tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/guatemala-11856/articlesGuatemala – The Conversation2023-12-19T13:17:06Ztag: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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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/2067422023-06-07T12:24:51Z2023-06-07T12:24:51ZThis course studies NGOs aiming to help countries recover from mass atrocities and to prevent future violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530156/original/file-20230605-23-e0xtco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C293%2C3856%2C2311&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A witness cries while giving testimony in a trial against former Guatemalan dictator Gen. José Efraín Ríos Montt in 2013. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ana-de-leon-cries-while-giving-testimony-as-witness-in-the-news-photo/165201899">Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em></p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Introduction to Nongovernmental Organizations”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>I’ve long studied mass atrocities perpetrated against people based on their religion, ethnic background, political views or simply some aspect of their identity. Over the past decade, I came to realize that what I’d learned from history classes and news media about the Nazi Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda, and the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s taught me what happened and why. I didn’t know, and wanted to learn, what could have been done to prevent that violence and what happened afterward to prevent it from happening again. </p>
<p>I learned that nonprofits play a critical role in preventing mass atrocities and helping communities recover from them. I developed this course to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2023.2201806">teach students about the nongovernmental organizations</a>, as these groups are called outside the United States, that do this work.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>It focuses on five countries with a history of mass atrocities – or the risk of experiencing them in the future – and the often difficult <a href="https://monitor.civicus.org/">work NGOs do</a> in those places. Students learn about the history of conflicts and the potential for future identity-based violence in nations like Myanmar, Colombia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland and South Africa.</p>
<p>In addition, students regularly meet with staff from NGOs in each of those countries to learn what they do to address past violence and prevent it in the future. </p>
<p>Two examples are <a href="https://www.cbmitrovica.org/">Community Building Mitrovica</a> in Kosovo, and the <a href="https://www.districtsix.co.za/">District Six Museum</a> in South Africa. Community Building Mitrovica operates in a city with a population that’s evenly divided between Albanians and Serbs. It delivers programs that increase understanding and enhances the capacity of the two ethnic groups to live together peacefully.</p>
<p>Cape Town’s District Six Museum tells the story of the displacement of residents and the destruction of the District Six neighborhood under apartheid while also working to rebuild that community in post-apartheid South Africa. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C55%2C4575%2C2900&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman walks past displays outside a museum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C55%2C4575%2C2900&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530144/original/file-20230605-27-kvgg5y.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>
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<span class="caption">The District Six Museum commemorates a Capetown neighborhood South Africa’s Apartheid government demolished in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photograph-taken-in-the-city-centre-of-cape-town-on-news-photo/1199755969?adppopup=true">Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Systematic identity-based violence is more common than you might think. Mayans in <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemalas-history-of-genocide-hurts-mayan-communities-to-this-day-97796">Guatemala</a> were victims of genocide in the 1970s and 1980s, as were Indigenous women in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-committed-genocide-against-indigenous-peoples-explained-by-the-lawyer-central-to-the-determination-162582">Canada</a> over the past 100 years. Repressive governments in <a href="https://theconversation.com/operation-condor-why-victims-of-the-oppression-that-swept-1970s-south-america-are-still-fighting-for-justice-186789">Argentina, Chile and Uruguay</a> assassinated political opponents in the 20th century. <a href="https://theconversation.com/ugandas-anti-homosexuality-law-is-a-patriarchal-backlash-against-progress-206681">Uganda in May 2023 enacted a law that criminalized homosexuality</a>, making <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/14/lgbtq-crackdowns-uganda-environment-hostile">LGBTQ people fear they too could become victims of identity-based violence</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>Threats of violence against groups due to their identity persist in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-republican-transgender-laws-pile-up-setting-2024-battle-lines-2023-05-18/">the United States</a> and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trans-rights-lgbt-latin-america-brazil-bolsonaro/">globally</a>. Recent political attacks on transgender and other LGBTQ people reflect this threat. NGOs are using their knowledge and skills to stave off the threat of violence against them. </p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT50KiRsTbA&ab_channel=PBSNewsHour">PBS NewsHour</a>”: A segment on the trial of former Guatemalan President José Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide, and the role of NGOs in bringing him to trial.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/program-for-the-advancement-research-on-conflict-collaboration/e-parcc/cases-simulations-syllabi/cases/kifaya-enough-dangerous-speech-for-south-sudanese">#KIFAYA</a>: A case study of young South Sudanese activists from different ethnic groups who created a music video sung in several local languages to call for an end to interethnic violence and hate speech.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-missionary-61230211/">The Missionary</a>”: A podcast that tells the story of the harm people from wealthy nations can do when they lack the skills and local knowledge to do NGO work outside their home countries. This podcast focuses on a U.S. woman accused of providing medical care in Uganda without any training. </p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Students ideally acquire a deeper appreciation of the hard work required to address the underlying causes of mass atrocities and identity-based violence. They learn about people who have dedicated their professional lives to reducing the threat of violence – and their successes and failures. I hope it motivates some of them to work in this field, either through volunteering or their professional careers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University, which sponsored the development of this course, receives funding from an alumnus to underwrite the cost of the stipends the course provides to participating NGOs.</span></em></p>College students learn about people who have dedicated their professional lives to reducing the threat of violence – and their successes and failures.David Campbell, Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017902023-03-24T13:11:46Z2023-03-24T13:11:46Z‘A toxic policy with little returns’ – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US<p>One afternoon in mid-June, I sat with Ethan*, a local islander, at Nauru’s boat harbour. He was speaking about how life had changed in the country since the asylum deal with Australia was agreed. Just a few years before my arrival in 2016, the small Pacific island had once again been financed to process the asylum claims of migrants attempting to reach Australia. If successful, refugees would be resettled locally around the island. Successive Australian governments had taken a tough zero-tolerance approach, making sure that anyone making their way by boat without documentation would <a href="https://osb.homeaffairs.gov.au/">“never settle in Australia”</a>.</p>
<p>Not far from where we sat, placards covered the fence of a refugee resettlement compound, reading: “We’re refugees not criminals,” and “Freedom is a Right Not a Crime, We Want Justice.”</p>
<p>“The thing is none of them want to be here,” Ethan explained, “and we don’t know who these people are, they could be dangerous. Why else does Australia not want them?” These fears were echoed to me numerous times in Nauru. “I’m so worried about having the refugee children in our school,” Sandra, a teacher at Nauru’s only secondary school, said on another occasion. “We don’t want to touch or go too close in case they say we hit refugees. And natural things like kids pushing each other on the playground. The next day it’s in the Australian news”. This teacher’s fears were confirmed several months later, with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-09/nauru-govt-denies-abuse-of-refugee-school-children/7234772">headlines</a> like: “Nauru Government Denies Refugee Children Are Abused in Schools.”</p>
<p>Such accusations of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-2000-leaked-reports-reveal-scale-of-abuse-of-children-in-australian-offshore-detention">savagery against refugees</a> draw on colonial tropes of Pacific islanders as cannibals. Major global media outlets alleged that Nauru was a veritable heart of darkness, an <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa12/4934/2016/en/">“island of despair”</a>, where refugees are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/11/489584342/claims-probed-of-brutal-conditions-for-refugees-on-island-of-nauru">“hacked with machetes”</a> by the local population.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A video released by the Australian government explaining its “zero chance” asylum and immigration policy.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These sorts of representations created a fractious context locally: one produced by sending asylum seekers, many with devastating pasts, to a vastly different region of the world from their intended destination.</p>
<h2>The UK Rwanda policy</h2>
<p>In January 2023, the UK’s High Court <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64024461">ruled on</a> the lawfulness of the British government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Under this £140 million agreement, undocumented migrants could find themselves sent to the East African country – 4,000 miles south-east of where they lodged their asylum applications. Once in Rwanda, they will have their asylum claims processed, and will be eligible for residency, not in the UK – their original destination – but in Rwanda.</p>
<p>The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jun/15/what-is-the-echr-and-how-did-it-intervene-in-uk-rwanda-flight-plans">expected to rule</a> on the controversial policy by the end of the year. This proposed “outsourced” asylum policy directly mimics Australia’s so-called “Pacific Solution”, the impacts of which I have examined in <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765841/asylum-and-extraction-in-the-republic-of-nauru/#bookTabs=1">my research</a>. Since Australia’s Liberal prime minister, John Howard, at the turn of the century, boat arrivals have been the basis for copious media attention and resultant public anxiety in Australia. Controversial offshore policies in small Pacific islands like Nauru, combined with high-profile military and naval operations, are intended to reduce the number of people crossing the Indian Ocean.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>Now, like successive Australian politicians, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is promoting the UK-Rwanda policy as a means of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/08/stop-the-boats-sunaks-anti-asylum-slogan-echoes-australia-harsh-policy?mc_cid=045ba1c77c&mc_eid=7906bcbf06">“stopping the boats”</a>, but this time those crossing the English Channel from northern France. Just as Australian politicians stoked public anxiety, pursuing media attention and electoral gains, Suella Braverman, the UK home secretary, has called migrant boats from Calais <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEt8FVXIgvQ">“an invasion on our southern coast”</a>. She also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/19/rwanda-dream-could-still-become-a-nightmare-for-suella-braverman">said</a>: “I would love to have a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D-BpOsijEqs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>I conducted <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765841/asylum-and-extraction-in-the-republic-of-nauru/">long-term fieldwork</a> in Nauru into the effects of the Australian government’s near <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/6/">AU$10 billion</a> (about £5 billion) arrangement. I have also led anthropological fieldwork projects into similar outsourced asylum measures in regions as diverse as Guatemala, Jordan and Lebanon. What falls outside the global media headlines, from all sides of the political spectrum, is how these policies are realised in practice and whether or not they actually work.</p>
<p>I have interviewed migrants claiming asylum, as well as local residents, private security contractors and government officials. I found that these outsourcing schemes create a refugee industry economy that local populations become dependant on. For the asylum seekers and refugees, most with devastating pasts and equally hazy futures, being castigated to far off places not of their choosing <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/NauruandManusRPCs/Report">all too often</a> led to tragic instances of self-harm and suicide. In Nauru, the friction between different populations were apparent on a daily basis.</p>
<h2>Australia’s ‘Nauru experiment’</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Republic of Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
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<p>The boat harbour is a popular spot for Nauruans and refugees alike. It is one of the few places where you can swim safely without the threats of currents or the jagged limestone pinnacles that pierce through the island’s coastal waters. It is also a place where I have long conversations with asylum seekers down from the island’s Regional Processing Centres (RPCs). The RPCs are tucked deep in the heart of coral atoll’s jungle. Many asylum seekers take advantage of the afternoon open centre hours at the RPCs to catch a bus down to the boat harbour.</p>
<p>“No, I can’t swim, but I just like to come here because it’s cooler than at the centres. The heat sticks to you up there,” Khadija, an Iranian asylum seeker says to me. “In Iran, we never have this kind of heat.”</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugees in Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like the majority of Nauru’s new refugee population, Khadija stands out. She’s 20 and most of her life has been spent in Tehran then Jakarta: cosmopolitan, urban hubs at odds with small Pacific island climes. She, as with so many other asylum seekers I speak with in Nauru, took a boat from Indonesia in the hopes of reaching Australia to claim asylum. The financial cost and possible dangers were enormous. It cost AU$10,000 (just over £5,000) for the boat alone, she tells me. But she and her sister were escaping extreme domestic abuse.</p>
<p>Not far from us, on the concrete walls of the boat harbour, sit a group of Nauruan Community Liaison Officers, also dressed in distinctive fluorescent vests. They are tasked with dealing with conflicts that arise between refugees and locals now that refugees are being resettled on Nauruan visas around the island. Our conversation moves to some of these conflicts. Khadija tells me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have Nauruan friends, but no, I don’t want to be here. I’d never heard of Nauru before I came here. I was scared, I didn’t know where they were taking me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abdul, a friend of hers, catches wind of our conversation as he dries himself off with a towel nearby. “I don’t think anyone had heard of this place! I mean, why would we want to come here? It’s a dump!”</p>
<p>“Well, a lot of Nauruans have been kind, but there are no jobs here for us here. How can we set up lives? No one wants to be here,” Khadija says, worry lines coursing her face.</p>
<p>We speak about the latest Guardian Australia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/even-god-cant-help-you-here-nauru-refugees-describe-a-life-devoid-of-hope">media report</a> of Nauruans beating up a refugee. Abdul has a lot to say on the matter: “You never know. Sometimes it’s true, there are fights that happen. Sometimes it’s desperation. Refugees trying to bring media attention to their situation. This is all expected. Send people to a very different part of the world where they don’t want to be and see what happens.”</p>
<p>Khadija interjects: “And refugees here will also do anything to get to Australia. You can’t send people somewhere so different and not expect them to protest. It’s not nice for the Nauruans, but a lot of refugees don’t care about that.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Community Liaison Officers in Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I think of the placards covering the fence of a nearby refugee resettlement compound and the doors of the Australian-funded refugee businesses (largely beauty salons and takeaways) that are all firmly closed in protest. I had been in conversation earlier that week with a group of Nauruans working at the RPCs, who had told me of “shit smeared on the walls” and “taps left on” from asylum seekers in desperate protest. Only a few years before I arrived in Nauru, one of the RPC buildings had been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/20/nauru-detention-centre-burns-down">burned to the ground</a>.</p>
<p>“It’s not just between locals and refugees,” points out Khadija. “It’s also between refugees, of course. I’m Shia. My sister and I were put together with someone who’s Sunni. They made life difficult for us. They had to move us to a different section.” Abdul nods, adding: “There was one guy who had to be moved to separate hotel accommodation because it got so bad.”</p>
<h2>Secrecy, violence and segregation</h2>
<p>The kind of secrecy, violence and segregation that Khadija and Abdul speak of underpins daily life in Nauru. Around the island, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214790X19300784">the destructive realities</a> of outsourcing asylum are palpable.</p>
<p>Aziz, an Iraqi refugee, living in resettlement accommodation, tells me of the cries when he goes to sleep at night:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hear my neighbour through the walls, I don’t know what he saw before he came to Nauru.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Marie, an Australian torture and trauma counsellor, told me “you can’t begin to help people work through trauma when it’s exacerbated by being in Nauru”. She says Nauru has never had the capacity or the infrastructure to effectively support asylum seekers and refugees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protests outside a refugee resettlement compound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Marie’s latter point is one I’ve heard several times. Prior to the Australian arrangement, Nauru had no history of refugee processing or resettlement. To make this outsourced arrangement a reality, the Australian government funded fly-in-fly-out Australian counsellors in addition to asylum legal support, interpreters, refugee adjudication and appeals tribunals, education and medics. However, counsellors like Marie were largely ineffective – palliative at best. Asylum seekers I spoke with described experiencing overwhelming powerlessness, depression, and identity crises because of the offshore arrangement.</p>
<p>Industry contractors I spoke with recounted similar stories of human suffering. Sarah, a facility manager from the Australian corporate management firm, told me of her recurring nightmares, having witnessed asylum seekers sewing their lips together in her work at the RPCs. </p>
<p>Vivian, a mental health counsellor to the Australian Immigration Department, made the damaging toll of working in Nauru explicit in our interview. She said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The compromises that people are in, and every day going to work to do bad things to others is making them feel ill. I had a client who had breast cancer who said to me, ‘I believe that I will be punished for what I’m doing by getting my breast cancer back.’ It’s a toxic environment and it sends people mad.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trevor, a security guard at the RPCs, described the hunger strikes he tried to resolve: “But it’s not just hunger strikes,” he added, visibly upset.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Self-immolation, self-harm, riots, arson, suicide, jumps from roofs, sewing lips. Asylum seekers are desperate not to be here and so many of them have been through all kinds of traumatic experiences I can’t even imagine before being sent here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sarah and Trevor are just some of the many industry contractors I spoke with who bear the scars of witnessing these devastating situations. In fact, lawsuits from past contracted Australian workers to Nauru <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/immigration-department-pays-1-million-compensation-to-save-the-children-workers-fired-from-nauru-20170131-gu27nm.html">still plague</a> the Australian government. </p>
<p>Many locals were initially sympathetic to the plight of refugees. However, over the years, this sympathy turned to anger as Nauruans contended being represented as savages and human rights abusers in parts of the media and by certain refugee solidarity activists. “Look at this stuff they write … They haven’t even been here,” says Oliana, a Nauruan government worker. </p>
<h2>A growing trend</h2>
<p>The kind of outsourcing arrangement between Australia and Nauru seems outlandish, but it is not unique. It is part of a model of wealthier western countries funding poorer countries to carry out border enforcement. Australia is often cited as a case study of outsourcing asylum, but this system has historical precedents.</p>
<p>Asylum as a formal international legal procedure was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/34/3/2676/6084556?guestAccessKey=54f5325e-c578-4470-a950-b6ce80728611&login=false">institutionalised</a> across the early 20th century. European governments sought increased control over the demographic makeup and political structure of their nation states. Some feared disproportionate numbers of undocumented migrant arrivals. It was in this climate that the international refugee agencies pioneered systems of so-called burden-sharing. </p>
