leaders have desperately tried to preserve the country’s image of liberal humanitarianism at our border, but they have instead been confronted with the reality that Canada’s border and immigration history is built upon exclusion, securitization and anxieties related to border management.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2019, the minister of border security at the time, Bill Blair, said: “… We don’t want [refugees] sort of shopping around and making applications in multiple countries. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/refugee-asylum-seekers-border-changes-1.5092192">What we’re trying to do is make sure the system is fair and efficient for those who truly do need our protection</a>.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1116114775245774848"}"></div></p>
<p>The belief that people making refugee claims at the border are somehow “shopping” and taking advantage of an overly generous asylum system is not new. </p>
<h2>Border history</h2>
<p>In 1987, politicians and news media circulated the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654418790765">same rhetoric</a>. At that time, Central Americans were looking to Canada for refuge because U.S. policies had left them without status or <a href="https://refuge.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/refuge/article/view/40319/36361">were deporting them to conflict zones</a>.</p>
<p>Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government moved to cancel the moratorium on deportations to El Salvador and Guatemala, and imposed visa requirements for nationals from these two countries. He said the decision was a better way to manage the “crisis” at the border.</p>
<p>This was despite the fact that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pp26x">nationals of both countries had a higher than 60 per cent acceptance rate</a>. To justify its policy changes, the Canadian government, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654418790765">supported by the news media, relied on stories of systemic abuse by refugee claimants</a>.</p>
<p>Declaring something a crisis authorizes emergency responses. By describing a border as being in crisis, leaders can then ignore the consequences of policies that disproportionately impact those enduring the instability and violence of precarious migration status.</p>
<p>The crisis mentality helps to ensure strong borders. It works to keep the insecurities experienced by people in other places — conflict, war, poverty, environmental disasters — far from Canada’s borders. </p>
<h2>Whose history?</h2>
<p>Borders are not often understood at the individual level — unless to mourn those who have died or to rage against the caging of children. Much more frequently, the stories told about borders are from the state’s perspective. </p>
<p>When state officials talk of a crisis of irregular arrivals at their borders, they downplay and divert our attention from the other times, spaces and relationships that are present in a given scene from that border. If life histories and the impact of borders in everyday life go unacknowledged, it is easy to reproduce a flattened, two-dimensional understanding of borders. </p>
<p>These understandings lead to the many misrepresentations about how border policies actually work and the motivations behind them. They do not connect how remote these motivations might be from human rights law or humanitarian concerns.</p>
<p>Examples of this include ongoing references to the so-called “loophole” in the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. Related to this is the criminalization of people who cross the border via the routes opened up by the uneven application of this policy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/closing-the-canada-u-s-asylum-border-agreement-loophole-not-so-fast-114116">Closing the Canada-U.S. asylum border agreement loophole? Not so fast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This has led to a landscape where people who arrive at the border to make asylum claims are often referred to as “shoppers” or “criminals” by politicians — language reproduced in news media. These narratives eschew the reasons for their asylum in favour of the government’s narrative. </p>
<p><em>Remembering Refuge</em> takes a step outside the “crisis” to focus on the experiences of people who have been displaced multiple times, across multiple state borders. By making connections between these borders and the broader contexts at work, we can see how the legacies of earlier conflicts and displacements reverberate into the present. This includes the ongoing impacts of the Central American refugee crisis that came to a head in the 1980s, displacing Maria and her daughter.</p>
<p>_<a href="https://www.rememberingrefuge.com/">Remembering Refuge: Between Sanctuary and Solidarity</a> launches in March and is partnered with the University of Lethbridge and supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace Wu receives funding from The National Geographic Society. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johanna Reynolds receives funding from the National Geographic Society. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Young receives funding from the National Geographic Society and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Canadian leaders have desperately tried to preserve the country’s image of liberal humanitarianism at our border, but the reality is Canada’s immigration history is built upon exclusion.Grace Wu, Researcher, Co-Investigator, Department of Geography, University of LethbridgeJohanna Reynolds, Research and project coordinator; Doctoral student, Department of Geography, York University, CanadaJulie Young, Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Critical Border Studies and Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Lethbridge, University of LethbridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1266472019-12-19T20:24:05Z2019-12-19T20:24:05ZBattle at the border: 5 essential reads on asylum, citizenship and the right to live in the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302717/original/file-20191120-502-m7o4ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer checks migrants' documents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mexico-US-Immigration-Temporary-Status/ff82250620ef40889e99832a04ec6332/25/0">AP Photo/Fernando Llano</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: As we come to the end of the year, Conversation editors take a look back at the stories that – for them – exemplified 2019.</em></p>
<p>Who gets to live in the United States?</p>
<p>It’s a contentious question, particularly as the Trump administration works to limit entry to the U.S., through policies like <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-trumps-travel-ban-really-looks-like-almost-two-years-in-123564">2017’s travel ban</a>, as well as increased use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/immigrant-detention-in-the-us-4-essential-reads-103190">detention centers</a>. Meanwhile, others continue their fight to <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-support-for-immigration-is-at-record-highs-but-the-government-is-out-of-sync-with-their-views-121215">keep the borders open</a>.</p>
<p>As I look back at our stories from 2019, I’m struck by how many times this question recurred – in cases involving asylees, migrants and aspiring citizens.</p>
<h2>1. Left waiting</h2>
<p>In the past, when asylum seekers showed up at the border, they were processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.</p>
<p>This changed in 2018 with the introduction of “metering.” Seekers are now told that the border crossings are full and that they have to wait in Mexico until space becomes available. </p>
<p>That’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-asylum-seekers-left-waiting-at-the-us-mexico-border-118367">left thousands of people waiting in cities along the border</a>. In May, the number waiting was up to 19,000, more than triple what it was the previous November. </p>
<p>“The increase in the number of asylum seekers and longer wait times has put a stress on shelters in Mexican border cities, which all reported to us that they were over capacity,” wrote University of California San Diego’s <a href="https://www.sylff.org/fellows/savitri-arvey/">Savitri Arvey</a> and University of Texas at Austin’s <a href="https://lbj.utexas.edu/leutert-stephanie">Steph Leutert</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="vh0h5" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vh0h5/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2. Changing migration</h2>
<p>Today, many of the people seeking asylum at the southern border come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.</p>
<p>And “there are more overall migrants coming to the U.S. than a decade ago,” writes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OBIxsGQAAAAJ&hl=en">Rogelio Sáenz</a>, a demographer at The University of Texas at San Antonio.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://theconversation.com/far-fewer-mexican-immigrants-are-coming-to-the-us-and-those-who-do-are-more-educated-122524">the number of migrants from Mexico</a> has plummeted – down 53% between 2003 and 2017. </p>
<p>Possible explanations for this decrease include the increasing militarization of the southern border, an increase in detentions and deportations, and Mexico’s improved economy.</p>
<p><iframe id="J3HZy" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/J3HZy/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>3. Roots abroad</h2>
<p>As the number of Mexican migrants decreases, <a href="https://theconversation.com/half-a-million-american-minors-now-live-in-mexico-119057">the number of American children living in Mexico</a> has shot up. </p>
<p>In 2015, nearly half a million minors born in the U.S. lived south of the border, more than double was it was in 2000. Many of these citizens have Mexican-born parents.</p>
<p>“We do not know what the future holds for this large group of young U.S. citizens with deep roots in both countries,” write <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=YAAcBioAAAAJ">Claudia Masferrer</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EUf3884AAAAJ&hl=en">Erin R. Hamilton</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oPbXnmMAAAAJ&hl=en">Nicole Denier</a>, researchers who have studied census records on this group. </p>
<p>Like Dreamers, “U.S. citizen minors in Mexico also live in mixed-status families, but in some ways the challenges they face are distinct: They have the possibility for legal integration, but still face barriers to social and economic integration in Mexico.”</p>
<h2>4. Left out</h2>
<p>The question of who gets to be a citizen and live in the U.S. has long been complicated.</p>
<p>“Historically, not all children born of U.S. citizen service members stationed overseas have been granted U.S. citizenship nor legal recognition,” writes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=m5h-3acAAAAJ">Victoria Reyes</a>, a sociologist at University of California, Riverside.</p>
<p>Reyes studies <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-some-children-born-abroad-us-citizenship-has-never-been-a-guarantee-122704">children born to Filipina mothers and U.S. servicemen</a>, a group that, for years, has waged an unsuccessful battle for recognition. An estimated 25,000 to 50,000 Amerasians, who have not been granted citizenship, remain in the Philippines today.</p>
<h2>5. The last mile</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, applications for citizenship are backlogged, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-citizenship-applications-are-backlogged-prolonging-the-wait-for-civil-and-voting-rights-123747">more than 700,000 applications</a> piled up as of Sept. 17.</p>
<p>Wait times for processing those applications have doubled over the last few years, with the average applicant waiting to hear back for 10 to 18 months. </p>
<p>That means they have to put many aspects of their lives on hold.</p>
<p>“Keeping people who are eligible for citizenship from participation in choosing their president and voting on high-stakes policies is a problem,” writes <a href="https://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=454">Ming Hsu Chen</a> of the University of Colorado Boulder. “In addition, immigrants’ eligibility for employment and public benefits hinges on citizenship.”</p>
<p><iframe id="msGIg" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/msGIg/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Many want to come to the United States, as an asylee, a migrant or a citizen. But those journeys have become more complicated.Aviva Rutkin, Data EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1244752019-10-10T17:24:11Z2019-10-10T17:24:11ZUS will send migrants to El Salvador, a country that can’t protect its own people<p>The Trump administration is continuing its efforts to keep Central American asylum seekers away from the United States’ border. </p>
<p>On Sept. 20 the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/us-asylum-el-salvador.html">signed an agreement</a> with El Salvador to accept asylum seekers sent out of the United States. U.S. officials have avoided specifics in discussing the deal and implied that only Salvadoran migrants would be sent to El Salvador. </p>