<p>In the early 20th century, the Nansen Office and Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees spearheaded moving refugees (largely Russians, Armenians, and Greeks) between countries. Just a few decades later, huge numbers of Jewish refugees sought to escape the atrocities of the second world war. Many European countries refused to provide sanctuary to Jewish refugees, referring to the <a href="https://www-jstor-org.liblink.uncw.edu/stable/pdf/3020054.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A1c89ab334e4c9c5715f1ccc22e816413&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=search-results">“Jewish problem”</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, countries as far flung as the Dominican Republic and Ecuador promoted themselves as destinations for Jewish refugees to attract political and economic support. The International Refugee Organization - a precursor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) active between 1946-1952 - took this system of burden-sharing to new heights, relocating more than <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article-abstract/34/3/2676/6084556">a million refugees</a> from Europe to the Americas, Israel, South Africa and Oceania between 1947 and 1951.</p>
<p>As asylum seekers changed from eastern Europeans to Africans and Asians from the 1970s, the term “asylum seeker” attracted <a href="https://canvas.harvard.edu/files/4148518/download?download_frd=1">negative connotations</a> in western political and media discourse. It became shorthand for economic opportunism, mass movements and threats to security. Tough measures on asylum, including intercepting migrants before arrival, soon become a touchstone for left and right-leaning governments alike. </p>
<p>Outsourced <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/external-processing-asylum?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=cff1d97f-cca0-47f3-9dda-69235156f741">asylum models</a> have since been adopted across the EU. There are agreements with eastern Europe, Turkey, north and East Africa, and Central Asia. The US has experimented with several of what are termed extra-territorial asylum processing schemes, including processing Haitian asylum seekers in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520255401/guantanamo">Guantanamo</a> in the 1990s, establishing facilities to assess asylum claims across Central America, funding local advertisements to dissuade migrants, as well as financing border enforcement and national asylum systems across Mexico and Central America.</p>
<p>Many Asian countries, including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have implemented restrictive detention and temporary visa practices for African migrants, in particular. So-called transit regions, such as South Asia, eastern Europe and North Africa have also seen significant levels of funding and resources going into policing, detention, and other forms of immigration control.</p>
<p>The UK has toyed with different externalised border enforcement measures over the years. The Rwanda deal is one such arrangement. Sunak <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rishi-sunak-tory-rwanda-migrants-b2150863.html">has said</a> that he will do “whatever it takes to make the Rwanda plan work”, describing “illegal migration” as an “emergency”. In June 2022, the first flight of four asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was blocked after an injunction from the ECHR alleged it was a violation of civil and political rights. </p>
<p>Others question the efficacy of the £140 million <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-rwanda-strengthen-agreement-to-deal-with-global-migration-issues">Illegal Migration Bill</a> that is designed for only a small number of asylum seekers: the Rwandan government has agreed to receive 200 asylum seekers a year across a five-year trial period. Meanwhile, Braverman has <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-12-19/debates/B5009C67-E69A-4248-8F16-77439DE48472/MigrationAndEconomicDevelopment">declared</a> that relocating people to Rwanda is a “ground-breaking migration and economic development partnership” and “an innovative way of addressing a major problem” of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/suella-braverman-small-boats-b2298187.html">“billions of”</a> people coming [to the UK].</p>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/knowsley-asylum-seeker-hotel-riot-b2281367.html">Anti-migrant protests</a> outside asylum seeker housing in Knowsley and Dover in the UK have also led to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/13/attack-migrants-knowsley-ministers-violence-asylum-seekers">concerns</a> that the Conservative government is capitalising on xenophobic sentiments. As legal debates continue around the legitimacy of the arrangement, Sunak has put together legislation that would disallow anyone reaching the UK to claim asylum without prior clearance. </p>
<p>The legislation would extend the government’s ability to detain them beyond the current permissible 28 days. It would also enable their deportation to a third country, such as Rwanda – the only country that has agreed to such a strategy. The former home secretary, Priti Patel, <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/168415/ghana-government-denies-uks-operation-dead-meat-scheme/">attempted deals</a> with countries including Ghana and Kenya, which were rejected locally.</p>
<p>But Rwanda has yet to experience the implications of the deal. Rwanda does have a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61882542">recent failed history</a> of taking asylum seekers through a similar arrangement. In agreement with Israel’s Netanyahu government, Rwanda received some 4,000 Eritreans and Sudanese between 2014 and 2017. At the time, Netanyahu marshalled a similar narrative steeped in racial bias around the country’s mistanenim or <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/09/middleeast/israel-african-migrants-intl/index.html">“infiltrators”</a>. Israel paid the Rwandan government US$5,000 for every asylum seeker, each of whom received US$3,500 and their airfare. Almost all are thought to have left the country immediately. Yet, unlike the proposed UK-Rwanda deal, this coerced voluntary deportation scheme did not involve a long-term asylum processing and resettlement arrangement. Such a proposition presents far greater concerns: ones raised not just in Nauru but also across my other fieldwork sites.</p>
<h2>US and Guatemala: conflicting refugee histories</h2>
<p>Flores is a picturesque island village in Guatemala’s northernmost Petén region. Located deep in the jungle in Lake Peten Itza, it is a place where the concept of claiming asylum to – not from – was little heard of prior to 2010. I am sitting in Flores’ main church square for World Refugee Day in June 2022. It is a new event for the island, put together by UNHCR’s new Petén field office, to socialise Guatemalan residents in refugee protection. Under the slogan “Reborn in Guate”, UNHCR has devised a day-long programme of art, folklore, dance, music and poetry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">World Refugee Day in the Petén.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2022.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“We have to be careful with using the word refugees,” whispers Alessandra, a UNHCR official, as a group of young Honduran rappers take the stage. “Many people, particularly Indigenous Maya, still have such vivid memories of when they were refugees. We don’t want it to seem like anyone’s getting preferential treatment or that they accuse our new refugee arrivals of gaming the system”.</p>
<p>This goes back to Guatemala’s four decade-long civil war. From the 1950s to the 1990s, genocidal policies <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-blood-of-guatemala">claimed the lives</a> of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Maya, or Maya Q’eqchi’. During this period, the US provided counter-insurgency training and military supplies to Guatemalan military and police, which heightened the escalation of violence.</p>
<p>In Santa Elena, just across the causeway from Flores, I have a long conversation with a local fruit market vendor, Estella, about this time. She was a young girl when the civil war broke out. Caught in the gunfire between guerrilla forces, she and her family, like so many Maya Q’eqchi’, eventually crossed the border to Mexico in the 1980s in hopes of survival. After nearly a decade living in different refugee camps in southern Mexico, she eventually returned to the Petén as a middle-aged woman in 1995, not long after the peace process negotiations.</p>
<p>“Most of my life, I was in fear of the military finding my family,” she says. “We moved between refugee camps in Mexico, almost every year it felt like. Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo,” she slowly counts the different states on her fingers, adding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We never knew if the Mexican government was on our side or if we might be handed over to the Guatemalan army. The Guatemalan army was always coming into Mexico, looking for guerrilla soldiers in the camps. We knew that if they found us, we would be killed without any mercy, we’d seen this happen to others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All those years spent living in exile in refugee camps before returning to the Petén, gives Estella pause when discussing the new refugee programmes. “It confuses me. These people aren’t refugees. They haven’t been through the kind of suffering we have,” she says. “Many Maya never got their land back and still live as refugees in Guatemala. They have all these programmes for the new refugees, and make such a big deal about them, they even get a month of accommodation, but we Maya experience so much inequality that has never been resolved.”</p>
<p>Guatemala still has one of the most unequal systems of land tenure in the world. The violence of the civil war resulted in the loss of livelihoods for many Maya, including huge unemployment that lingers to this day. Oil palm plantations, taking over great swaths of north-eastern Guatemala that are home to Q’eqchi’ communities, are continuing to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/2/6/palm-oil-industry-expansion-spurs-guatemala-indigenous-migration">fuel displacement</a>. Substantial numbers of Guatemalans are also deported back from the US and Mexico each year (almost <a href="https://www.laprensalatina.com/last-guatemalan-deportees-from-us-in-2022-arrive-home-amid-broken-dreams/">100,000 migrants</a> in 2022 alone), compounding these tensions. </p>
<p>It is for this reason that the Guatemalan government avoids calling resettled regional migrants refugees. Officials I speak with at Guatemala City’s Migration Institute emphasise avoiding the term. Not only does it evoke traumatic memories for many, but the government fears public perceptions of preferential treatment of US-funded, regional refugees.</p>
<p>Yet, Guatemala is visibly promoting itself as an asylum destination, as the World Refugee Day celebrations make clear. In our conversation, Estella references the posters that cover Santa Elena’s central bus station. At her recommendation, I go to look at the almost tourist-style advertisements that stretch dramatically across the façade of the arrivals hall. One is fringed with stick figures of people running for safety and the logos of UNHCR and El Refugio de la Niñez, Guatemala’s national refugee support agency. At its centre, it features a family holding hands as they clamber over train tracks. In large blue font, with the words “danger”, “protection”, and “refugee” highlighted, it reads:</p>
<p>“If your life is in danger, and you cannot return to your country, you can ask for protection as a refugee in Guatemala. We can help you!”</p>
<p>Around another corner in the terminal, signs point towards a small office, the Attention Centre for Migrants and Refugees. Inside, I see a small team of Guatemalan social workers with leaflets explaining the process of claiming asylum in Guatemala.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Promoting Asylum in the Petén.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2022.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These efforts constitute the US’ latest outsourced asylum strategy. As part of a regional approach begun in 2017, known as the Regional Comprehensive Protection and Solutions Framework (or its Spanish acronym <a href="https://mirps-platform.org/en/">MIRPS</a>). Guatemala, together with Mexico and other Central American countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama) is steadily developing the capacity to receive and support asylum claims in the country. Santa Elena is a way station for Honduran migrants making the long journey up to the US. Heightened US-funded border enforcement further south along Guatemala’s main land borders has also pushed more people to pass through the northern Petén border, where I conducted my research. </p>
<p>Migrants are encouraged to claim asylum for Mexico or Central America, rather than making their claims to the US. Limitations at the US-Mexico border, combined with the exorbitant costs and danger of making the crossing undocumented, are pushing more migrants to applying for asylum regionally.
Claiming asylum in Guatemala or other third countries might soon be a legal requirement. In 2023, the US Supreme Court issued a <a href="https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-policy-briefs/practice-alert-the-proposed-asylum-transit-ban">hotly contested</a> proposed rule known as the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/23/2023-03718/circumvention-of-lawful-pathways">“transit ban”</a> – asylum seekers who pass through a third country en route to the US-Mexico border must claim asylum there first.</p>
<p>But very few migrants are interested in claiming asylum locally. Like the UK-Rwanda deal, the US plan also functions largely as spectacle. Although the numbers of asylum claims filed to Guatemala’s new National Commission for Refugees is increasing, only 634 refugee visa holders and 1,410 asylum-seekers <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/guatemala">reside in Guatemala</a>.</p>
<h2>Memories of exile</h2>
<p>Estella’s confusion at the visible effects of outsourcing asylum in Guatemala foreshadows additional dynamics that the UK-Rwanda deal might produce. Like Guatemala, Rwanda is also a country with a tragic history of producing refugees. The 1994 Rwandan genocide led to the massacre of next to a million people. Horrific numbers of women were sexually assaulted. Over two million Rwandans fled to neighbouring countries in Africa’s Great Lakes region including Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Following the end of the civil war, an estimated <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2003/1/3e15a6397/eight-year-rwandan-refugee-saga-tanzania-comes-end.html#:%7E:text=An%20estimated%201.3%20million%20Rwandans,in%20the%20summer%20of%201994.">1.3 million Rwandan refugees</a> returned after over two years in exile. As with Guatemala, memories of exile and return are ever-present in Rwanda. Outsourcing asylum to regions with pre-existing local refugee populations can incite the tensions voiced by Estella and others I spoke with.</p>
<p>Unlike Guatemala, Rwanda does have a history of formal refugee protection outside of the return of its own citizens. Almost <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda">164,000 refugees</a> live in refugee camps or urban areas in Rwanda. However, these refugees are from surrounding East African regions, such as the DRC and Burundi. Those asylum seekers who have received notices of intent from the UK Home Office (making them at risk of being sent to Rwanda) are largely from the same countries as those I met in Nauru: Afghanistan, Iran and Syria. These are countries that are ethnically and linguistically distinct to Rwanda.</p>
<p>Even in the US asylum arrangement with Guatemala, most refugees given residency there are from surrounding Spanish-speaking countries. Here, the emphasis is on developing a viable regional resettlement framework. That the UK is considering sending asylum seekers from far different regions to a country still raw from its own refugee dynamics does not bode well. It was the cultivation of ethnic hierarchies between Tutsis and Hutus under Belgian colonial rule that resulted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the first place. </p>
<h2>A toxic policy with little returns</h2>
<p>My fieldwork findings from Nauru and Guatemala paint a bleak picture of the impacts of outsourcing asylum, relevant to the UK-Rwanda arrangement. The British government is setting up for similar entrapment in a costly operation, totals that in Australia financially spiralled to an <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/6/">estimated</a> AU$9.65 billion (over £5 billion) since July 2013.</p>
<p>Rwanda is a country that, unlike the UK, does not have a substantial Middle Eastern diaspora. The Rwandan government will require enormous investment to support new populations from well outside the East African region. The British government – and ultimately taxpayer – will end up shouldering these costs. Sustaining the operations in the face of ongoing activism and High Court pushbacks will require evermore Rwandan investments to ensure its international legal compliance. Rwanda, like Nauru, will have major challenges to contend with too, including education, social integration, housing capacity, and mental health and trauma-related concerns. </p>
<p>As a migration governance strategy, the UK-Rwanda deal makes little sense. It will cost the British taxpayer <a href="https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/why-uk-government-should-rethink-its-plan-send-asylum-seekers-uk-rwanda">far more</a> than the economic and social benefits of integrating the small number of migrants into the British workforce.</p>
<p>Since the post-war era, international migration worldwide has remained stable, as a percentage of the global population it stands at <a href="https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/">3.6%</a>. This is a fraction of the world’s population, meaning that most people migrate within countries, rather than across borders. The majority of irregular migrants to the UK are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-home-office-is-now-publishing-stats-on-irregular-migration-heres-what-they-do-and-dont-tell-us-177955">visa over-stayers</a> and not those who take a boat across the English Channel. Typically, it is also not the poorest people who migrate. Taking a boat is an expensive endeavour and migrants require considerable resources to migrate, particularly across international borders. </p>
<h2>‘A laboratory experiment gone wrong’</h2>
<p>A new deal was finally struck for Nauru after almost a decade of indecision as to how to end the arrangement. It came amid a backdrop of deepening civil unrest, a series of tragic self-immolations, and a Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-the-lives-of-asylum-seekers-in-detention-detailed-in-a-unique-database-interactive">Nauru Files</a> campaign that made global headlines. The Australian government arranged with the Obama administration a deal in which 1,250 refugees from Nauru and Manus Island would be resettled in the US.</p>
<p>These resettlement places were still honoured when Donald Trump entered office in 2016, as part of what Trump notoriously described as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/02/trump-told-turnbull-refugee-agreement-was-the-worst-deal-ever-report">“dumb, dumb deal”</a>. Hamid, an Afghani refugee acquaintance in Nauru, sent me an email at the time. He expressed his excitement about his upcoming move to the US, but also his fear at the racism he might encounter. Like Hamid, most refugees have since been resettled across the US, Canada, and eventually through the long-standing <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/479403/first-nauru-refugees-arrive-in-new-zealand-under-resettlement-deal">New Zealand offer</a>. But 60 refugees remain in Nauru, with the country still marred in refugee protests locally.</p>
<p>Heated debates continue in Australia. In March, the Albanese Labor government, the Liberal Party and the One Nation Party voted against the Green Party’s <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1362">Migration Amendment Evacuation to Safety Bill 2023</a>. This bill called for those refugees held in Nauru to be moved to Australia, while the Australian government pursued further resettlement options. </p>
<p>Nauru remains funded by the Australian government with the possibility that these operations might be restarted in the future. In October 2022, the Australian government <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8064165/obscene-amount-for-nauru-contract/">awarded</a> an AU$422 million (roughly £230 million) contract with the US-based private prison contractor, Management and Training Corporation, until September 2025 to hold refugees in Nauru.</p>
<p>Instead of debating the legitimacy of asylum, countries could benefit from providing work rights to migrant populations. The UK is well prepared for meeting these integration needs. Because of centuries of migration (much wrought through colonialism) the UK has already invested significant resources into supporting newcomers keen to integrate into the labour market. The Oxford Migration Observatory <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/">recently found</a> that higher net migration reduces pressure on government debt over time. Incoming migrants are generally younger and of working age than the wider population. This means that they are more likely to work and contribute to public finances. </p>
<p>Not only is this <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/">shown to</a> support migrant livelihoods, but it can also benefit the economies of sending and receiving countries in the long-term. These kinds of boosts to the economy and the labour market are much-needed in the post-<a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/covid-19-and-key-workers-what-role-do-migrants-play-in-your-region-42847cb9/">COVID-19</a> and <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/how-is-the-end-of-free-movement-affecting-the-low-wage-labour-force-in-the-uk/">post-Brexit labour environment</a>.</p>
<p>Back to 2016 and I am sitting in a senior Australian bureaucrat’s office in Canberra, discussing the standstill underway with the Nauru arrangement. I ask what the future holds for the offshoring policy. “Most politicians want it to end, but they’re unsure how to do it without losing face,” he replies. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Protests, many refugees on suicide watch, hunger strike, people sewing their lips together, no one interested in integrating locally in Nauru, it frankly just isn’t sustainable. It was never meant to be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He pauses, adding: “Not to mention, ethically. It’s a laboratory experiment gone wrong.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Morris 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>Anthropological fieldwork into ‘outsourced’ asylum measures in Nauru and Guatemala reveal how they actually work - and don’t work - in practice.Julia Morris, Assistant Professor of International Studies, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992672023-02-28T13:27:28Z2023-02-28T13:27:28ZDALL-E 2 and Midjourney can be a boon for industrial designers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512525/original/file-20230227-24-rbvmaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=61%2C33%2C3669%2C2763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A volcano-themed tissue box designed with the help of AI-assisted image generation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Juan Noguera</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the introduction of DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT, there has been a fair amount of <a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-and-cheating-5-ways-to-change-how-students-are-graded-200248">hand-wringing</a> about AI technology – some of it justified. </p>