<p>The actual text of the agreement, however, is vague. It leaves open the possibility that asylum seekers who never set foot in El Salvador – for example, Guatemalan migrants who <a href="https://theconversation.com/dozens-of-migrants-disappear-in-mexico-as-central-american-caravan-pushes-northward-106287">reach the U.S. via Mexico</a> – could be <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/23/el-salvador-asylum-agreement/">sent there to wait</a> out their U.S. asylum process.</p>
<p>The deal comes soon after <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/12/guatemala-%E2%80%9Csafe-third-country%E2%80%9D-disposable-people">similar agreements</a> with Guatemala and <a href="https://www.wola.org/2019/09/honduras-asylum-deal-trump/">Honduras</a>. Those three Central American countries are the main sources of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-and-refugees-at-the-southern-border-5-questions-answered-123848">migration to the U.S.</a>. </p>
<p>None of these migration deals has yet gone into effect.</p>
<p>The suggestion that El Salvador can <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/59c4be077.pdf">protect asylum seekers</a> – people who say they were persecuted in their home countries for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion – is misleading.</p>
<p>El Salvador may be relatively comfortable for wealthy Salvadorans, who frequently live in secured compounds, replete with razor wire fences and armed guards. But it is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-el-salvador-so-dangerous-4-essential-reads-89904">very dangerous country</a> for refugees of violence.</p>
<h2>Roots of impunity</h2>
<p>Roughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/">protected under international asylum law</a> cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.</p>
<p>Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. In July, the country went a day without a murder, and it was <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2019/08/02/el-salvador-tuvo-un-dia-sin-homicidios/">headline news</a>. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/25/latin-america-is-the-worlds-most-violent-region-a-new-report-investigates-why/">go unsolved</a> in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/EL-SALVADOR-2018.pdf">rarely punished</a> for their wrongdoing.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=R00JOgwAAAAJ&hl=en">documented this culture of impunity</a> across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence. </p>
<p>This violence dates back centuries, to Spain’s bloody conquest of the Americas. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/reader-center/1619-project-slavery-jamestown.html">in the U.S.</a>, colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region’s race, class and gender divisions.</p>
<p>In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/remembering-massacre-el-salvador/9780826336040">left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead</a>.</p>
<p>Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2018.1457006">political corruption and unjust resource allocation</a>, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.</p>
<p>By the 1970s, dissident factions had again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.</p>
<p>The subsequent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/27/world/massacre-of-hundreds-reported-in-salvador-village.html?pagewanted=all">Salvadoran civil war</a> killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/time-for-a-us-apology-to-el-salvador/">military support from the United States</a>, ARENA defeated the rebels. </p>
<p>The 1992 <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/elsalvador-chapultepec92">El Salvador peace accords</a>, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf">human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces</a> during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador’s ARENA-controlled congress passed an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/rebuffing-the-un-el-salvador-grants-amnesty.html">amnesty law</a> that excused most government and military officials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front transformed into a left-wing political party after the civil war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-SLV-APHS460298-El-Salvador-Civil-Wa-/0db9d5d82047445ab961eeb97cc18d27/134/0">AP Photo/Luis Romero</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, the root causes of El Salvador’s conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">very weak rule of law</a> that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.</p>
<p>Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.</p>
<p>El Salvador’s defense minister recently assessed that there are more <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Ministro-de-Defensa-dice-que-hay-mas-pandilleros-que-soldados-20151020-0027.html">gang members than soldiers in his country</a>. The resulting dangerous disarray sent <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/201909/el_salvador/23667/El-Salvador-Signs-Agreement-to-Accept-Asylum-Seekers-the-US-Won%E2%80%99t-Protect.htm">46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year</a>. </p>
<p>Risking the unknown violence of migration rather than guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision.</p>
<h2>Human security</h2>
<p>President Nayib Bukele’s new centrist party, the Grand Alliance for National Unity, says combating crime and impunity is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-new-president-must-tackle-crime-unemployment-and-migration-but-nation-is-hopeful-111499">priority for his administration</a>.</p>
<p>Since Bukele took office in June 2019, murders in El Salvador are down. The president credits his <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/el-salvador-flirts-with-mano-dura-security-policies-again/">tough-on-gangs</a> policing with improving security in the country. </p>
<p>But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides change is actually <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/el-salvador-omit-key-data-homicides/">a manipulation of crime data</a>. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/06/el-salvadors-tough-policing-isnt-what-it-looks-like/">confrontation with security forces</a> – police killings – from the homicide category. </p>
<p>In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/el-salvador">among the world’s highest</a>. </p>
<p>Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/15/how-gangs-have-become-a-trojan-horse-in-el-salvadors-security-forces-part-2/">corruption or concern for their own safety</a>. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence. </p>
<p>Often, officers themselves victimize Salvadorans, roughing up <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/parque-cuscatlan-san-salvador.html">suspected gang members</a> who may just be teenage boys hanging out on the street. </p>
<h2>Human rights law</h2>
<p>In these circumstances, sending migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to El Salvador may violate an international law called “non-refoulement.”</p>
<p>According to the 1954 <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1954-Convention-relating-to-the-Status-of-Stateless-Persons_ENG.pdf">United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees</a>, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory “where his life or freedom would be threatened.” </p>
<p>Migrants know El Salvador can’t protect them from the dangers they flee. Only about <a href="https://rree.gob.sv/gobierno-salvador-entrega-nacionalidades-naturalizacion-dia-mundial-los-refugiados/">50 people have applied for asylum there in recent years</a>. El Salvador has just <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/201909/el_salvador/23667/El-Salvador-Signs-Agreement-to-Accept-Asylum-Seekers-the-US-Won%E2%80%99t-Protect.htm">one asylum officer on staff</a>, according to the Salvadoran investigative news site El Faro.</p>
<p>The future of the U.S.-El Salvador migration agreement is not assured, as the Salvadoran <a href="https://www.voanoticias.com/a/eeuu-el-salvador-firmar%C3%A1n-acuerdo-sobre-asilo/5092135.html">Congress has not yet approved the measure</a>. But if it goes into effect, migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. may soon become collateral damage from this political deal.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump officials plan to send asylum seekers from the US to El Salvador while their claims are processed. That would expose these vulnerable people to grave dangers, says a political violence expert.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1238482019-10-07T12:38:09Z2019-10-07T12:38:09ZThe Supreme Court and refugees at the southern border: 5 questions answered<p>I sat in a small room in Tijuana, Mexico with a 13-year-old indigenous Mayan Guatemalan girl. </p>
<p>She left Guatemala after a cartel murdered her friend and threatened to rape her. Her mother wanted her to live and believed the only way for her to survive was to send her daughter alone to the U.S., to apply for asylum. </p>
<p>Now she was alone and stuck in Mexico. </p>
<p>Every morning, the Guatemalan girl, along with other asylum seekers, would frantically gather at the Tijuana-U.S. border where they waited to hear <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/29/737268856/metering-at-the-border">their name or their number</a> called so the Mexican government could escort them to the U.S. border.</p>
<p><a href="https://law.vanderbilt.edu/bio/karla-mckanders">As the director of the Immigration Clinic,</a> I was in Tijuana, <a href="https://www.tba.org/connect/beyond-walls-and-policies">with my law student</a> from the <a href="https://law.vanderbilt.edu/academics/clinical-legal-education/immigration-practice-clinic/index.php">Vanderbilt University Law School Immigration Practice Clinic</a>. In the clinic, we represent asylum seekers in deportation proceedings before the U.S. immigration courts. We traveled to the Tijuana border in December to volunteer with the legal services nonprofit <a href="https://alotrolado.org">Al Otro Lado</a>. </p>
<p>On my trip, I witnessed the contradictions between human rights protections in the Refugee Convention and how the asylum system was operating in practice. </p>
<p>The administration’s formalizing of informal policies I witnessed in December, along with the Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/19a230_k53l.pdf">Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant</a> in September, closes the southern border to asylum seekers.</p>
<p>In implementing these policies, the U.S. is acting in violation of its own law governing treatment of refugees, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158">U.S. 1980 Refugee Act</a>. The Q&A below illustrates what the U.S. should be doing, under law – and what it isn’t doing.</p>
<h2>1. What are the responsibilities of the US toward refugees?</h2>
<p><a href="https://cms.emergency.unhcr.org/documents/11982/55726/Convention+relating+to+the+Status+of+Refugees+%28signed+28+July+1951%2C+entered+into+force+22+April+1954%29+189+UNTS+150+and+Protocol+relating+to+the+Status+of+Refugees+%28signed+31+January+1967%2C+entered+into+force+4+October+167%29+606+UNTS+267/0bf3248a-cfa8-4a60-864d-65cdfece1d47">The Refugee Convention was drafted after the Holocaust</a>, when Jewish refugees were denied protection. The denial of protection resulted in some of the returnees dying in Europe. The events of the Holocaust prompted the international community to enshrine the duty to not return an individual to a country where they would face persecution or death. </p>
<p>In 1968, the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protection/basic/3b73b0d63/states-parties-1951-convention-its-1967-protocol.html">U.S. signed onto the provisions of the Refugee Convention</a>. The United States and other countries that signed the Refugee Convention agreed that they would not return a person to their home country if the person fled because of a fear of past or future persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. </p>
<p>In 1980, the U.S. modified the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158">Immigration and Nationality Act</a> to provide full protection to asylum seekers. The procedures, contained in the act, lay out how an asylum seeker can approach the border, express a fear of returning and have a court hearing with a U.S. immigration judge to determine whether they are a refugee. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=982%2C1439%2C2032%2C896&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=982%2C1439%2C2032%2C896&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293701/original/file-20190923-54813-k825cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2hkJPiD">Karla McKanders</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. How have policies at the border changed?</h2>
<p>In January, the administration signed an executive order, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/01/24/migrant-protection-protocols">the Migration Protection Protocols</a>. This order modified procedures under the 1980 Refugee Act in that asylum seekers must now wait in Mexico and for their asylum hearings before U.S. immigration judges.</p>