<p>It’s true that the technology’s future is unclear. There is great debate about <a href="https://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/219-fall-2022-vol-34-no-1/3999403-an-extension-of-the-artist-dall-e-2-and-the-ethical-challenges-of-ai-art">the ethics</a> of using existing artwork, images and content to train these AI products, <a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-dall-e-2-and-the-collapse-of-the-creative-process-196461">and concern</a> about what industries <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-and-the-future-of-work-5-experts-on-what-chatgpt-dall-e-and-other-ai-tools-mean-for-artists-and-knowledge-workers-196783">it will displace or change</a>. And it seems as if an AI arms race between companies like <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-search-with-a-new-ai-powered-microsoft-bing-and-edge-your-copilot-for-the-web/">Microsoft</a> and <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/bard-google-ai-search-updates/">Google</a> is already underway. </p>
<p>And yet as an <a href="http://www.no.gt">industrial designer and professor</a>, I’ve found AI image generation programs to be a fantastic way to improve the design process. </p>
<p>They don’t replace the valuable insights and critical thinking skills I’ve accumulated from years of experience. But they do spark creativity and expand the range of what’s possible with the products my students and I design.</p>
<h2>A peek behind the design curtain</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.idsa.org/what-industrial-design">Industrial design</a> involves creating everyday objects, with a particular focus on their form and function. Industrial designers have a hand in anything from furniture and consumer electronics to accessories and apparel. </p>
<p>A typical design process involves lots of research and talking to consumers about their needs. From there, designers brainstorm ideas and sketch them out, followed by the prototyping and fabrication stage. Finally, the objects get refined and manufactured. </p>
<p>During the early stages of brainstorming, designers spend a lot of time with their sketchbooks, getting inspired by their immediate environment, by history books and by their own experiences. The internet also plays a big role – it’s where designers collect many of the images they use to create <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/inspiration-board">inspiration boards</a>. Famously, <a href="https://www.hodinkee.com/magazine/jony-ive-apple">Jonathan Ive</a>, who designed many iconic Apple products, looked at luxury watches as inspiration for the Apple Watch, using the “<a href="https://www.uniformwares.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/watch-crown.png">crown</a>” – normally used to wind a mechanical watch and set the time – as an input device to allow users to scroll through content.</p>
<p>AI has given designers like myself the ability to generate images just based on a simple text prompt. Tools like <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/dall-e-2-explained-the-promise-and-limitations-of-a-revolutionary-ai-3faf691be220">DALL-E</a> or <a href="https://www.midjourney.com/home/">Midjourney</a> let us input abstract concepts and turn them into a flood of images. </p>
<p>Enter any sentence – no matter how crazy – and you’ll receive a set of unique images generated just for you. Want to design a teapot? Here, have 1,000 of them. Some may have a dinosaur shape; others may be made of mashed potatoes. </p>
<p>While only a small subset of them may be usable as a teapot, they provide a seed of inspiration that the designer can nurture and refine into a finished product. </p>
<h2>From nostalgia to a tissue box</h2>
<p>Perhaps a handful of those 1,000 teapot images allow a designer to conceive of a new, unexpected shape that is easier to hold, more economical to manufacture or more beautiful to look at. Generative AI can facilitate the brainstorming process, but it’s still the designer’s responsibility to make the choices that ultimately lead to products that enrich people’s lives.</p>
<p>Recently, I have found myself using AI image generators like DALL-E and Midjourney to explore complex ideas that might be difficult or time-consuming to articulate and channel into a physical product. For example, for one project, I wanted to create objects that really connected people, in a deep way, to a place they had visited or lived in – as opposed to the refrigerator magnet souvenirs that tourists often end up buying.</p>
<p>So I decided to design a set of small household objects to be sold to tourists visiting the small colonial town of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/t-magazine/antigua-guatemala-travel-guide.html">Antigua, Guatemala</a>, just a few miles from where I grew up. I wanted the objects to elicit nostalgia about the town – and perhaps inspire those who purchased them to want to return.</p>
<p>I began by prompting DALL-E for tabletop objects that were nostalgic. The results were hilarious and unexpected. I received images of objects that looked sad, like erasers and a tissue box with a frown. It had taken my prompt very literally. </p>
<p>Then I got more specific, inserting “Antigua” into my prompts. The results started including iconic symbols of the town – the volcanoes that surround it, the cobblestone streets, the colonial architecture.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Images of the AI concept generation process." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510110/original/file-20230214-1098-t9fpa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the left column are images generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E when the author prompted it to come up with nostalgic desktop objects. The middle columns represent refined inputs for tabletop objects that represent the city of Antigua. The column on the right are composites created by the author before proceeding with the traditional design process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Juan Noguera</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a little sketching, I narrowed down the results further by inputting “tissue boxes” and “eruption of tissue.” </p>
<p>From there, I continued playing around in my sketchbook and eventually created a Photoshop mock-up of a tissue box shaped like the Volcán de Agua, or “Water Volcano,” which lies south of the city. </p>
<p>I then used my traditional design skills to create a 3D computer drawing of it – also known as a “<a href="https://www.designlaunchers.com/what-is-3d-cad-modeling">CAD model</a>” – using actual terrain data from the volcano, and fabricated a fully functional and manufacturable object. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="3D model created of a volcano-topped tissue box based on the AI-generated images and the author's own sketches that resulted from them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510107/original/file-20230214-28-s66z91.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 3D model of a volcano-topped tissue box based on AI-generated images and the author’s ensuing sketches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Juan Noguera</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Continuing with the volcano theme, I decided to create a companion object of the neighboring Volcán de Fuego, or “Fire Volcano,” which is constantly active and erupting. Fire made me think of matches, and I prompted the AI to generate images of volcano-shaped matchstick holders. </p>
<p>The results weren’t great. But they were good enough to help me imagine a small cast-iron object that could hold some stormproof matches, which I chose because when placed on the holder, they evoked a lava-filled eruption. </p>
<p>To me, the tissue box and matchbox holder are perfect homages to Antigua and all the memories this place holds for me, good and bad. The fire volcano matchstick holder conveys excitement and adventure, while the tissue box evokes tears, longing and nostalgia. </p>
<p>Even though I made all of the design choices, the AI generator helped me navigate my abstract design goals. </p>
<p>It’s hard to say if I would have landed on these prototypes on my own.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Prototypes of a volcano-themed tissue box and matchstick holder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4031%2C3024&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510101/original/file-20230214-22-ovdk2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The tissue box, Agua, was modeled using the the terrain data of the real volcano of the same name.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Juan Noguera</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Opening new creative doors</h2>
<p>AI technology is not going away anytime soon. As an educator, I believe it would be irresponsible to not explore, with my students, the ways in which it can improve the design process. </p>
<p>In the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year, I had my graduate students at the Rochester Institute of Technology use AI image generation to develop their own products. <a href="https://www.core77.com/posts/117169/Unexpected-outcomes-when-design-students-use-AI-as-part-of-their-process">The results were impressive</a>, with students creating an electric violin, a chair inspired by fruit and shoes made out of fungus. They all used AI in a different way, but they all noted how it led them down an unexpected path. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Prototype of a furturistic-looking electric violin." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510144/original/file-20230214-20-ic2z1b.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">An electric violin designed by Rochester Institute of Technology graduate student Jayden Zhou.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jayden Zhou</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I read alarmist articles about this new technology, I’ll sometimes think back to the early days of 3D modeling systems and how some people thought they would replace designers and artists. Those fears were ultimately dispelled, and designers never went back to the large blueprints and drafting boards of old. </p>
<p>Just as Google can make it easier for a journalist to conduct research for an article or find someone to interview, I believe AI can serve as a valuable wellspring of inspiration in the designer’s toolbox.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan Noguera 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>During the brainstorming stage of the design process, AI-powered image generation programs can open creative doors that may have otherwise never been accessed.Juan Noguera, Assistant Professor of Design, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed 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/1892072022-08-31T12:28:20Z2022-08-31T12:28:20ZWhen Russia and Ukraine eventually restart peace talks, involving women – or not – could be a key factor in an agreement actually sticking<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481606/original/file-20220829-22-o8ocib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C180%2C4792%2C3456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Ukrainian solider is seen in Donetsk, Ukraine, on Aug. 15, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ukrainian-women-soldier-28yearold-svetlana-who-served-as-a-captain-in-picture-id1242536497">Metin Aktas/Andalou Agency via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ukraine and Russia launched peace talks just days after Russia invaded in early February, 2022 – but since then, peace negotiations have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-there-is-no-movement-peace-talks-with-ukraine-2022-05-18/">started and</a> stopped multiple times. </p>
<p>Now, more than six months after the invasion, peace between the two countries seems far off. </p>
<p>Gannady Gatilov, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c9381570-5e3c-4e89-a5a0-7a98bbd880f6">said on Aug. 22, 2022</a>, that he does not see any imminent possibility for a diplomatic solution. </p>
<p>Ukrainian women <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/world/europe/ukraine-war-women.html">have had a large presence</a> in the war, from joining the military and leading humanitarian work to <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-once-female-ukrainian-refugees-reach-safety-they-face-new-burdens-as-single-heads-of-household-179544">becoming breadwinners</a> and taking on new jobs. While it is unclear how or when peace negotiations may resume, it is easy to spot the conspicuous <a href="https://blogs.prio.org/2022/04/ukrainian-women-engage-in-resistance-and-should-be-in-the-peace-talks-new-survey-evidence/">lack of women around the table</a> during previous rounds of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.sandiego.edu/directory/biography.php?profile_id=11842">a researcher</a> focused on gendered experiences of conflict and crises, I think it is important to understand <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2018.1492386">that including women</a> – if they are from varied backgrounds and can participate in a meaningful way, not in a tokenistic manner – in talks to end war is critical for building more effective, longer-lasting peace agreements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two rows of men in dark suits sit around a formal white table, with three men sitting at the head of it. Behind them are Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481608/original/file-20220829-8838-cbl87o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No women appeared to participate in March 2022 peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/turkish-foreign-minister-mevlut-cavusoglu-gives-a-thank-you-speech-picture-id1239588916">Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why women’s participation matters</h2>
<p>Peace talks are complicated procedures that, more often than not, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-peace-talks-fail-a-negotiation-expert-answers-5-questions-about-the-slim-chances-for-a-peace-deal-between-russia-and-ukraine-180392">do not result</a> in an actual peace agreement. The negotiators at the table are typically members of a political or military elite and are individually selected by leaders of warring parties. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2012.659139">Women’s participation</a> in peace talks has been shown to have a strong impact on the way these conversations proceed – and whether they lead to lasting peace – in several key ways.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.peacewomen.org/sites/default/files/Making%20Women%20Count%20Not%20Just%20Counting%20Women.pdf">2016 study</a> on 40 peace processes conducted since the end of the Cold War, for example, found that when women’s groups are able to exercise strong influence on the negotiation process, there was a much higher chance that an agreement would be reached, compared with when women’s groups had weak or no influence. </p>
<p>When women participate, <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IPI-E-pub-Reimagining-Peacemaking.pdf">it’s also more</a> likely that a ceasefire will last, rather than remaining words on paper.</p>
<p>Women also tend to help shape the outcomes of an agreement. In <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Women-Leading-Peace.pdf">Northern Ireland, Guatemala, Kenya and the Philippines</a>, women envisioned peace beyond just ending immediate fighting. In these cases, they adopted a longer-term view, planning for economic growth in a post-conflict period, for example.</p>
<p>Women have helped lead formal negotiations to end wars in places from <a href="https://www.inclusivepeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/case-study-women-burundi-1996-2014-en.pdf">Burundi</a> and <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2017/2/gender-and-the-role-of-women-in-colombias-peace-process">Colombia</a> to <a href="https://www.inclusivepeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/case-study-women-kenya-2008-2013-en.pdf">Kenya</a> and <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Women-Leading-Peace.pdf">Northern Ireland</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s more often that <a href="https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/">women do not participate in peace talks</a>. Women made up 6% of mediators, 6% of signatories and 13% of negotiators in the major peace processes that took place from 1992 to 2019. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400201.2019.1576515?src=recsys">Many obstacles</a> prevent women’s meaningful participation in peace processes, particularly when there is <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/features/features-working-women/working-with-women/docs/2014-05-08_toolkit_promoting-womens-participation-peace-neg_en.pdf">no official policy or agreement to ensure their involvement</a>. </p>
<p>This exclusion is often driven by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740010019820">the idea that women are victims of conflict rather than political leaders</a>, or that men hold most of <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IPI-E-pub-Reimagining-Peacemaking.pdf">the power</a> in negotiating war and peace. </p>
<h2>The case of Ukraine and Russia</h2>
<p>Following Russia and Ukraine’s conflict over the eastern part of Ukraine and Crimea, the two countries signed the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2022-02-21/">Minsk I and Minsk II</a> agreements in 2014 and 2015 to end the fighting. But these deals were not successful at maintaining a ceasefire.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Womens-Peacebuilding-Strategies-Amidst-Conflict-1.pdf">two Ukrainian women</a> participated in the Minsk agreement process, with one serving as a Ukrainian humanitarian envoy and the other as a negotiations expert for Ukraine. These processes also did not welcome nongovernmental women’s organizations and other local community leaders at the table. </p>
<p>However, Ukrainian women did play a <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Womens-Peacebuilding-Strategies-Amidst-Conflict-1.pdf">significant role</a> in unofficial work related to peace building in 2014 and 2015. They led conversations between communities in conflict with one another and advocated for policies to help women who had been displaced from their homes or who experienced violence.</p>
<p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, women have stepped up their involvement in the war even further, <a href="https://time.com/6159261/women-ukraine-war-russia/">documenting atrocities and potential war crimes</a>, for example. Ukrainian women also make up about <a href="https://time.com/6159261/women-ukraine-war-russia/">15% of Ukraine’s army</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, the war is having a <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/05/rapid-gender-analysis-of-ukraine">disproportionate impact on women and minorities</a>, particularly around the ability to receive health care and get food, but also because of the sexual and gender-based violence Ukrainian <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/06/1119832">women have endured</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman wearing a yellow shirt is seen behind a fence, which is woven with brown and green camouflage colored strings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481610/original/file-20220829-8843-ybhfab.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 woman weaves a camouflage net for the Ukrainian military in Kyiv on Aug. 23, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/woman-weaves-a-camouflage-net-for-the-ukrainian-armed-forces-in-kyiv-picture-id1242681063">Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond participation</h2>
<p>Still, what’s most important is how <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/wps/2022/03/28/making-womens-voices-count-what-does-the-move-from-more-to-meaningful-participation-look-like-in-peace-negotiations/">meaningful women’s participation</a> actually is in peace talks, not just whether they are able to sit at the negotiation table.</p>
<p>This issue extends into whether women can influence the discussion and ultimate design of the peace agreement. This kind of democratization of peace negotiations is linked to a <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Gender-Provisions-Peace-Agreements.pdf">greater likelihood</a> of a peace agreement <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/what-has-happened-to-gender-provisions-in-peace-agreements/">explicitly ensuring rights for women</a>. </p>
<p>Including women from a range of backgrounds, especially women from marginalized communities and people who <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/06/why-gender-and-sexual-minority-inclusion-peacebuilding-matters">have different gender identities</a> and sexual orientations, can also help build a final agreement. Some women may work together across demographic or social lines in pursuit of common goals, <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/resource/women-leading-peace/">but others may not</a>. </p>
<p>Formal peace negotiations are not the only method of reducing conflict and building peace – women have long played a role in <a href="https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beyond-the-Negotiating-Table.pdf">informal peacebuilding</a> in Ukraine and in other conflicts in various ways. </p>
<p>However, peace talks are important processes that can set the stage for rebuilding stability. </p>
<p>Including women as decision-makers on the full range of issues involved in peace talks – <a href="https://wps.unwomen.org/pdf/CH03.pdf">including discussions about peace, security, economic recovery and governance</a> – can help fully realize the benefits of lasting peace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189207/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Briana Mawby has previously received funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs for research in Ukraine.</span></em></p>While Russia and Ukraine’s war wages on, previous peace talk discussions didn’t appear to include women. Changing that can make a difference, research shows.Briana Mawby, Program Officer for Women, Peace and Security, University of San DiegoLicensed 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/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>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
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<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/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/1581062021-04-02T12:17:47Z2021-04-02T12:17:47ZThe situation at the US-Mexico border is a crisis – but is it new?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392952/original/file-20210331-21-gqa87d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C1010%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Border Patrol detains tens of thousands of the families and children who try to cross U.S. borders every year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Julio Cortez</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/texas-border-facility-migrants.html">The media</a> create the impression that there is an unprecedented crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, with droves of children arriving alone, as well as families flooding to the border.</p>