<p>In April, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-additional-measures-enhance-border-security-restore-integrity-immigration-system/">administration proposed new regulations</a> that would impose fees on asylum applicants and would preclude applicants from lawfully working in the U.S. while their applications are pending.</p>
<p>In May, the chief officer for the Asylum Division with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/minor-children-applying-asylum-themselves">diminished key protections for unaccompanied minor children</a>. One change would prevent a child – like the asylum seeker I interviewed from Guatemala – from presenting her asylum case before a nonadversarial asylum officer in an interview instead of going to immigration court.</p>
<h2>3. What are the policies for asylum seekers in transit?</h2>
<p>Under the U.S. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158">Immigration and Nationality Act</a>, a person is not entitled to refugee protection if the U.S. has a valid safe third country agreement with countries through which an asylum seeker travels. </p>
<p>According to U.S. law and <a href="https://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&docid=4bab55da2">United Nations</a>, a safe third country is one in which the asylum seekers’ life or freedom would not be threatened. Before such agreements go into effect, that country must provide fair procedures for people in transit to apply for asylum or equivalent protection. </p>
<p>In July, the administration <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Federal-Rule.pdf">published a rule</a> banning all asylum seekers who traveled through a safe third country in transit to the United States from applying for asylum. </p>
<p>In the background of this rule is the fact that this year, the administration entered into safe third country agreements with Central American countries: <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/09/20/joint-statement-between-us-government-and-government-el-salvador">El Salvador</a>, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/09/21/joint-statement-between-us-government-and-government-honduras">Honduras</a> and <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Guatemala-Cooperative-Agreement-with-Signature-Blocks-ENG.pdf">Guatemala</a>.</p>
<p>But these countries are only marginally safe, even for their own nationals.</p>
<p><iframe id="TS2gA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TS2gA/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>These <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45489">Northern Triangle countries</a> have extremely elevated homicide rates; high crime by drug traffickers, gangs and other criminal groups; and corrupt public institutions. <a href="https://www.undispatch.com/countries-with-the-highest-murder-rates-ranked-in-a-new-un-report/">In Honduras and El Salvador</a>, homicide rates for males under 30 are the highest in the world. </p>
<p>The high incidence of violence, has, in part, led to the constant migration from the Northern Triangle.</p>
<h2>4. What happened with the lawsuit challenging the administration’s new rule?</h2>
<p>The refugee legal advocacy organization, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, challenged the administration’s <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Federal-Rule.pdf">interim rule</a>. This case <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/19a230_k53l.pdf">made its way to the Supreme Court</a>. </p>
<p>On Sept. 11, the Supreme Court issued an order <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/19a230_k53l.pdf">Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant</a> lifting the <a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/08/16/19-16487.pdf">Ninth Circuit’s</a> order <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Federal-Rule.pdf">halting the rule’s implementation</a>.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s order does not have a written opinion, nor does it indicate how the individual justices voted. There is only a dissent written by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsberg. </p>
<p>The case is now back before the Ninth Circuit, before even possibly coming back for the Supreme Court to evaluate the merits of the case.</p>
<p>While the case is proceeding through the court system, the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/19a230_k53l.pdf">Supreme Court’s order</a> shuts down the southern border to asylum seekers indefinitely. </p>
<h2>5. What happens now?</h2>
<p>The administration’s changes to the asylum system are now being enforced.</p>
<p>That leaves individuals at risk of staying in unsafe countries with <a href="https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/images/zdocs/Safe-Third-Countries---May-2018.pdf">marginally operational systems for processing asylum seekers</a> or being deported to their home countries, where they could face persecution or death. </p>
<p><iframe id="LDjKu" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LDjKu/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://www.msf.org/sites/msf.org/files/msf_forced-to-flee-central-americas-northern-triangle_e.pdf">Doctors without Borders found</a> that 68% of migrants from the Northern Triangle reported being victims of violence during their trip. Nearly one-third of women had been sexually assaulted. Perpetrators include gang members and Mexican security forces. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/when-deportation-is-a-death-sentence">Another report</a> documented more than 60 cases where deportation back to the Northern Triangle resulted in persecution.</p>
<p>As a practicing immigration law attorney and professor looking at the evidence, it seems clear to me that the interim rule places at risk the lives of multiple asylum seekers.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karla Mari McKanders is affiliated with the American Bar Association, Commission on Immigration. </span></em></p>The US is violating its own law governing treatment of refugees.Karla Mari McKanders, Clinical Professor of Law, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243212019-09-26T18:22:53Z2019-09-26T18:22:53ZWould ousting Trump rebuild the country’s faith in government? Lessons from Latin America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294391/original/file-20190926-51438-78ag0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reporters ask Nancy Pelosi about the formal impeachment inquiry against Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Trump-Intelligence-Whistleblower/61c57ac3d4164ebfb32beb42e192331e/56/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The House of Representatives has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/25/what-you-need-know-about-impeachment-inquiry-into-trump/">opened an impeachment inquiry</a> against President Donald Trump. But what happens if a president is impeached?</p>
<p>The vice president would take his place, but other parts of the government continue unchanged. Partisan polarization can be magnified in the process. Many Americans already think the government is <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/17/3-views-of-congress/">too divided along partisan lines</a> and that <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2017/for_sale_congress">corruption</a> has reached <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-and-maryland-to-sue-president-trump-alleging-breach-of-constitutional-oath/2017/06/11/0059e1f0-4f19-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html">the highest levels of government</a>. These beliefs fuel <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/11/23/457063796/poll-only-1-in-5-americans-say-they-trust-the-government">declines in public trust</a> and <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/208526/adults-name-government-dissatisfaction-important-problem.aspx">dissatisfaction</a> with the government in general.</p>
<p>In my book on the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/achilles-heel-of-democracy/729655118E5C21315EA768CE19291434">rule of law in Central America</a>, I discuss several occasions in which presidents were removed from office before their terms ended. </p>
<p>The current political crisis in the United States shares similarities with political issues in Latin America. We are seeing <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/">radical partisanship</a>, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/political-attitudes/congressional-favorability/">public dissatisfaction</a> and <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/right_direction_wrong_track_jun26">perceived poor government performance</a>. Since only one U.S. president has left office due to wrongdoing, examples from Latin America can give us some perspective. </p>
<p>Lasting <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/06/40-years-ago-church-committee-investigated-americans-spying-on-americans/">reforms after Watergate</a> came from a <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/investigations/ChurchCommittee.htm">congressional committee’s investigation</a> and recommendations, rather than from the simple resignation of President Nixon. Impeachment is <a href="https://theconversation.com/impeachment-its-political-77528">inherently political</a> and, as I have observed in Latin America, does more to punish enemies than clean up politics. Removing a president who is a “bad apple” may help, but a real cleansing takes more effort.</p>
<h2>After impeachment</h2>
<p>Take Brazil as a case in point.</p>
<p>Former President Dilma Rousseff <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/dilma-rousseff-impeached-president-brazilian-senate-michel-temer">was impeached</a> in 2016 in the midst of an anti-corruption investigation known as “Operation Car Wash.” There were already pending corruption investigations against <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-brazil-impeach-20160328-story.html">37 of 65 members of the congressional impeachment commission</a>, but none of them were forced from office. It is no surprise that Rousseff’s impeachment appeared to many to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/05/in-brazil-women-are-fighting-against-the-sexist-impeachment-of-dilma-rousseff">inspired by sexism</a> rather than just anti-corruption efforts.</p>
<p>Rousseff’s replacement, President Michel Temer, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-corruption-idUSKBN19J2R5">was charged with</a> corruption-related offenses in June 2017. However, Temer’s political party and their allies controlled the majority of the Congress and the president of the Congress was an ally of Temer’s. A formal impeachment never went forward, but Temer <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47658080">was arrested in March 2019</a> after leaving office.</p>
<p>We see a similar failure to pull out the root of corruption in the “Guatemalan Spring” of September 2015. Then Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina was forced to resign in the face of massive popular protests. He was implicated in an investigation into corruption at the national customs agency, for which he was arrested the day after his resignation. He had also been accused of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36060524">taking bribes from a Spanish firm</a> in exchange for granting it a lucrative long-term contract with the government of Guatemala.</p>
<p>An election was held just four days after Pérez Molina’s resignation. Jimmy Morales, a television comedian with no political experience, won the presidency over a former first lady. Morales ran as an outsider with the slogan “not corrupt, not a thief.” After his first year in office, <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalan-President-Jimmy-Morales-Marks-Inefficient-1st-Year-20170112-0017.html">which opponents have derided as “inefficient,”</a> Morales <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-corruption-idUSKBN16E2PW">faced a corruption scandal</a> involving accusations that his son and brother had fraudulent dealings with a government agency.</p>
<p>Take an older example, from Honduras. The <a href="http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/us-honduran-coup/">military coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009</a> was authorized by that country’s Supreme Court and was backed by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/americas/29honduras.html">the majority of its Congress</a>. The Honduran Supreme Court argued that Zelaya was planning to reform the constitution to give himself more power as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had done. </p>
<p>Some eight years after Zelaya was removed, Honduran political elites continue to <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/corruption-honduras-result-of-functioning-system-report">participate in widespread corruption</a>, including <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/honduras-elites-and-organized-crime-introduction">direct ties between some political elites and organized crime</a>. Because so many of the elites are corrupt, none of them <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/30/when-corruption-is-operating-system-case-of-honduras-pub-69999">rock the boat.</a> </p>