<p>There is a crisis. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C22&q=Randi+Mandelbaum&btnG=">a law professor who studies child migration</a>, I can tell you that it’s nothing new.</p>
<p>Children and families have been fleeing to the U.S. for years, particularly from Mexico and the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. </p>
<p>Yet aspects of the current situation are different from the past. And whether more individuals are attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border “than have been in the last 20 years,” as <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/03/16/statement-homeland-security-secretary-alejandro-n-mayorkas-regarding-situation">Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas</a> predicted, remains to be seen. </p>
<p>The situation is best explained by looking at the number of migrants who have arrived at the border, <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions">as reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection</a>, a law enforcement agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security.</p>
<p>Customs and Border Protection puts arriving noncitizens in three categories: unaccompanied children, families and single adults. Children are designated as unaccompanied if they are under the age of 18 and arrive at a U.S. border without lawful status and without a parent or legal guardian. </p>
<p>The numbers of children like these and families have been steadily increasing in recent years. Examining those numbers puts the current circumstances at the U.S.-Mexico border into context.</p>
<h2>A steady stream</h2>
<p>Except for fiscal year 2020, which started on Oct. 1, 2019, the number of children and families migrating to the U.S. has been escalating since 2013, with highs in 2014 and 2019, and a slight dip in 2015. Overall, the number of arriving unaccompanied children has been above 40,000 every year since 2014. In most yearsit was above 50,000. For arriving families, the numbers have hovered around 70,000 each year, with surges in 2018 and especially 2019. </p>
<p><iframe id="1E5qV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1E5qV/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Scholars of migration look to many “<a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/UnaccompaniedMinors-Factsheet-FINAL.pdf">push and pull factors</a>” that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/233150241700500402">draw migrant children to the U.S. border</a>. These include family and community violence, sexual assault, government corruption, agricultural disease, drought, discrimination against indigenous populations and extreme poverty.</p>
<p>The vast majority of the migrating families, and almost all (95%) of the unaccompanied children, are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. </p>
<p>So is anything different about what is taking place now? Why are <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/03/16/statement-homeland-security-secretary-alejandro-n-mayorkas-regarding-situation">government officials like Mayorkas</a> calling the situation “difficult” and “complicated?” </p>
<p>There are three interrelated issues to watch.</p>
<h2>1. Rapid increase</h2>
<p>From January to February 2021, there was a 61% uptick in the number of arriving unaccompanied children, and a 163% increase in arriving families. The numbers for March 2021 have not yet been formally reported, but they are expected to be high. </p>
<p>If this trend continues, fiscal year 2021 has the potential to surpass the high numbers that were seen in fiscal years 2014 and 2019. However, this is not yet clear, as migration flows tend to increase in the spring months and reduce a bit in the hotter, late summer months. </p>
<p><iframe id="JPEBL" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/JPEBL/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2. Push and pull factors</h2>
<p>There are additional push and pull factors that could give rise to increased migration. </p>
<p><a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/el-salvador/policy-brief-addressing-covid-19-fragile-cities-northern-triangle-central-america">Relief agencies</a> <a href="http://southernvoice.org/covid-19-has-exacerbated-poverty-and-inequality-in-northern-triangle-countries/">report</a> the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened economic conditions in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico – which have always been dire.</p>
<p>Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua suffered through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/nov/13/overwhelming-central-america-braces-for-new-storms-in-wake-of-hurricane-eta">two Category 4 hurricanes within a two-week span in November 2020</a> that killed hundreds of people and left millions in need. </p>
<p>Also, asylum-seeking children and families <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/immigration/biden-immigration-changes-raise-hopes-concerns-us-mexico-border">may have some sense</a> that the current U.S. administration will be more welcoming than the prior one. This might motivate more migrants to make the dangerous journey to the U.S. in search of safety and protection.</p>
<h2>3. The U.S. government was not prepared</h2>
<p>Advocates celebrated when the Biden administration exempted unaccompanied minors from the current <a href="https://covidseries.law.harvard.edu/unprecedented-expulsion-of-immigrants-at-the-southern-border-the-title-42-process/">Title 42 expulsion policy</a> that expels migrants based upon a public health law. But government officials were ill-prepared for the surge of arriving children that followed. </p>
<p>By law, Border Patrol agents have 72 hours to turn children over to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Yet the Office of Refugee Resettlement currently lacks capacity to house all the children in need of shelter, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/unaccompanied-child-arrivals-earlier-preparedness-shortfalls">in part because many of their facilities were dismantled under the Trump administration</a>. </p>
<p>The Office of Refugee Resettlement is rallying to construct more shelters and to release children as quickly as possible to relatives, but the backlog is huge, and many children have had to remain in Border Patrol custody for far longer than 72 hours. Whether and when the Office of Refugee Resettlement will be able to get the situation under control remains unclear.</p>
<p>So, is there anything different about what is taking place now? </p>
<p>So far, not really, although there are serious concerns about the conditions for the recently arriving children, and many hope that the expulsion policy will soon be lifted for all migrants. But time will tell whether this is an unprecedented year or not.</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><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randi Mandelbaum 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>Children and families have been fleeing to the US in rising numbers for nearly a decade. So why is the current situation at the US-Mexico border being viewed as something new?Randi Mandelbaum, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575132021-03-19T10:18:07Z2021-03-19T10:18:07ZSurvey shows ignorance about big moments in South Africa’s history – like the Sharpeville massacre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390586/original/file-20210319-13-pwxbmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The graves of the victims of the Sharpeville massacre tell a grim story.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Frank Trimbos/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The yearly <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/human-rights-day-2021-19-oct-2020-1025#">Human Rights Day</a> public holiday in South Africa in late March commemorates the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville Massacre</a>, when police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed black protesters outside the Sharpeville police station on 21 March 1960. An estimated 69 people were killed and 180 injured, many shot in the back as they fled the scene. </p>
<p>The protest, led by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Pan Africanist Congress of Azania</a>, was against the hated identification document, known as a “<em><a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/dompas">dompas</a></em>” (dumb pass), that the apartheid regime forced black people to carry, and which <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/project-event-details/2">controlled their movements</a>. </p>
<p>After the first democratic elections of 1994, President Mandela proclaimed 21 March a <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/foundation-remembers-sharpeville-massacre-victims">public holiday</a> as a way of remembering the egregious human rights abuses of apartheid symbolised by the 1960 massacre. </p>
<p>He made another significant symbolic gesture: he selected Sharpeville, about 70km to the south of Johannesburg, as the site where he signed the country’s constitution into law <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/mandela-signs-sa-constitution-law">on 10 December 1996</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, human rights abuses continue in democratic South Africa 27 years after the end of apartheid. Echoes of Sharpeville remain evident, particularly in the way in which <a href="https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/police-brutality-in-south-africa">police behave</a> towards South Africans. </p>
<p>In this article, we draw on <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/departments/sasas">survey data</a> to profile awareness of the Sharpeville massacre, and views on the general importance of remembering a painful past. </p>
<p>We believe this is important because the way people understand the past is likely to have a clear bearing on levels of support for a social compact, and associated policies to address the challenges facing the country. At the top of the list are poverty, inequality and unemployment. </p>
<h2>Who remembers what</h2>
<p>To explore the patterns of collective memory in the country, the Human Sciences Research Council designed questions for inclusion in its annual round of the <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/departments/sasas">South African Social Attitudes Survey</a>. The survey, conducted between March 2020 and February 2021, consisted of 2,844 respondents older than 15.</p>
<p>The results suggest that basic public awareness of key historical events in the country is low. Nevertheless, those who were surveyed recognised the importance of remembering the past.</p>
<p>The survey asked respondents: “How familiar are you with the following historical events? Sharpeville Massacre 1960”. Two-fifths (39%) had not heard of this event before (Figure 1). A further 58% said they had heard of it, of which 39% knew little or nothing about it. A mere 19% knew enough about it to describe it to a friend. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390576/original/file-20210319-15-9y4hx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1: Level of awareness of the Sharpeville Massacre (1960) (%)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: HSRC South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Round 17 (2020/21)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many will be shocked by the limited public knowledge of a key event in modern South African history. To gain some perspective, we compared findings on knowledge of the Sharpeville massacre to knowledge of both the <a href="https://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">1955 Freedom Charter</a> and the 1976 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto Uprising</a>.</p>
<p>The Freedom Charter is the statement of core principles that guided the African National Congress and allied organisations in the fight against apartheid, after it was adopted on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">26 June 1955</a> at the “Congress of the People” in Kliptown, Johannesburg. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto Uprising</a> was sparked by the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction for some subjects for African high school students in that year. The marching students were met by armed policemen, who opened fired on them, killing several. This prompted countrywide resistance for several months thereafter. </p>
<p>In the survey, awareness of the Freedom Charter was similar to that of the Sharpeville massacre, with 57% having heard of it and 40% not. Basic familiarity with the 1976 Soweto youth uprising was higher at 71%, with 27% reporting no knowledge of it. </p>
<p>In all three instances, the share of respondents who were confident they would be able to describe these historical events to someone else ranged only between 18% and 29%. </p>
<p>These findings suggest that levels of knowledge about specific events remain quite shallow. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390582/original/file-20210319-21-1ubroq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: HSRC South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Round 17 (2020/21)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Differences</h2>
<p>Another striking finding was the wide variation in awareness levels. A strong generational difference in awareness of the Sharpeville massacre is evident, with 60% of those aged 16-24 never having heard of this important event. </p>
<p>There was also a strong class gradient. For example, poor and rural adults displayed lower levels of awareness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Table with massacre info" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390608/original/file-20210319-21-xe2en4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1: Level of awareness of the Sharpeville Massacre (1960) (%)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HSRC South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Round 17 (2020/21)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The influence of education was especially pronounced in shaping awareness. The more educated an individual, the more likely they were to be aware of the Sharpeville massacre. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>When asked “in your view, how important or unimportant do you think historical events such as the Sharpeville Massacre and Freedom Charter are for people living in South Africa today?”, 74% answered that this was “very” or “somewhat” important. Only 14% said that remembering the past was “not very” or “not at all” important, while 12% were uncertain. </p>
<p>This view is common among large numbers of the public, irrespective of personal socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Across a range of variables, the share of respondents believing in the importance of historical events does not fall below 60%, and ranges up to around the 85% mark. </p>
<p>Those with more knowledge of events such as the Sharpeville massacre showed a keener sense of the importance of collective memory than those who lacked awareness. </p>
<p>The manner in which Germany has approached its traumatic Nazi history offers a good illustration of how a society can reckon with <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/gps/28/1/gps280104.xml">its past</a>. The country is recognised as having developed an acute historical sensitivity, preserving an understanding of the past through <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/collective-memory-and-holocaust/">sustained effort</a> to educate and inform. </p>
<h2>Lest we forget</h2>
<p>The low levels of familiarity with key historical events indicate that there are serious shortcomings in the development of national collective memory in South Africa. </p>
<p>A national collective memory is crucial for the achievement of a national identity, since identities are closely linked to the common memories, including values, that a group holds. In the case of South Africa, a collective national identity would go a long way in building the social compact required to address the many challenges that the country faces. </p>
<p>South Africa could perhaps look to Guatemala. An attempt was made to use education to promote national unity in Guatemala when a <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/109393/Whose%20past%20whose%20present%20TO%20PRESS.pdf?sequence=">peace accord was signed in 1996</a> at the end of violent conflict in that country. The country shifted towards human rights education in an effort to emphasise the diversity of its population and a culture of peace.</p>
<p>A key focus was the rights of children, women and indigenous populations. Unlike South Africa, Guatemala failed to include the history of the conflict in its national history curriculum. But, like South Africa, there was a failure to develop a collective memory based on a history that emphasises historical events that can foster national unity.</p>
<p>Our survey results show that more needs to be done to ensure the public is well-informed of key events in South African history, and the relevance they have for contemporary issues. </p>
<p>In part, this must include a review of the place of history in school and university curricula, and recognition of the need for further investment in civic and democracy education. Countries such as the United States are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/02/our-democracy-is-ailing-civics-education-has-be-part-cure/">investing in civics education and learning</a> as a way of addressing hard histories and mounting challenges to democracy. Perhaps it is time to place this more firmly on the South African agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Roberts receives funding from a range of different government departments, non-governmental bodies and grant-making institutions for activities associated with the annual fielding of the South African Social Attitudes Survey. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:ghouston@hsrc.ac.za">ghouston@hsrc.ac.za</a> is affiliated with the Human Sciences Research Council
. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jare Struwig receives funding from receives funding from a range of different government departments, non-governmental bodies and grant-making institutions for activities associated with the annual fielding of the South African Social Attitudes Survey </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Gordon is affiliated with the Human Sciences Research Council. as a Senior Research Specialist. He has received funding from a number of sources including government, research councils and non-government organizations. </span></em></p>The low levels of familiarity with key historical events indicate that there are serious shortcomings in the development of national collective memory in South Africa.Benjamin Roberts, Research Director: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division, and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Human Sciences Research CouncilGregory Houston, Chief Research Specialist, Human Sciences Research CouncilJare Struwig, Chief Research Manager, Human Sciences Research CouncilSteven Gordon, Senior research specialist, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1547022021-02-22T14:19:34Z2021-02-22T14:19:34ZInvestors are increasingly shunning mining companies that violate human rights<p>Investors in Canadian mining company Tahoe Resources paid a price when Tahoe <a href="https://justice-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/FINAL-BCSC-Disclosure-Complaint-re-Tahoe-May-15-2017.pdf">failed to disclose</a> the extent of community and Indigenous opposition to its Escobal mine in Guatemala a few years back. </p>
<p>Its stock was flying high at $27 a share, but it fell after a string of lawsuits and violent conflicts — including security guards <a href="https://tahoeontrial.net/2015/11/19/security-footage-april-27-2013/">shooting protesters</a> in the back. The mine was eventually suspended by a Guatemalan court, and Tahoe was sold to Pan American Silver for about <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/pan-american-silver-buying-tahoe-resources-in-stock-and-cash-deal-1.1168040">$5 a share</a>.</p>
<p>People who invested in Vancouver-based Tahoe were undoubtedly attracted to its ownership of one of the world’s largest silver deposits, and assured by its claims that “<a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/tahoe-ceo-sure-i-love-silver-but-i-m-making-a-1b-bet-on-gold%7E547549">communities love us</a>.” They only learned about the extent of community opposition to the mine when civil society organizations publicized complaints that they had filed with the British Columbia Securities Commission.</p>
<p>The securities commission itself appears to have ignored those complaints — though investors did not. Despite investor behaviour, however, a new report on the future of securities regulations suggests that Ontario still believes social conflicts aren’t relevant to investors.</p>
<h2>The social risks of investment</h2>
<p>In January 2021, the Ontario government’s Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/consultation-modernizing-ontarios-capital-markets">made a number of recommendations</a> for improving the province’s investment environment. It acknowledged an “increased global momentum towards enhanced disclosure of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors that impact a company’s financial performance,” and recommended mandatory “climate change-related disclosure.” This is good news.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the task force suggested a <a href="https://assets.bbhub.io/company/sites/60/2020/10/FINAL-TCFD-Annex-Amended-121517.pdf">reporting standard</a> that does not address human rights or Indigenous concerns. It fails to account for S in ESG — the social risks and impacts of investing. </p>
<p>In contrast, the <a href="https://www.ungpreporting.org/">United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework</a> — an internationally recognized reporting standard <a href="http://claihr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020-09-07-CLAIHR-Submission-to-Capital-Markets-Modernization-Taskforce.pdf">that was recommended</a> to Ontario’s task force — would require companies to disclose human rights issues.</p>
<p>Such disclosure seems to matter to investors. <a href="https://justice-project.org/">The Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP)</a> — a volunteer-driven, community-based legal clinic — made six complaints to Canadian security regulators about human right abuses and failures to consult Indigenous communities and tracked the outcomes. Details can be found in the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=%203690013">empirical research report</a> prepared for the Ontario task force.</p>