<p>Even prosecuting and jailing presidents for corruption doesn’t seem to solve the problems that lead up to these crises. Often the rest of government continues to be overly partisan and even corrupt – and public satisfaction with government drops even lower. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3299289.stm">Nicaragua</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/world/americas/28fbriefs-EXPRESIDENTF_BRF.html">Costa Rica</a>, for example, former presidents have been jailed on corruption charges, but those convictions were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/world/americas/16nicaragua.html">ultimately</a> <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/12/05/appeal-court-acquitts-ex-costa-rica-president-miguel-angel-rodriguez">overturned</a> on appeal. In 2013, Guatemala became the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/world/americas/guatemala-genocide-trial/index.html">first country</a> to convict a former head of state of genocide in a national court. Ten days later, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22605022">reversed</a> General Efraín Rios Montt’s conviction over an evidentiary matter – and Rios Montt then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/01/ex-guatemalan-dictator-efrain-rios-montt-dies-aged-91">died in 2018</a> before a <a href="https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/04/rios-montt-to-face-second-genocide-trial-for-the-dos-erres-massacre/">new trial</a> could occur. The point is, it is extraordinarily difficult to make charges stick against even a former president, especially if he or she still has sizable support in the government.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294392/original/file-20190926-51401-12r53ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Molina spoke at a conference as president of Guatemala in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/SOP-AP-SPANI-SPAN-XUN-SPANUNJD120-GUATEMALA-ENT-/b291e2cfd6894c868678c0922edb4c35/3/0">AP Photo/Jason DeCrow</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond impeachment</h2>
<p>Problems with governance are rarely fixed by going after even an unpopular or corrupt president if fundamental institutional problems are allowed to continue unchecked. Impeachment’s weakness is compounded by its often partisan deployment. </p>
<p>What else can be done to clean up politics? </p>
<p>The hard work of demanding <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/brazil/2017-04-13/brazil-s-never-ending-corruption-crisis">transparency</a> more generally may help get at the root of the problem. Guatemala’s experience with an <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/5-takeaways-cicig-guatemala-anti-corruption-experiment/">international anti-corruption commission</a> helped local officials shine a light on official wrongdoing at every level of government. However, that commission’s <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/guatemalas-un-anti-corruption-body-a-victim-of-its-own-success/a-50277624">mandate expired on September 2, 2019</a>, following <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemala-in-crisis-after-president-bans-corruption-investigation-into-his-government-109864">clashes with the president</a> over an investigation into his own actions.</p>
<p>Ultimately, using <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/brazil/2017-06-02/brazils-best-shot-against-corruption">legal channels to improve political institutions</a>, rather than focusing on just one bad politician, can enhance the rule of law. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/would-impeaching-trump-restore-the-rule-of-law-lessons-from-latin-america-80127">an article</a> originally published on July 11, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel E. Bowen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the House mounts an impeachment investigation of President Trump, examples from Central and South America show that ousting an executive leader from office doesn’t always have the intended effect.Rachel E. Bowen, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1235092019-09-24T11:27:36Z2019-09-24T11:27:36ZWhat Trump’s asylum ban will mean for the thousands waiting at the US-Mexico border<p>The Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-07-16/pdf/2019-15246.pdf">latest restrictive immigration policy</a>, known as the asylum ban, was recently upheld by the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/19a230_k53l.pdf">U.S. Supreme Court</a>. </p>
<p>The ban effectively ends asylum relief for the vast majority of refugees seeking it at the U.S.-Mexico border. It prevents individuals from applying for asylum in the United States if they could have pursued asylum in another country first. </p>
<p>There are few exceptions: (1) if you lose your asylum claim in a third country, or (2) if you only passed through the few countries who are not parties to certain <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/about-us/background/4ec262df9/1951-convention-relating-status-refugees-its-1967-protocol.html">United Nations refugee conventions</a>. None of these countries are located in Central America, through which the many refugees travel on their way to the U.S.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.albanylaw.edu/faculty/directory/profiles?ind=Rogerson,+Sarah+F.">As a scholar of immigration law</a>, I can state with authority that – unlike other policies – this particular move will likely result in the death, kidnapping and torture of individuals seeking safety from persecution and torture in their home countries.</p>
<h2>Asylum-seekers’ journeys</h2>
<p>Asylum-seekers at the southern border come from all over the world, not only Central America. </p>
<p>Before I became a law professor, I worked as a staff attorney at <a href="https://hrionline.org/">Human Rights Initiative of North Texas</a>, a legal services nonprofit in Dallas, Texas. There, I represented dozens of asylum-seekers in both affirmative and defensive asylum claims during the Bush and Obama administrations. </p>
<p>The vast majority of our clients entered through the southern border. They were fleeing violence from every corner of the world: Eritrea, Egypt, Iran, Chad, Cuba, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Nepal – and yes, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, too. </p>
<p>Last summer, I led <a href="https://www.nyic.org/2018/07/southern-border-ny-lawyers-screen-300-asylum-seekers-1-month-albany-jail/">an effort</a> to provide legal information regarding credible fear interviews to over 300 asylum-seekers transferred straight from the southern border to a county jail in Albany, New York. They came from 39 different countries and spoke 19 different languages. </p>