<p>JCAP’s research offers two central findings. First, human rights violations and failures to consult Indigenous communities affect share prices. When they were publicized, JCAP’s complaints were typically followed by a drop in share prices ranging from 11 to 22 per cent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graph shows Tahoe Resources falling share prices." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383072/original/file-20210208-21-ocie3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tahoe Resources falling share prices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Authors)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second insight is that investors regard conflict with local communities as a risk to their investment, and one that legally should be disclosed. In the case of Tahoe Resources, <a href="https://www.ciel.org/norway-divests-from-tahoe/">several pension funds divested</a> from the company specifically because of human rights concerns. Smaller shareholders began <a href="https://www.siskinds.com/class-action/tahoe/">class-action lawsuits</a> based on the company’s failure to disclose material information about social conflicts. </p>
<p>The six complaints filed by JCAP make up a small sample, but the impact of social conflicts on share prices is confirmed by a much larger <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/aw7sq/">academic study</a> of 354 assassinations of civil society activists related primarily to mining projects over 20 years. It found that “investors, in aggregate, react negatively to assassination events,” and that there is a cumulative median loss in market capitalization of more than US$100 million in the 10 days following an assassination.</p>
<h2>Keeping conflict in the shadows</h2>
<p>For investors to make informed decisions, they need information. Unfortunately, another <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2886584">JCAP report</a> shows that Canadian companies under-report social conflict to investors. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/slavery-charges-against-canadian-mining-company-settled-on-the-sly-148605">Slavery charges against Canadian mining company settled on the sly</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>That report tracked conflicts associated with Canadian mining companies in Latin America over a 15-year period, and compares public and community reports with disclosures by those companies. It identified 44 deaths associated with opposition to mining companies, 30 of which were targeted, and 403 injuries, 363 of which occurred during confrontations or protests. Only 24.2 per cent of those deaths and 12.3 per cent of those injuries were reported to investors under Canadian securities law. </p>
<p>This finding of under-reporting is consistent with an analysis conducted by the <a href="https://shiftproject.org/most-canadian-mining-companies-are-lagging-when-it-comes-to-human-rights-reporting-heres-why/">Shift Project</a> that looked into the disclosures of 18 top Canadian mining companies. It found the majority were “failing to communicate a comprehensive narrative around human rights, cherry-picking instead.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man holds a sign in Spanish with a drawing of Earth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384834/original/file-20210217-15-19pu6j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than 500 people march in Guatemala City in February 2019 to protest the government’s non-compliance with a court order to consult with the Xinka Indigenous people over the future of the Escobal silver mine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Earthworks)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Shift Project is chaired by John Ruggie, a human rights professor at Harvard University who led the development of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf">United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a>.</p>
<p>A growing body of research suggests that investors care about human rights impacts and consultation with Indigenous communities, and consider them important to the value of their investments. At the same time, companies seem to prefer not to report on such issues. This is where securities law comes in. </p>
<p>A few years ago, the idea of using law to mandate corporate disclosure of climate-change risks seemed unworkable, but today, Ontario’s own task force recommends it. The time has come for the social element of ESG to be recognized as well, through the mandatory disclosure of human rights risks. </p>
<p>Human rights violations by mining companies are hardly a concern only for investors. The biggest risks are to the communities that contain the mines, the Indigenous populations that have to deal with the fallout from the conduct of mining companies, the environment — and all of us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shin Imai, Professor Emeritus, Osgoode Hall Law School
(Shin Imai is a director of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP) and has filed complaints against mining companies for failure to disclose material information. JCAP is a clinic based at Osgoode Hall Law School and Thompson Rivers Law School)
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Colgrove is an adjunct professor at Ryerson University, a lawyer, and a volunteer with the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project.</span></em></p>A growing body of research suggests that investors care about human rights and consultation with Indigenous communities, and consider them important to the value of their investments.Shin Imai, Professor Emeritus, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, CanadaSarah Colgrove, Adjunct Law Professor, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528142021-01-21T16:55:06Z2021-01-21T16:55:06ZBiden’s peaceful inauguration doesn’t end America’s longtime coup addiction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379989/original/file-20210121-23-7ivefs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden review the troops from the east steps of the U.S. Capitol during the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(David Tulis/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Joe Biden is now the 46th president of the United States. He was inaugurated under intense security following the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/06/trump-virtual-coup-turns-real-mob-breaches-capitol/6571251002/">attempted coup</a> on Jan. 6, 2021, by Donald Trump supporters after the former president called for an insurrection against his own country’s government.</p>
<p>In his inauguration address, Biden made reference to the coup attempt and once again held up the U.S. as an example to the rest of the world: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forebears, one another, and generations to follow.”</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Biden makes his inaugural address, via CTV News.</span></figcaption>
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<p>World responses to the raid on the U.S. Capitol had taken a similar tone, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s incredulous claim that the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-55568492">United States stands for democracy around the world</a>.”</p>
<p>But as Biden takes power and the U.S. Senate prepares to hold Trump’s second impeachment trial, it’s important to keep in mind that there was nothing unique about the attempted coup except that it happened at home. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have backed military coups around the world for decades, from Iran in 1953 to Bolivia in 2019.</p>
<p>One study counted <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2020.1693620">64 covert and six overt coups</a> backed by the United States. Yet the erasing of the history of U.S.-backed coups allows the United States to forget its own acts in toppling other governments, retroactively washing itself clean. </p>
<p>Take George W. Bush, who is increasingly gaining some grudging respect since the end of his presidency. <a href="https://people.com/politics/president-george-w-bush-addresses-violence-at-the-u-s-capitol/">Bush spoke out clearly</a> against the “mayhem unfolding at the seat of our nation’s government” on Jan. 6. “This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic,” he tweeted. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/by-inciting-capitol-mob-trump-pushes-u-s-closer-to-a-banana-republic-152850">By inciting Capitol mob, Trump pushes U.S. closer to a banana republic</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>The dismissive reference to “banana republics” is more polite than Trump’s comments about “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/shithole-countries/580054/">shithole countries</a>” but it amounts to the same preaching of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-capitol-raid-exposes-the-myth-and-pathology-of-american-exceptionalism-152668">American exceptionalism</a> and the same contempt for non-white non-Americas. </p>
<h2>Guatemala</h2>
<p>Take one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Kurtz-Phelan-t.html">original supposed “banana republics,”</a> Guatemala. In the early 1950s, president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, following the recommendations of the World Bank, began a campaign for economic independence that threatened the interests of the United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Brands International. The U.S. company’s highly profitable business in Guatemala was affected by the end of exploitative labour practices in the country.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1347569588674965504"}"></div></p>
<p>The father of modern advertising, Edward Bernays, <a href="https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/2017/06/01/chiquita-pr-campaign/">set about</a> “engineering consent” for the false accusation that Arbenz was a communist. American officials then egged on Guatemalan army officers to overthrow Arbenz, which they <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674019300">did in 1954</a>. </p>
<p>Military regimes continued for decades, inflicting <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/military-rule-threatens-guatemalas-highland-maya-indians">violence upon Indigenous Peoples</a>. Guatemala’s truth commission concluded that civil war had claimed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19636725">200,000 lives</a> and that the army committed 93 per cent of all human rights violations. </p>
<h2>South Korea, Iran</h2>
<p>This U.S.-backed coup wasn’t the first. In the wake of the Second World War, an American army occupation in <a href="https://thewire.in/history/uncovering-the-hidden-history-of-the-korean-war">South Korea</a> throttled grassroots Korean democracy and imposed U.S. ally Syngman Rhee as president. Several coups followed until the arrival of lasting democracy in the 1980s. </p>
<p>South Korea’s <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2012/04/truth-commission-south-korea-2005">truth commission found</a> that tens of thousands of people had either been killed or suffered human rights violations, 82 per cent of them at the hands of the South Korean military. </p>
<p>Most famously, the U.S. helped topple Iran’s first democratic president, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953. When Mossadegh echoed the doctrine of governments like Canada that oil resources belonged to the people, he upset British and American oil companies. Their home governments then painted Mossadegh as a dangerous leftist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh rides on the shoulders of cheering crowds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379349/original/file-20210118-17-1wh6k55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this September 1951 photo, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh rides on the shoulders of cheering crowds outside the parliament building after reiterating his oil nationalization views to his supporters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>U.S. media reports painted him as effeminate and weak. “<a href="https://iranbeyondthenews.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/the-man-who-made-the-world-say-%E2%80%9Cwhat-if%E2%80%9D/">He favoured pink pyjamas</a>,” according to the <em>New York Times</em>. <em>Time</em> magazine called him the “weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country.” Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative in Iran, hired paid protesters, and Iran’s army soon toppled the government. </p>
<h2>South Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile</h2>
<p>U.S. governments even approved coups against pro-American rulers. Ngo Dinh Diem’s tenure as president of South Vietnam ended unceremoniously in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy approved a plan for Vietnamese army officers to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/01/archives/us-and-diems-overthrow-step-by-step-pentagon-papers-the-diem-coup.html">overthrow him</a>. The U.S. would then work with a revolving door of military rulers in South Vietnam until 1973, when it withdrew its forces from the country. </p>
<p>President Lyndon Johnson encouraged a <a href="https://www.insideindonesia.org/accomplices-in-atrocity">coup against Sukarno</a>, Indonesia’s first president, by pro-western army officers. Sukarno was no democrat, but the United States was content with him until he took steps against western oil companies. Yet while trying to isolate his government, the U.S. government kept in contact with pro-western economists and the Indonesian army, as historian Bradley Simpson <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=7853">chronicles</a>. The U.S. embassy aided the mass killing of as many as a million people in 1965-66. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet is seen in full military garb." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379352/original/file-20210118-13-tf732q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet is seen in this March 1998 photo in Santiago, Chile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Santiago Llanquin)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>“Jakarta is coming,” graffiti in Chile proclaimed as President Salvador Allende’s policies increasingly irritated U.S. President Richard Nixon. The “<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/05/18/how-jakarta-became-the-codeword-for-us-backed-mass-killing/">Jakarta method</a>” saw an attempt to copy the “success” in Indonesia. Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s forces seized power in 1973, then <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2003/09/commission-inquiry-chile-03">“disappeared” and tortured thousands of people</a>. </p>
<h2>Bolivia</h2>
<p>America’s addiction to coups survived the end of the Cold War. The U.S. has backed coups in Haiti, Honduras and elsewhere. Most recently, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silence-us-backed-coup-evo-morales-bolivia-american-states">cheered the toppling</a> of Bolivia’s president Evo Morales in 2019 after the Organization of American States implied Morales was rigging votes. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-zimbabwe-to-bolivia-what-makes-a-military-coup-127138">From Zimbabwe to Bolivia: what makes a military coup?</a>
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<hr>
<p>Later investigations showed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud/">claims were groundless</a>. As has often been the case, U.S. corporate interests were at stake.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/29/we-will-coup-whoever-we-want-elon-musk-and-the-overthrow-of-democracy-in-bolivia/">We will coup whoever we want</a>,” said Telsa founder Elon Musk, long <a href="https://socialistproject.ca/2020/07/elon-musk-overthrow-of-democracy-in-bolivia/">interested in the country’s lithium</a>, needed for electric car batteries. </p>
<p>Coup addiction overseas has now come home to Washington. We can draw three lessons. </p>
<h2>Lessons learned</h2>
<p>Firstly, “American exceptionalism” insists that the U.S. is different from all other countries. In fact, it’s derivative. Trump’s forces followed a well-thumbed script. Consent must be manufactured, the enemy demonized — a pattern laid out in the 1950s by Bernays and Roosevelt. If necessary, crowds are mobilized in the pursuit of “regime change.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-capitol-raid-exposes-the-myth-and-pathology-of-american-exceptionalism-152668">The U.S. Capitol raid exposes the myth and pathology of American exceptionalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Second, the method of the coup must be made acceptable via demonization and imagining coups as an acceptable way to transfer power. The American penchant for coups normalized this mindset long before Trump. Americans accept violence as simply another item in the political arsenal. </p>
<p>Finally, it helps to bring racism and sexism into play. Mossadegh was deemed weak and effeminate. Diem’s alleged weakness helped convince Kennedy that he had to go. It was easy to convince the American public to accept these faraway coups. Trump’s innovation was to convince millions of Americans that their fellow citizens, especially racialized Americans, were destroying the U.S. at home — <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-capitol-raid-was-a-failed-self-coup-previously-seen-in-dying-regimes-152917">and that a self-coup to remove that threat</a> was perfectly acceptable. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/30/biden-america-is-back-team-insiders-repeat-mistakes-us-trump">America is back</a>,” says Joe Biden. The many victims of U.S.-backed coups might wish for America to stay home from time to time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, but no funds from this grant supported this publication. </span></em></p>From a global perspective, there was nothing unique about the recent raid on the U.S. Capitol. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have backed military coups around the world for decades.David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486052020-10-26T16:36:48Z2020-10-26T16:36:48ZSlavery charges against Canadian mining company settled on the sly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365357/original/file-20201025-22-1h9iyy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C361%2C4928%2C2891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Bisha mine in Eritrea is seen in November 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Martin Schibbye/Creative Commons)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://mining.ca/resources/mining-facts/">Mining is major business</a> in Canada, particularly operations conducted beyond its borders. The Canadian mining industry, however, has often <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/canada-not-walking-the-walk-on-its-miners-abuses-abroad-campaigners-say/">been criticized</a> for its human rights record abroad. </p>
<p>In 2018, Canadian companies had mining assets in <a href="https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/maps-tools-publications/publications/minerals-mining-publications/canadian-mining-assets/canadian-mining-assets-cma-country-and-region-2017-and-2018/15406">100 countries</a> abroad, <a href="https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/maps-tools-publications/publications/minerals-mining-publications/canadian-mining-assets/19323?_ga=2.94124765.1315252348.1600953025-332247511.1597684500">valued at $174.4 billion</a>. This made up two-thirds of total Canadian mining assets. </p>
<p>Among the 100 countries was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Eritrea">Eritrea</a>, where the operations of the gold, copper and zinc Bisha mine gave rise to <a href="https://ca.topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/employment-labor/vancouver-based-mining-company-nevsun-facing-mass-slavery-lawsuit/">one of the most closely observed pieces of litigation</a> in Canada in recent years, largely because it involved allegations of slave labour and torture. Its <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20201013-canada-le-proc%C3%A8s-d-une-compagnie-mini%C3%A8re-esclavage-en-%C3%A9rythr%C3%A9e-n-aura-pas-lieu?fbclid=IwAR2UMF3rY6MygiS6lkr6KQGscit2EbmrOLDB_5M7hMw5Gx7OYHscDr1_A6Q&ref=fb">recent settlement</a> in near total silence therefore raises some important questions.</p>
<h2>Alleged human rights abuses</h2>
<p>First, though, it’s important to understand what happened in the case. In 2014, three Eritrean plaintiffs <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/nevsun-lawsuit-re-bisha-mine-eritrea/">launched a class-action lawsuit</a> in the British Columbia Supreme Court against a Vancouver-based mining company, Nevsun Resources. </p>
<p>They alleged that they had suffered human rights abuses at the Bisha mine, including slavery and torture, as well as a variety of domestic violations, including assault, battery and unlawful confinement. The mine was held by a consortium comprising Nevsun and the Eritrean government.</p>
<p><a href="https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18169/index.do">The claimants</a> said they were part of Eritrea’s involuntary and indefinite military conscripts and deployed to work at the mine for subsistence wages. When they tried to flee, they were allegedly beaten with sticks, tied up and left to lie in the hot sand in temperatures of up to 50 C.</p>
<p>Under provincial court rules, a defendant may request early on that a matter be removed from the court’s roll, arguing essentially that the <a href="https://www.financierworldwide.com/dispositions-without-a-trial-a-quick-canadian-primer#.X5GN2y-946U">claim has no reasonable chance of succeeding</a>. Nevsun made this request.</p>
<p>At the end of February 2020, the <a href="https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18169/index.do">Supreme Court of Canada upheld</a> the decisions of the British Columbia Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal, refusing the defendant’s request. Justice Rosalie Abella concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Customary international law is part of Canadian law. Nevsun is a company bound by Canadian law. It is not ‘plain and obvious’ to me that the Eritrean workers’ claims against Nevsun based on breaches of customary international law cannot succeed.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/practice-areas/litigation/nevsun-can-be-sued-in-canada-for-alleged-human-rights-abuses-supreme-court-rules/326872">This opened the way for the matter to proceed to trial</a>. It had the potential to set a major precedent in terms of the liability of Canadian mining companies for wrongs committed abroad.</p>
<h2>Québec case</h2>
<p>Attempts to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for the human rights abuses or environmental disasters of their subsidiaries abroad date back to a 1998 Québec case, <em><a href="https://leap.edw.ro/countries/ca/national-case-law/recherches-internationales-quebec-petitioner-v-cambior-inc-l">Recherches Internationales Québec (RIQ) vs. Cambior Inc</a></em>. In this case, toxic waste water had spilled into Guyana’s main river, the Essequibo, after the failure of Omai gold mine’s waste treatment dam. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits smile as they chat with a Cambior sign behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365358/original/file-20201025-13-1kdafze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cambior CEO Louis Gignac, left, and Iamgold Corp. CEO Joseph Conway chat prior to a Cambior special shareholders meeting to approve the merger of the two gold producers in November 2006 in Montréal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As primary shareholder of Omai, Cambior had both financed and supervised the mining project. The Québec Superior Court ruled that a Guyanese court should hear the matter. But the 23,000 Guyanese victims did not succeed in the High Court of Guyana, <a href="https://nacla.org/blog/2012/7/13/everything-glitters-isn%25E2%2580%2599t-green-guyana">though they tried twice</a>. </p>
<p>The recent settlement of <em>Nevsun vs. Araya</em> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/settlement-amnesty-scoc-africa-mine-nevsun-1.5774910">didn’t make very much news</a> in the Canadian media. The Franco-African press reported that <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20201013-canada-le-proc%C3%A8s-d-une-compagnie-mini%C3%A8re-esclavage-en-%C3%A9rythr%C3%A9e-n-aura-pas-lieu?fbclid=IwAR2UMF3rY6MygiS6lkr6KQGscit2EbmrOLDB_5M7hMw5Gx7OYHscDr1_A6Q&ref=fb">a terse news release had invoked confidentiality</a>, indicating that the parties had reached a “mutually satisfactory arrangement.” This means that the litigation came to an abrupt end. </p>
<p>One can’t blame the Eritrean plaintiffs for wanting to end the matter. It’s also understandable that the company wished to avoid the <a href="https://www.mining-journal.com/politics/news/1381974/nevsun-suffers-eritrea-legal-setback">increased media attention</a> that court cases bring. The mining industry undoubtedly will breathe a sigh of relief.</p>
<h2>Kept quiet</h2>
<p>The disturbing aspect of this settlement is that it has been kept so quiet. It ends a <a href="https://www.barchart.com/story/stocks/quotes/NSU/4466250/supreme-court-of-canada-hands-down-landmark-human-rights-ruling-against-canadian-mining-company">high-profile case</a> with an elevated potential for setting negative precedents for Canadian mining companies operating abroad. Contrast this with the settlement terms of another matter involving allegations of human rights abuses, <em><a href="https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/17/00/2017BCCA0039.htm">Garcia vs. Tahoe Resources, Inc</a></em>. </p>
<p>In that case, the B.C. Court of Appeal had cleared the way for a trial against Tahoe Resources, which, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, fully controlled the operations of the Escobal mine in Guatemala. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holds a sign in Spanish outside a courthouse that reads 'We do not want the looting of Guatemalan resources.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365360/original/file-20201025-13-cxmvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters demonstrate against Tahoe Resources’ Escobar silver mine outside the Constitutional Court of Guatemala in May 2018. The sign reads: ‘We do not want the looting of Guatemalan resources.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jackie McVickar/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mine’s security guards had fired on protesters, leading to criminal charges against the mine’s head of security in Guatemala. The protesters launched a battery claim against Tahoe in Canada. The <a href="https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/17/00/2017BCCA0039.htm">B.C. Court of Appeal</a> allowed the matter to proceed in Canada, based on the risk of unfairness for the claimants in Guatemalan courts due to systemic corruption. </p>
<p>Tahoe was then acquired by Pan American Silver, which went on to settle the matter publicly. <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/pan-american-silver-announces-resolution-of-garcia-v-tahoe-case/">Terms of settlement</a> included acknowledging wrongdoing and condemning the use of violence, apologizing to the victims and the community and reiterating the rights of the victims to protest against the mine in future. It was a win for the mining industry because harms had been redressed in a way that brought greater transparency.</p>
<p>Nevsun, too, was <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/zijin-acquires-276-820-575-shares-of-nevsun-and-files-notice-of-extension-862771821.html">acquired by another company</a>, Zijin Mining, prior to the settlement. But the similarities end there.</p>
<p>Make no mistake. I am not opposed to the Nevsun settlement. Settling matters avoids extensive litigation and high legal costs. </p>
<p>But what’s troublesome is the veil of secrecy in which this settlement is cloaked. Greater transparency, while not legally required, would have demonstrated that Nevsun is a responsible mining company that takes the interests of its stakeholders seriously. Instead, Nevsun remains silent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Steyn 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>Why a mining company’s quiet settlement of a slave labour case is big news.Elizabeth Steyn, Cassels Brock Fellow and Assistant Professor of Mining and Finance Law; Public and Private International Law Research Group Member, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1437912020-08-24T12:20:49Z2020-08-24T12:20:49ZLatin American women are disappearing and dying under lockdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354176/original/file-20200821-24-mmqoe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C2687%2C1715&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Funeral for a woman and her 11-year-old daughter, both found dead inside a burnt out vehicle in Puebla state, Mexico, June 11, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/relatives-and-friends-of-gardenia-ortega-and-her-11-year-news-photo/1221065114?adppopup=true">Jose Castanares/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a pandemic within the pandemic. Across <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/22/mexico-femicides-president-amlo-women-shelters">Latin America</a>, gender-based violence has spiked since COVID-19 broke out.</p>
<p>Almost <a href="https://www.elperiodico.com/es/internacional/20200730/peru-mujeres-desaparecidas-durante-cuarentena-8058781">1,200 women disappeared in Peru</a> between March 11 and June 30, the Ministry of Women reported. In Brazil, 143 women in 12 states were murdered in March and April – a <a href="https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/direitos-humanos/noticia/2020-06/casos-de-feminicidio-crescem-22-em-12-estados-durante-pandemia">22% increase over the same period in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>Reports of rape, murder and <a href="https://www.proceso.com.mx/642432/las-mujeres-golpeadas-por-la-austeridad-de-la-4t">domestic violence</a> are also <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wG6qya31zzz4m1YUgowZWSSH0z748HDt/view">way up in Mexico</a>. In Guatemala, they’re down significantly – a likely sign that women are too <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/comunitario/mujeres-escapan-de-la-violencia-en-plena-crisis-del-coronavirus/">afraid to call the police on the partners they’re locked down with</a>. </p>
<p>The pandemic worsened but did not create this problem: Latin America has long been among the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-is-better-not-to-have-a-daughter-here-latin-americas-violence-turns-against-women-11545237843">world’s deadliest places to be a woman</a>. </p>
<h2>Don’t blame ‘machismo’</h2>
<p>I have spent three decades studying <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Nrb73ZoAAAAJ&hl=en">gendered violence</a> as well as women’s organizing in Latin America, an <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexican-women-are-angry-about-rape-murder-and-government-neglect-and-they-want-the-world-to-know-122156">increasingly vocal and potent social force</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Women dressed in black and wearing face masks clash with police in Mexico CIty" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354145/original/file-20200821-22-40gt38.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">Women demand justice for Mexico’s many murdered women at a protest against gender violence in Mexico CIty, Aug. 15, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-take-part-during-a-demonstration-to-protest-protest-news-photo/1228075733?adppopup=true">Nadya Murillo / Eyepix Group/Barcroft Media via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though patriarchy is part of the problem, Latin America’s gender violence cannot simply be attributed to “machismo.” Nor is gender inequality particularly extreme there. Education levels among Latin American women and girls have been rising for decades and – <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/465074-why-american-politics-needs-gender-quota">unlike the U.S.</a> – many countries have quotas for women to hold political office. Several have elected <a href="https://theconversation.com/female-presidents-dont-always-help-women-while-in-office-study-in-latin-america-finds-91707">women presidents</a>. </p>
<p>My research, which often <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2018.1534836">centers on Indigenous communities</a>, traces violence against women in Latin America instead to both the region’s colonial history and to a complex web of social, racial, gender and economic inequalities. </p>
<p>I’ll use Guatemala, a country I know well, as a case study to unravel this thread. But we could engage in a similar exercise with other Latin American countries or the U.S., where violence against women is a pervasive, historically rooted problem, too – and one that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302952/">disproportionately affects women of color</a>. </p>
<p>In Guatemala, where <a href="https://www.horizons.ca/blog/2018/1/3/guatemala">600 to 700 women are killed every year</a>, gendered violence has deep roots. Mass rape carried out <a href="https://academic.oup.com/isq/article/53/2/445/1856585">during massacres</a> was a tool of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40926273?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">systematic, generalized terror</a> during the country’s 36-year civil war, when citizens and armed insurgencies rose up against the government. The war, which ended in 1996, <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/1997/02/truth-commission-guatemala">killed over 200,000 Guatemalans</a>. </p>
<p>Mass rape has been used as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-what-the-law-can-do-10038">weapon of war</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-in-syria-a-weapon-of-war-or-instrument-of-terror-8816">many conflicts</a>. In Guatemala, government forces targeted Indigenous women. While Guatemala’s Indigenous population is between <a href="https://www.censopoblacion.gt/mapas">44%</a> and <a href="https://www.iwgia.org/en/guatemala.html">60% Indigenous</a>, based on the census and other demographic data, about 90% of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/28/guatemalan-women-mass-rape-give-evidence">over 100,000 women raped during the war</a> were <a href="https://hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CEHreport-english.pdf">Indigenous Mayans</a>. </p>
<p>Testimonies from the war demonstrate that soldiers saw Indigenous women as having little humanity. They knew Mayan women could be <a href="https://www.ijmonitor.org/2018/04/the-legacy-of-rios-montt-guatemalas-most-notorious-war-criminal/">raped, killed and mutilated</a> with impunity. This is a legacy of Spanish colonialism. Starting in the 16th century, Indigenous peoples and <a href="https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates">Afro-descendants</a> across the Americas were enslaved or compelled into forced labor by the Spanish, <a href="https://www.zaoerv.de/59_1999/59_1999_2_a_497_528.pdf">treated as private property</a>, often brutally. </p>
<p>Some Black and Indigenous women <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/fractional-freedoms/0EA2CEF3959952AAE7966EC7F284E437">actually tried to fight their ill treatment in court</a> during the colonial period, but they had fewer legal rights than white Spanish conquerors and their descendants. The subjugation and marginalization of Black and Indigenous Latin Americans continues into the present day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Colorful image of Spanish on horseback attacking Native people at a temple" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354204/original/file-20200822-14-1l2eath.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&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 depiction of the 1519 Cholula Massacre by Spanish conquistadors in 1519, made by Mexico’s Indigenous inhabitants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Matanza_de_Cholula_por_conquistadores_espa%C3%B1oles_Lienzo_de_Tlaxcala.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Internalized oppression</h2>
<p>In Guatemala, violence against women affects Indigenous women disproportionately, but not exclusively. Conservative Catholic and evangelical moral teachings hold that <a href="https://www.futurechurch.org/women-in-church-leadership/women-in-church-leadership/scriptures-that-subordinate-women">women should be chaste and obey their husbands</a>, creating the idea that men can control the women with whom they are in a sexual relationship. </p>
<p>In a 2014 survey published by the <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/insights/IO923en.pdf">Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University</a>, Guatemalans were more accepting of gender violence than any other Latin Americans, with 58% of respondents saying suspected infidelity justified physical abuse. </p>
<p>Women as well as men have internalized this view. During my research in Guatemala and Mexico, many women shared stories about how their own mothers, mother-in-law or neighbors told them to “aguantar” – put up with – their husbands’ abuse, saying it was a man’s right to punish bad wives. </p>
<p>The media, police and often even official justice systems reinforce strict constraints on <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/tema/hombre-mata-a-su-conviviente-por-celos-en-chimaltenango/">women’s behavior</a>. When women are murdered in Guatemala and Mexico – a daily occurrence – headlines often read, “<a href="https://www.milenio.com/policia/hombre-mata-a-su-esposa-por-celos">Man Kills His Wife Because of Jealousy</a>.” In court and online, rape survivors are still accused of “asking for it” if they were assaulted while out without male supervision. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A newspaper front page with blurred out image of a murdered woman's mutilated body, reading 'Burnt Alive!'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354227/original/file-20200823-20-14s7sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&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 Mexican newspaper exclaims ‘Burnt Alive!’ to tout a story about a murdered woman, June 7, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/newspapers-front-page-reads-burnt-alive-under-the-bridge-news-photo/479356448?adppopup=true">Omar Torres/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to protect women</h2>
<p>Latin American countries have made many creative, serious efforts to protect women. </p>
<p>Seventeen have passed <a href="https://www.cepal.org/en/pressreleases/eclac-least-2795-women-were-victims-femicide-23-countries-latin-america-and-caribbean">laws</a> making <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/77421/WHO_RHR_12.38_eng.pdf?sequence=1">feminicide</a> – the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female – its own crime separate from homicide, with long mandatory prison sentences to try to deter this. Many countries have also created <a href="https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/891">women-only police stations</a> , produced statistical data on feminicide, improved <a href="https://www.latinamerica.undp.org/content/rblac/en/home/library/womens_empowerment/del-compromiso-a-la-accion--politicas-para-erradicar-la-violenci.html">reporting avenues for gendered violence</a> and funded more <a href="http://cedoc.inmujeres.gob.mx/documentos_download/101219.pdf">women’s shelters</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Eight pink wooden crosses mark a mass grave at a construction site" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2681%2C1765&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354142/original/file-20200821-16-128fuzi.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Latin America has long been one of the world’s most dangerous regions for women. Crosses mark where the corpses of eight missing women were found outside Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wooden-pink-crosses-are-seen-in-the-place-where-the-corpses-news-photo/1228095222?adppopup=true">Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Guatemala even <a href="https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Hector%20Ruiz_Guatemala%20VAW%20Article_2017.pdf">created special courts</a> where men accused of gender violence – whether feminicide, sexual assault or psychological violence – are tried. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2018.1534836">Research</a>
I conducted with my colleague, political scientist Erin Beck, finds that these specialized courts have been important in recognizing violence against women as a serious crime, punishing it and providing victims with much-needed legal, social and psychological support. But we also found critical limitations related to insufficient funding, staff burnout and weak investigations. </p>
<p>There is also an enormous linguistic and cultural gap between judicial officials and in many parts of the country the largely Indigenous, non-Spanish-speaking women they serve. Many of these women are so poor and geographically isolated they can’t even make it into court, leaving <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-domestic-abuse-and-anti-gay-violence-qualify-as-persecution-in-asylum-law-98354">flight as their only option of escaping violence</a>. </p>
<h2>The collective body</h2>
<p>All these efforts to protect women – whether in Guatemala, elsewhere in Latin America or the U.S. – are narrow and legalistic. They make feminicide one crime, physical assault a different crime, and rape another – and attempt to indict and punish men for those acts.</p>
<p>But they fail to indict the broader systems that perpetuate these problems, like social, racial, and economic inequalities, family relationships and social mores. </p>
<p>Some Indigenous women’s groups say gendered violence is a collective problem that needs collective solutions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women and a child in traditional Indigenous clothing look at a crime scene where a home was burned" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354144/original/file-20200821-14-u4lemo.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">Gendered violence in Guatemala disproportionately affects Indigenous women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-look-at-rubble-after-a-house-was-burnt-in-an-attack-news-photo/1228096531?adppopup=true">Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“When they rape, disappear, jail or assassinate a woman, it is as if all the community, the neighborhood, the community or the family has been raped,” said the Mexican <a href="https://www.congresonacionalindigena.org/2017/11/27/palabra-marichuy-neza-las-mujeres-los-feminicidios">Indigenous activist Marichuy at a rally</a> in Mexico City in 2017. </p>
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<p>In Marichuy’s analysis, violence against one Indigenous woman is the result of an entire society that dehumanizes her people. So simply sending the abuser to prison is not sufficient. Gendered violence calls for a punishment that both implicates the community and the offender – and tries to heal them. </p>
<p>Some Mexican Indigenous communities have <a href="https://nacla.org/article/indigenous-justice-faces-state-community-police-force-guerrero-mexico">autonomous police and justice systems</a>, which use discussion and mediation to reach a verdict and emphasize reconciliation over punishment. Sentences of community service – whether construction, digging drainage or other manual labor – serve to both punish and socially reintegrate offenders. Terms range from a few weeks for simple theft to <a href="http://www.rachelsieder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Justicias-Indigenas-y-Estadointro.pdf">eight years for murder</a>. </p>
<p>Stopping gendered violence in Latin America, the U.S. or anywhere will be a complicated, long-term process. And grand social progress seems unlikely in a pandemic. But when lockdowns end, restorative justice seems like <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2017.1373970">a good way to start</a> helping women and our communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn Marie Stephen receives funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and a variety of sources at the University of Oregon including the Center for the Study of Women in Society, her Philip H. Knight Chair, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. </span></em></p>Reports of rape, domestic abuse and murdered women are way up in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and beyond since the coronavirus. But Latin America has long been one of the most dangerous places to be a woman.Lynn Marie Stephen, Philip H. Knight Chair, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Faculty Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440542020-08-07T03:42:55Z2020-08-07T03:42:55ZIn The Meddler, we join a creeping nightcrawler as he chronicles death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351700/original/file-20200807-14-85q7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C8%2C1888%2C1051&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Meddler, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival</em></p>
<p>For movie scholars and enthusiasts, one of the worst things about the COVID-19 pandemic has been the shutting down of cinemas. It’s a fundamentally different experience watching a film on a small screen with friends and family – or by yourself – from watching a movie on a massive screen in a dark room surrounded by strangers. This is why people have historically continued to go to the movies, despite the challenges posed first by the introduction of television, then by home video, and now by streaming services. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="El Metido title with camera on red background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8995262/mediaviewer/rm3843275265">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Festivals like the <a href="https://www.sff.org.au/">Sydney Film Festival</a> have attempted to adjust to the emergency context by operating as reduced online-only festivals. But watching a premiere in a packed State Theatre is not the same as watching the same film hunched over your laptop. </p>
<p>At the same time, it’s nice to have access to good films beyond the limited offerings from online services. </p>
<p>The Meddler (or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8995262/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><em>El Metido</em></a>), the recent documentary from Australian filmmakers Daniel Leclair and Alex Roberts now playing online as part of the <a href="https://miff.com.au/">Melbourne International Film Festival</a>, is, indeed, a good film. </p>
<h2>An addiction</h2>
<p>It’s also quietly but profoundly unsettling. The documentarians follow German Cabrera, an unassuming mechanic in Guatemala City. Night after night he prowls the streets with a camera, trying to capture footage of crimes, accidents, and, mainly, dead bodies.</p>