<p><iframe id="8qayQ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8qayQ/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>To qualify for asylum in the United States, an individual must show that they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution in the future on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. </p>
<p>Courts have interpreted membership in a particular social group to include claims involving persecution due to gender, sexual orientation, family affiliation and other types of persecution that the government cannot or will not prevent.</p>
<p>One of my former clients, a human rights worker from a country in Africa, narrowly escaped death after having been imprisoned and tortured by her own government. She swam across the Rio Grande to seek safety in the United States after catching a flight to Central America and making her perilous journey north. She was eight months pregnant. When she arrived in our office with her husband, also a refugee and also a client, she was days away from giving birth and in crippling distress. </p>
<p>Months later, after giving birth, she and her husband, were granted asylum by an immigration judge. They might not be alive today had the U.S. government not protected them.</p>
<h2>New struggles under the ban</h2>
<p>Under the asylum ban, individuals like my client are less likely to survive. </p>
<p>First, upon arriving at the border, asylees are subjected to another Trump-era policy implemented on January 25: the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/12/20/secretary-nielsen-announces-historic-action-confront-illegal-immigration">“remain in Mexico”</a> policy, which requires them <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-asylum-seekers-left-waiting-at-the-us-mexico-border-118367">to wait in line in Mexico with thousands of other migrants</a> until it is their turn to request asylum. </p>
<p><iframe id="vh0h5" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vh0h5/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>If they avoid the <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/general_litigation/letter_urges_sec_nielsen_end_migrant_protection_protocols_policy.pdf">rape, beatings, kidnappings and ransom</a> that have plagued those waiting in Mexico, a new fate awaits them. They might make it to the front of the line, only to be turned away under the new policies. Immigration judges <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/along-texas-border-trump-administration-sets-up-tent-courts-for-virtual-asylum-hearings/2019/09/18/f29d1326-d9bc-11e9-adff-79254db7f766_story.html?outputType=amp">presiding remotely</a> over closed hearings from the United States can decide that under the new policy, an individual is required to seek asylum in one of the countries they passed through before arriving in Mexico. </p>
<p>Let’s say that country is Guatemala, one of the countries that asylees traveling by land from anywhere in Central or South America must pass through in order to reach Mexico. The <a href="https://www.osac.gov/Content/Report/5f31517e-62bb-4f2c-8956-15f4aeaab930">U.S. State Department indicates that</a> Guatemala “remains among the most dangerous countries in the world,” due to “endemic poverty, an abundance of weapons, a legacy of societal violence, and the presence of organized criminal gangs.” </p>
<p>This small, troubled country now has a long line of asylum applications to process, which it is already ill-equipped to do. Guatemala’s asylum system has been characterized by immigration experts as <a href="https://www.univision.com/univision-news/immigration/guatemalas-embryonic-asylum-system-lacks-capacity-to-serve-as-safe-u-s-partner-experts-say">“embryonic.”</a> As of Aug. 2, its four asylum officers had not resolved any of the 423 cases awaiting a decision. </p>
<p>Many asylees will likely face difficulty traveling back to Guatemala, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/us-asylum-el-salvador.html">El Salvador</a> or other common waypoints. Even if they did, they would find no protection there and little chance to survive in a country struggling to keep its own citizens safe. </p>
<h2>Legal challenges</h2>
<p>Many of the over 10,000 migrants waiting at the border – whose numbers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-asylum-seekers-left-waiting-at-the-us-mexico-border-118367">growing daily</a> – face similar dangers. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/when-they-filed-their-asylum-claim-they-were-told-to-wait-in-mexico-there-they-say-they-were-kidnapped/2019/08/09/6133c2d6-b95f-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html?noredirect=on">reported</a> on the kidnapping of a family of four awaiting their chance to seek asylum. That story <a href="https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/Delivered-to-Danger-August-2019%20.pdf">cited a human rights report</a> cataloging more than 110 cases of violent crimes against asylum-seekers waiting as a result of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, during observations of hearings at the border in June and July.</p>
<p>So far, lawsuits challenging this ban have failed. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6419253-MMV-v-BARR-Et-Al-Filed-9-16-19.html">The most recent legal challenge</a>, filed on Sept. 16, is on behalf of more than 100 migrant mothers and children directly impacted by the asylum ban. </p>
<p>That lawsuit documents and challenges the inconsistent implementation of the policy. For example, the first step in articulating an asylum claim at the border is a process called a “credible fear interview.” Under the asylum ban, individuals have not been provided legal orientation regarding the new processes for these interviews. Some have been subjected to multiple interviews over long periods of time. Meanwhile, untrained border patrol officers, rather than trained asylum officers, are now conducting the interviews.</p>
<p>As renewed legal challenges make their way through the courts, I fear that families will continue disappearing, violent attacks on refugees will increase, and the human toll will be irreversible. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah F. Rogerson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Asylum-seekers will now be prevented from applying for asylum in the United States if they could have pursued asylum in another country first.Sarah F. Rogerson, Professor of Law and Director of Immigration Law Clinic, Albany Law SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.