<p>Occasionally we cut to Cabrera’s footage, but mostly the camera observes him. Through the filmmakers apparent refusal to intervene in the world, a careful irony slowly develops: a split between Cabrera’s self-perception and what we are watching as viewers. </p>
<p>Cabrera believes he does this because he’s a truth and justice warrior – and he does provide the footage for free to local news networks – but the film suggests there is more to it. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JI8F1dvf9Rw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">They call me ‘The Meddler’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We see a man obsessed, in his own words “addicted”, to capturing these gruesome images. This leads, through the course of the film, to the disintegration of his marriage. </p>
<p>The reasons for his obsession remain enigmatic, and the film avoids the kind of psychologising that a bigger budget documentary may have been compelled to offer. This benefits the film; it is much eerier because of its lack of exposition. </p>
<p>At times it plays like a less strident (and less funny) <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm">Werner Herzog</a> character study. </p>
<p>Like Herzog’s Timothy Treadwell from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Grizzly Man</a> – a self-proclaimed naturalist and environmental warrior who ends up being killed by a bear – Cabrera is a self-appointed investigative journalist-come-superhero. As with Herzog’s film, we gradually realise that Cabrera, with his mute, reactionary stance on what he perceives to be limitless crime is, simply, a really weird guy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neverending-stories-why-we-still-love-unsolved-mysteries-141046">Neverending stories – why we still love Unsolved Mysteries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Nightcrawlers all</h2>
<p>Known as “the night watcher” on local news, Cabrera is a kind of real life version of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the stringer from Dan Gilroy’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872718/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Nightcrawler</a>. It is, perhaps, more disturbing that this is a kind of hobby for Cabrera, rather than work as it is for Lou. </p>
<p>This is starkly realised in a moment midway through the film when Cabrera captures a bereaved teenager screaming, “I want my dad!” The film cuts from Cabrera’s footage to him watching the teenager through his camera, totally unmoved by what he is filming.</p>
<p>This moment is subtle, and flips back on us too. As the viewers of the documentary we are also drawn to these horrific images. We are suckers for sensation and the stimulation of the extreme. Are we, too, meddlers as we watch, for example, injured and bloody people in the back of an ambulance? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man photographs dead body at nighttime." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Documentary subject German Cabrera is close to a real life Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another scene, we are confronted with disturbing footage of a dead boy, his mother crying over him in the street. He has died during the day because of a medical condition. Cabrera’s narration tells us he was driving down the street and saw the boy and mum in the street so he stopped and filmed them. </p>
<p>As we wade with him through the blood and guts filled streets, we begin to realise how awful the whole thing is, and how profoundly deluded Cabrera is about the value of what he is doing. </p>
<p>We don’t buy his justification. Often he simply films, in an incredibly invasive fashion, people who have nothing to do with organised crime or gangs – people suffering mental illness, drug addicts, drunks. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/true-crime-its-time-to-start-questioning-the-ethics-of-tuning-in-125324">True crime: it's time to start questioning the ethics of tuning in</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Memorable, creepy</h2>
<p>And yet the film cryptically oscillates between contrasting responses to Cabrera, at times legitimising his urban vigilante-survivalist viewpoint. At the end of the film, the music becomes triumphant as we listen to Cabrera (sounding like televsion hero <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193021/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Arrow</a>) talking about people needing to fight to save the city from criminals. </p>
<p>The Meddler is a minor but memorable film, beautifully shot, capturing its subject in a clinical, creepy fashion. Its one notable technical problem concerns the sound, which seems thin and poorly mixed in places, and the music, which is underdone and cliched. </p>
<p>For a low budget documentary, though, this is a minor criticism. We may not be able to watch it in cinemas – and this is one film whose impact would be amplified in that collective context – but at least we can watch it. </p>
<p><em>MIFF is <a href="https://miff.com.au/">online</a> until 23 August 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes 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>In The Meddler, Australian documentarians follow an unassuming mechanic in Guatemala City as he prowls the streets with a camera trying to capture footage of crimes and dead bodies.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1403032020-06-11T12:02:41Z2020-06-11T12:02:41ZDismantling the police: lessons from three places that tried it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341149/original/file-20200611-80754-1c5ob2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C6699%2C4456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Calls to 'defund the police' are growing across the US. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/san-francisco-california-usa-june-03-1749068324">hkalkan via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers sparked protests across the US and brought the Black Lives Matter movement back to the forefront of American politics. The intensity of these protests means that previously unthinkable demands for radical reform are now on the table. </p>
<p>The defunding of America’s heavily armed police forces, a long-term demand of racial justice activists, looks increasingly achievable. In early June, a veto-proof supermajority of Minneapolis City council members supported efforts to <a href="https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/">“dismantle” and “abolish”</a> the police department and replace it with a new system of community policing. In Los Angeles, the mayor put forward a proposal to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-03/lapd-budget-unrest-garcetti">divert between US$100 million and US$150 million</a> from the police department to invest in jobs and education for communities of colour. </p>
<p>What this would look like in practice is still unclear. While reforms need to be matched to the specific national context and goals, there are a number of countries that have attempted to defund, demobilise and radically reform their police forces. </p>
<p>Although this often occurs following armed conflict, the experience of three places in particular can provide important lessons for today.</p>
<h2>Iraq and de-Ba’athification</h2>
<p>Following the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the US ambassador Paul Bremer took the decision to “de-Ba’athify” the Iraqi state by removing civil servants from the era of Saddam Hussein en masse. US military planners <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12200">had assumed</a> they would inherit a functioning state, including the security system. However de-Ba’athification changed this by essentially disbanding the Iraqi security forces, leaving its personnel with no re-integration programme or alternative source of work. </p>
<p>This top-down imposition created <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02684521003588120">a large pool of unemployed men</a>, many of whom retained their access to arms and explosives in the post-war chaos. Many felt humiliated and hostile to the US forces, which <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Surge.html?id=9dQ_AQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">researchers have argued</a> led to the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Surge.html?id=9dQ_AQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">political basis for the subsequent Iraqi insurgency</a>. From the elite level to the rank-and-file, these newly desperate men helped to create and sustain the insurgency, with many of Hussein’s ex-generals and spies going on to <a href="https://time.com/3900753/isis-iraq-syria-army-united-states-military/">direct the activities of the Islamic State group</a>.</p>
<p>The Minneapolis Police Department will not be demobilised into an environment of generalised chaos, foreign occupation and sectarian violence. Nevertheless, the blunders in post-war Iraq provide a clear lesson: you shouldn’t take jobs away from people who are trained in the use of coercion and violence without some idea of how to retrain and reintegrate them. </p>
<p>In the US context this would be unlikely to lead to outright civil conflict as in Iraq – although anything is possible. A more realistic worry is that the police could simply move sideways into private security, a <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/industry-inequality-why-world-obsessed-private-security">quickly expanding sector</a> that was ironically trialled <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-dark-truth-about-blackwater/">with horrifying results</a> in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extended use of private security on US soil could be even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0731129X.2012.740907">more violent and less accountable</a> than the current system of policing. </p>
<h2>Guatemala – rebranding not reform</h2>
<p>The end of the 36-year-long Guatemalan civil war in 1996 saw an ambitious peace programme. It promised to demilitarise the country’s internal security by transitioning from a brutal military-led counterinsurgency to a civilian police force. However, in practice the reforms failed to effectively move past the legacy of wartime repression. </p>
<p>One important factor was that the newly democratic government adopted wholesale the model of the Spanish Guardia Civil, a highly militarised internal security force. The Guardia Civil has been used for internal repression in Spain since its <a href="https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/10/20/inenglish/1413807111_949949.html">inception</a> in the mid-19th century, to the recent attempts to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-independence-referendum-catalan-police-storm-ministries-arrested-josep-maria-jov-a7956581.html">target the Catalan independence movement</a>. </p>
<p>Guatemala’s decision to follow the Spanish model ran against the idea of a new policing approach even at the time. The reasoning behind the government’s decision was unclear, but bears the hallmarks of the continued influence <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3339023">of the Guatemalan military establishment</a>. The outcome is a security state that is still extremely violent towards both <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/extrajudicial-killings-on-the-rise-in-guatemala/">suspected criminals</a> and <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2018/06/21/terror-guatemala">political activists</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341152/original/file-20200611-80754-btdj0h.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">Mixed results: reforming the Guatemalan police.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Byron Ortiz/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The lesson for the US here is that meaningful reform requires a clear sense of direction rather than simply a re-packaging of the existing model. Beyond this, it also shows the dangers of a fragmented security system. Changing the practices of local police forces will be less effective if agencies such as immigration and customs enforcement are able to continue engaging <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses">in widespread violence</a>. This is a particular vulnerability for the US, given its <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343320913089">overlapping security agencies</a> which lack centralised Federal control. </p>
<h2>Bougainville and bottom-up reform</h2>
<p>More positive lessons can be taken from the experiences of countries that have radically re-orientated their policing model away from retribution and towards reconciliation and restoration. The autonomous region of Bougainville, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/30/789697304/trying-to-form-the-worlds-newest-country-bougainville-has-a-road-ahead?t=1591805961684">likely to become the world’s newest nation</a>, used the end of a secessionist conflict with Papua New Guinea in 1998 as an opportunity to return to a form of community justice which emphasised honesty, forgiveness and rehabilitation. </p>
<p>This functioned as a way of overcoming wartime trauma and encouraging reconciliation but was also extended out as a general policing model. This approach, while supported by international donors and peacekeepers, relied on long-standing local customs and practice. The result is a society which, while not problem free, is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273755447_Bougainville_Community_Crime_Survey_2006">significantly safer</a> than the rest of Papua New Guinea. Crucially, the community-based police force enjoys <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2013.853961">broad popular support</a> among previously victimised rural communities. </p>
<p>The US can’t replicate the traditional cultural practice of Bougainville, but it can learn the lessons from its experience. Rather than imposing a particular model, local politicians and international peacekeepers empowered local people to take control of their own safety and security. It is this bottom-up, consensual approach that can form the basis of effective security reform in the US.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Shaw receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council UK. </span></em></p>Iraq, Guatemala and the autonomous region of Bougainville have all tried to demilitarise their police forces – with varying degrees of success.Daniel Odin Shaw, PhD Candidate in International Relations, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1383562020-05-18T10:57:28Z2020-05-18T10:57:28ZVenezuela failed raid: US has a history of using mercenaries to undermine other regimes<p>Members of the Venezuelan opposition have been accused of conspiring with an American private military company, Silvercorp USA, to invade Venezuela and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/venezuela-detains-two-americans-allegedly-involved-in-failed-raid-to-remove-maduro">overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro</a>. </p>
<p>In early May, the Venezuelan military intercepted a group of dissidents and American mercenaries. The Venezuelan military said it killed eight of the insurgents and captured <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/venezuela-arrests-botched-maduro-kidnap-attempt">many others</a>. It also <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/05/the-invasion-of-venezuela-brought-to-you-by-silvercorp-usa/">arrested</a> two men it claims are former US Special Forces soldiers. No evidence has surfaced to link the US government to the recent attempted invasion – and it has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-venezuela-invasion-attempt/2020/05/05/8b4d64ec-8ee7-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html">denied responsibility</a> for the incident.</p>
<p>Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan opposition leader, has also denied involvement in the thwarted coup attempt. Some of his advisers who were allegedly involved in planning the mission <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/guaido-advisers-quit-bungled-venezuela-raid-200511200002059.html">have resigned</a>.</p>
<p>The Washington Post subsequently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-attachments-to-the-general-services-agreement-between-the-venezuelan-opposition-and-silvercorp/e67f401f-8730-4f66-af53-6a9549b88f94/?no_nav=true&p9w22b2p=b2p22p9w00098">published</a> an agreement between members of the Venezuelan opposition and Silvercorp, including <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/07/the-venezuela-silvercorp-usa-saga-keeps-getting-weirder/">signatures</a> of two of Guaidó’s advisers, though not Guaidó, and the chief executive of Silvercorp. The US$1.5 million (£1.2 million) contract outlined Silvercorp’s role in the invasion. One of the detained Silvercorp mercenaries made a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23nt9Lsm-Y&feature=youtu.be">televised confession</a> (possibly under duress) that he was hired to capture Maduro and bring him to the US. </p>
<p>The incident has worsened relations between the US and Venezuela, which were already tense. In March 2020, the US charged Maduro with “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros-and-14-current-and-former-venezuelan-officials-charged-narco-terrorism">narco-terrorism</a>” and offered a US$15m reward for his capture. The Trump administration has also previously <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/03/us-mulls-military-options-in-venezuela-trump-maduro-guaido/">considered military options</a> to remove Maduro from power. </p>
<p>These events in Venezuela echo past US secret sponsorship of private armies to overthrow governments elsewhere. The US has an extended <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337036/outsourced-empire/">history of sponsoring insurgents and mercenaries</a> to undermine unwanted foreign regimes. </p>
<h2>From Guatemala to Indonesia</h2>
<p>In 1954 the US supported ex-Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas in his efforts to overthrow Guatemalan leader Jacobo Arbenz. Armas was the leader of a guerilla army that was trained by <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674019300">the CIA</a> of Guatemalan to invade from Honduras and Nicaragua. The CIA also hired a US company called <a href="https://www.utdallas.edu/library/specialcollections/hac/cataam/Leeker/history/">Civil Air Transport</a> to bomb Guatemala. Arbenz resigned under pressure and went into exile. Armas became president of a new authoritarian regime. </p>
<p>Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower authorised the CIA to subvert the Sukarno government in Indonesia in 1957-58. The <a href="https://www.usni.org/press/books/feet-fire">CIA supported</a> local insurgent factions to carry out guerrilla attacks and also hired mercenary airline companies for logistics and combat missions. </p>
<p>The American role was exposed in 1958 when the Indonesian authorities downed the aeroplane of Allen Pope, a contractor for Civil Air Transport, the company that had been involved in Guatemala. The US government tried to deny involvement, stating Pope was a “soldier of fortune” motivated by profit. But the <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/subversion-foreign-policy">US later quietly withdrew its plans</a> for the forced removal of Sukarno. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335072/original/file-20200514-77267-1kwl1nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allen Pope on trial in Jakarta in 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Lawrence_Pope#/media/File:Allen_Pope.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bay of Pigs and Nicaragua</h2>
<p>In 1961 the CIA tried to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba by organising an invasion of Cuban dissidents and mercenary forces in a notorious incident known as the Bay of Pigs. According to <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d481">US government documents</a>, the CIA sponsored Cuban exiles that opposed Castro to “avoid any appearance of US intervention”. <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB564-CIA-Releases-Controversial-Bay-of-Pigs-History/">The CIA trained</a> a Cuban insurgent force called Brigade 2506 and also hired mercenary airline companies for airborne attacks. Castro’s military defeated the US-sponsored invasion. </p>
<p>During the 1980s, the US also secretly hired mercenary forces to support the Contra insurgency against the socialist Sandanista government of Nicaragua. The CIA mobilised mercenaries to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reagan-Versus-The-Sandinistas-The-Undeclared-War-On-Nicaragua/Walker-Williams-Kornbluh-Gold/p/book/9780367285104">sabotage oil refineries and Nicaraguan ports</a>. Later, the <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/70">International Court of Justice ruled against the US</a> for employing mercenaries to place underwater mines in Nicaraguan ports. The CIA <a href="https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit/mode/2up">also asked a company</a> called Keenie Meenie Services to conduct “sabotage operations for the resistance” against the Sandanista government. </p>
<p>In October 1986, <a href="https://aadl.org/node/244995">Eugene Hasenfus</a>, a pilot hired by the CIA, was captured when the Nicaraguan military shot down his plane. His confessions exposed secret US arms shipments to the Contras and also helped unravel the <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780862325756/David-Goliath-Washingtons-Against-Nicaragua-0862325757/plp">Iran-Contra scandal</a>, which revealed secret weapons sales to Iran in order to fund the Contras in Nicaragua in violation of US law. </p>
<h2>Irregular war on terror</h2>
<p>More recently the US has renewed its commitment to what it calls <a href="https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v2.pdf?ver=2017-12-28-162021-510">“irregular warfare”</a>. This includes supporting <a href="https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-130.pdf">insurgents, militias and mercenaries</a> to weaken unwanted governments, as well as in its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/30/roundupreviews5">counter-terrorism</a> efforts. </p>
<p>The US has covertly supported private armed forces in countries across the Middle East in the “war on terror”. For example, in 2001 the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol49no4/War_on_Terror_9.htm">CIA and Special Forces paid warlord factions</a> to help remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Before the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/11/usa.iraq2">US also supported militias</a> fighting against the regime of Saddam Hussein. The US secretly trained <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/world/middleeast/cia-arming-syrian-rebels.html">insurgents</a> in attempts to oust President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. </p>
<p>Of course, an extensive record of supporting insurgents and mercenary forces is not evidence that the US was involved in the recent events in Venezuela. But it does demonstrate that there are precedents for such activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Thomson 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>US denies backing failed raid to remove Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – but it has a long history of sponsoring private armies elsewhere.Andrew Thomson, Lecturer, Politics and International Studies, Queen's University BelfastLicensed 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>
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<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>
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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>
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<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/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>
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<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/1207242019-08-15T23:06:22Z2019-08-15T23:06:22ZThe role of Canadian mining in the plight of Central American migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288047/original/file-20190814-136186-1isvs9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=57%2C90%2C5299%2C3186&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this April 2019 photo, migrants planning to join a caravan of several hundred people hoping to reach the United States wait at the bus station in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October 2018, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/honduran-migrant-caravan-grows-4000-amid-spike-u-s-border-n921286">a group of some 4,000 migrants set out en masse from Honduras</a>, headed north toward the United States-Mexico border. </p>
<p>In the weeks that followed, an all-out panic over this “migrant caravan” gripped the U.S. political mainstream. Donald Trump’s administration painted the caravan as a Trojan Horse, teeming with traffickers, criminals and gang members. The spectacle of the caravan eventually gave way to that of the border itself, which daily throws up new horrors: harrowing images of migrant detainees crowded into squalid concentration camps, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/31/el-paso-border-bridge-migrants-trump-beto-orourke">held in cages under freeway overpasses</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/06/26/father-daughter-who-drowned-border-dove-into-river-desperation/?utm_term=.62e5a35eee49">drowned in the waters of the Rio Grande</a>. </p>
<p>It can be easy to imagine that as Canadians, we have little direct stake in this drama. We are reassured in this thinking by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48696974">recent reports</a> declaring that Canada resettled more refugees than any other nation in 2018. Such accomplishments, we tell ourselves, make us mere observers of the humanitarian calamity currently unfolding at the U.S. southern border. </p>
<p>Never has it been more necessary to abandon this fantasy. Canada is centrally involved in the life-and-death struggle for migrant justice in the United States. Our foreign economic policies and domestic asylum laws are working in tandem with the U.S. and exposing asylum-seekers, particularly those from Latin America, to the worst excesses of a punitive American immigration system. </p>
<h2>Canada is complicit</h2>
<p>Though Canada is generally understood as a modest “middle power” whose foreign interventions are mostly limited to peacekeeping missions, the vast global reach of Canadian business and investment capital — particularly in mining — tells a different story.</p>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraction-empire">As Pierre Bélanger, a Harvard mining researcher and landscape architect, shows</a>, fully two-thirds of the world’s mining firms are currently incorporated in Canada, making our mining industry the largest in the world. Under Canadian law, these companies benefit from generous tax incentives, a favourable regulatory environment and easy access to the Toronto Stock Exchange, known as the TSX — <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/trading-on-the-toronto-stock-exchange-tsx-1978971">among the globe’s leading commodities exchange markets</a>. </p>
<p>Coupled with a foreign policy framework <a href="http://lap.sagepub.com/content/40/5/44">designed specifically</a> to secure favourable investment conditions for Canadian capital abroad, these affordances have helped firms like <a href="https://www.newmontgoldcorp.com/">Goldcorp</a> (Newmont Goldcorp since January 2019), <a href="https://www.barrick.com/English/home/default.aspx">Barrick Gold</a> and <a href="https://www.teck.com/">Teck</a> extend their operations to almost all corners of the world. </p>
<p>But perhaps nowhere do they operate as intensively <a href="https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/CERLAC_mining_report.pdf">as in Latin America</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://cidpnsi.ca/canadian-mining-investments-in-latin-america/">As of 2013</a>, Canadian mining companies operated some 80 projects across the region, with nearly 50 more in the development or feasibility stage. In 2012, these operations, most of them in Mexico, Chile and Peru, generated more than US$19 billion in revenue. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288048/original/file-20190814-136213-11bsuw6.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">This May 2013 photo shows El Corral, a village of 200 inhabitants, mostly from the Diaguita ethnic group, located just downstream from the world’s highest gold mine, Barrick Gold’s Pascua-Lama project in northern Chile. It was ultimately ordered closed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Jorge Saenz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This outsized presence <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6908310/Canada_and_the_Honduran_Coup">has made Canada the third-largest investor</a> in Latin America globally. </p>
<p>At the same time, it has made Canadian capital one of the most <a href="https://justice-project.org/the-canada-brand-violence-and-canadian-mining-companies-in-latin-america/?utm_source=MiningWatch+Canada&utm_campaign=43c406ecf6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49649c74b8-43c406ecf6-103735165">disruptive</a> and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/7b7ned/canadian-mining-companies-are-destroying-latin-america-924">belligerent</a> forces in the region. </p>
<h2>Honduras</h2>
<p>Consider the case of Honduras, where in the early 2000s, Canadian investment <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6908310/Canada_and_the_Honduran_Coup">surpassed $100 million</a>, much of it concentrated in mining and exploration. In response to popular discontent with the scale of these operations and their <a href="https://www.academia.edu/14966387/Land_Seizure_Dispossession_and_Canadian_Capital_in_Honduras">adverse environmental and public health effects</a>, the centre-left President Manuel Zelaya proposed a series of modest checks on the industry following his election in 2005. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287743/original/file-20190812-71926-wogva7.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">Honduras’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, is seen in this October 2009 photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Esteban Felix)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these policies triggered a decline in foreign-direct investment, they were by no means catastrophic. All the same, the new policies elicited a strong response both among the Honduran elite and among those — like Canada — with a vested interest in the sustained growth of the mining sector.</p>
<p>Little surprise that when Zelaya was forced into exile during a 2009 military coup, the Canadian state <a href="http://lap.sagepub.com/content/40/5/44">threw its diplomatic weight behind his opponent</a>, Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo,
who was widely expected to implement laws favourable to the mining sector. This despite his regime’s well-documented use of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/02/us-silent-as-honduras-protesters-killed-in-post-election-violence">violent force</a> against <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/12/honduras-government-deploys-dangerous-and-illegal-tactics-to-silence-population/">dissidents</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/honduran-journalists-face-increasing-threats-intimidation-180503112711060.html">journalists</a>. </p>
<p>One need not support Zelaya to grasp how this cozy alliance between Canadian foreign investment policy, the interests of Canadian mining firms and the repressive activities of a dictatorship widely seen as illegitimate might conspire to drive Hondurans north by the thousands. This alliance, after all, has by <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/environment-has-become-new-frontline-human-rights-defenders">many reports</a> only intensified <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/ten-years-coup-hondurans-flee-violence-repression-190628150952496.html">political</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honduras-environment/honduras-most-dangerous-country-for-environmental-activists-report-idUSKBN0NB0AW20150420">repression</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/31/goldcorp-honduras-pollution-allegations">environmental degradation</a> in the country.</p>
<p>Yet even as Canada contributes to the disruption of communities in Honduras and elsewhere in Latin America, it remains obstinate in restricting Latin American access to asylum protections. This is due in large part to Canadian Parliament’s failure to repeal the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/agreements/safe-third-country-agreement/final-text.html">2004 Safe Third Country Agreement</a> (STCA). </p>
<h2>Commitment to accept refugees</h2>
<p>Since 1969, Canada has been signatory to the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/1951-refugee-convention.html">United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees</a>. Among other things, this framework commits Canada to accepting refugees who face threats of persecution, violence or repression in their home countries or in any other territory. It also mandates that we may only reject asylum claims if the claimant can be returned to some “safe” third country. </p>
<p>The STCA legally declared the United States one such country. </p>
<p>The agreement also specifies that Canada will only entertain asylum claims from those whose first point of arrival is a Canadian port of entry, and not some other place where they might safely file such a claim, like the United States.</p>
<p>Given the economic barriers that Latin American migrants face in securing uninterrupted passage to Canada, declaring the U.S. safe, <a href="https://ccrweb.ca/en/why-US-not-safe-challenging-STCA">in the words of the Canadian Council for Refugees</a>, “closes the door on most refugee claimants presenting themselves at an official port of entry at the U.S.-Canada border: instead of being allowed to enter Canada to make a refugee claim, they are sent back to the U.S.” </p>
<p>Never a sound principle, in recent months the case for the United States as a safe third country has evaporated altogether.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-abolish-the-inhumane-canada-u-s-deal-on-asylum-seekers-96107">It's time to abolish the inhumane Canada-U.S. deal on asylum-seekers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>No country where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/us/ice-raids.html">immigrant families so fear arrest that they hesitate to leave their homes</a> is a safe one. No country where the detention of even those with documentation is routinely dismissed as
“<a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ice-collateral-arrests-20180204-story.html">collateral damage</a>” is a safe one. And no country where asylum-seekers and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-citizen-detained-by-ice-francisco-erwin-galicia-border-officials-conditions-bad-almost-self-deported/">even full citizens</a> are corralled into camps as elected officials cobble together new ways to restrict the mobility of migrants abroad — <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/trump-guatemala-safe-third-country-asylum-agreement">conjuring yet more “safe third countries” into existence</a> — can be called safe. </p>
<p>By refusing to repeal the STCA, even as it enables the displacement of communities across Latin America, the Canadian government implicates itself in these abuses. </p>
<p>We Canadians, then, are faced with a choice. We can continue to indulge the fantasy that we are peripheral to the fate of Latin American migrants in the United States. Or we can work to hold our government to account for how its policies, implemented in our name, chart a path for migrants that leads squarely to camps. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tyler Morgenstern receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is a member of the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. </span></em></p>Canada is playing a role in the life-and-death struggle for migrant justice in the United States – from our foreign economic policies to the actions of our mining companies and domestic asylum laws.Tyler Morgenstern, PhD candidate, media studies; social sciences doctoral fellow, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217172019-08-12T20:05:54Z2019-08-12T20:05:54ZGuatemala’s next president has few plans for fixing rampant corruption, crime and injustice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287713/original/file-20190812-71936-1wciere.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alejandro Giammattei is a former prison official whose tenure was tainted by the 2006 mass killing of seven prisoners. He was accused but never indicted on conspiracy charges in those deaths.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Guatemala-Elections/983ae4cfc4a747a3b23cd8c03ce49077/3/0">AP Photo/ Santiago Billy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Guatemala’s next leader will be Alejandro Giammattei, a right-wing former national prison director. </p>
<p>With 58% of votes, Giammettei <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/politica/elecciones-2019-alejandro-giammattei-es-el-virtual-presidente-electo-de-guatemala/">beat former first lady Sandra Torres by 16 points</a> in the second round of Guatemala’s election on Aug. 11. It was his fourth presidential bid.</p>
<p>As a candidate, <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/politica/alejandro-giammattei-20-anos-de-un-candidato-itinerante/">Giammattei</a> spoke of creating jobs and fighting crime in the poor, violence-gripped Central American country. But his campaign offered few policy proposals beyond taking a hard line against <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/collaborators-guatemala-chained-ms13/">gangs like MS-13 that operate with impunity in Guatemala</a>, building new prisons and reimposing the death penalty.</p>
<p>Giammattei <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/guatemala-elects-president-alejandro-giammattei-who-called-trump-immigration-deal-bad-news">hasn’t yet agreed to implement</a> Guatemala’s controversial recent <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-guatemala-safe-third-country-asylum-morales-central-america/">agreement with the Trump administration</a> to stop Central American migrants from crossing through Guatemala. </p>
<p>The 63-year-old Giammattei’s base includes former military members, the far right, evangelicals and business leaders – essentially the same electorate that put outgoing President Jimmy Morales <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34632485">in power</a>. But polling suggests Giammattei won primarily due to the extreme unpopularity of his opponent, who has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/world/americas/guatemala-election.html">history of corruption allegations</a>. </p>
<p>Guatemalans were deeply <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/challenges-facing-guatemalas-next-president">unenthusiastic about both candidates</a>. Just 42% of registered voters voted, the lowest percentage since the country’s civil war ended in 1996. Nearly 6% of them <a href="https://preliminares2019.tse.org.gt/201902/panel.html">cast blank or spoiled ballots</a>, apparently in protest.</p>
<p>Many Guatemalans <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-49292421">expressed fear</a> that no matter who won the runoff, this election would mark the end of Guatemala’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemala-expulsion-of-un-investigators-drags-country-down-authoritarian-path-102815">decade-long fight to root out massive government corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Giammattei is an ally of President Morales, who is under <a href="https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2019/01/07/jimmy-morales-termina-el-acuerdo-de-guatemala-con-la-cicig/">investigation for campaign finance violations</a>. His inner circle of former generals and elite power brokers who have ruled the country for decades also backed the disgraced former President Otto Pérez Molina, who resigned amid scandal in 2015 and was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/world/americas/otto-perez-molina-guatemalan-president-resigns-amid-scandal.html">jailed hours later for corruption</a>.</p>
<h2>Justice no more</h2>
<p>As a longtime <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3281991">researcher on justice in post-civil war Guatemala</a>, I have grave concerns about Giammattei’s commitment to restoring the rule of law. </p>
<p>Giammattei is closely associated with the <a href="http://www.revistafactum.com/los-enemigos-de-la-cicig-van-por-la-presidencia-de-guatemala/">old military intelligence</a> groups that have dominated Guatemalan politics behind the scenes since its bloody, decades-long <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-12-29/why-you-need-know-about-guatemalas-civil-war">civil war</a> ended in the 1990s. </p>
<p>His tenure as national director of prisons was tainted when seven inmates were killed <a href="https://nomada.gt/pais/elecciones-2019/giammattei-20-anos-de-candidato-y-una-coleccion-de-criminales-cerca-suyo/">under suspicious circumstances</a> in 2006 at Guatemala’s <a href="https://nomada.gt/pais/actualidad/resumen-del-dia-pavon-o-de-como-una-carcel-salva-el-dia-a-los-corruptos/">notoriously lawless Pavón prison</a>. </p>
<p>According to prosecutors, the killings were committed by a <a href="https://www.cicig.org/historial//index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=421&cntnt01returnid=67">prison death squad</a> that worked inside jails, with administrators’ explicit approval, to exterminate the “dregs” of society and “enemies of the state.” Three of the killers were convicted of murder in Guatemala for the prison deaths. </p>
<p>Giammattei was charged with conspiracy but <a href="https://lahora.gt/hemeroteca-lh/caso-pavon-infiernito-mp-prepara-170-pruebas/">acquitted in 2013</a>. Last year a Swiss appeals court sentenced his <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/politica/erwin-sperisen-condena-suiza-muerte-reos-pavon-guatemala/">accused co-conspirator</a>, former police chief Edwin Sperisen, to 15 years in prison for the murders. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287715/original/file-20190812-71897-1sjivfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&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 spoiled ballot demonstrating voter rejection of both Guatemalan presidential candidates, Aug. 11, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pictures.reuters.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCICXYYVVF&SMLS=1&RW=1522&RH=706&POPUPPN=7&POPUPIID=2C0FQEQS5GA9B#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCICXYYVVF&SMLS=1&RW=1522&RH=706&POPUPPN=34&POPUPIID=2C0FQEQS5DZ_7">Reuters/Luis Echeverria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Giammattei was <a href="https://theconversation.com/corruption-triumphs-in-guatemalas-presidential-election-119076">not expected</a> to become Guatemala’s president. </p>
<p>Early in the race the clear front-runner was Thelma Aldana, Guatemala’s corruption-busting former attorney general. But in May she was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-election/guatemala-court-ruling-all-but-ends-ex-prosecutors-election-hopes-idUSKCN1SM05L">barred from the race</a> for <a href="https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias/noticias-del-dia/activista-contra-corrupcion-en-guatemala-enfrenta-orden-de-arresto/">alleged financial mismanagement</a>. That bumped Sandra Torres into first place, with Giammattei running a distant second. </p>
<p>Many saw the ruling against Aldana as <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/justicia/mp-investigara-supuestos-sobornos-al-juez-victor-cruz-que-ordeno-la-captura-de-thelma-aldana/">politically motivated</a>. </p>
<p>As attorney general from 2014 to 2018, Aldana worked closely with the United Nations-backed anti-corruption panel known as <a href="https://dppa.un.org/en/mission/cicig">CICIG</a>. Since its creation in 2007, CICIG has prosecuted <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/05/18/what-does-cicig-do">three former presidents</a> and more than 600 other high-ranking officials in Guatemala for everything from money laundering and embezzlement to ties with organized crime. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemala-in-crisis-after-president-bans-corruption-investigation-into-his-government-109864">President Morales expelled its lead prosecutor</a> earlier this year, Aldana vocally protested. She has since fled the country after receiving death threats. </p>
<p>Giammattei says he will pursue the fight against <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">endemic corruption</a> but he opposes the CICIG, which supported his prosecution in the Pavón Prison case. Despite <a href="https://www.cicig.org/apoyo-ciudadano/poblacion-guatemalteca-apoya-labor-de-la-cicig/">72% popular support</a>, the commission is now due to close in September. </p>
<p>Giammattei has offered no concrete plan to continue cleaning up Guatemala’s government. Without the CICIG’s investigators and prosecutors, Giammattei is unlikely to pull the country out of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/central-american-kids-come-to-the-us-fleeing-record-high-youth-murder-rates-at-home-99132">morass of kleptocracy, violence</a> and extreme poverty that sends <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-migration-from-central-america-5-essential-reads-98600">thousands of desperate Guatemalans abroad each year</a>.</p>
<h2>Trouble ahead, trouble behind</h2>
<p>Through bribery, coercion and threat of violence, criminal cartels have <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">infiltrated Guatemala’s government</a> over the last 20 years. </p>
<p>A CICIG investigation found that <a href="https://www.cicig.org/uploads/documents/2015/informe_financiamiento_politicagt.pdf">half of political party financing</a> comes from organized crime and corruption. In Guatemala’s Congress, dirty legislators known to be on the take are locally regarded as the “Pact of the Corrupt.” </p>
<p>The largest bloc in the incoming Congress, which takes office Jan. 1, will be from Torres’ National Unity of Hope party. Just 17 of 158 Guatemalan lawmakers belong to Giammattei’s Vamos Party. </p>
<p>A small bloc of legislators will come from a new center-left party called Semilla, or “Seed,” which nominated Aldana as its presidential candidate. Semilla’s presence ensures Giammattei will have some vocal opposition in Congress. </p>
<p>A conservative majority of lawmakers is expected <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/an-amnesty-for-crimes-against-humanity-guatemalan-proposal-stirs-outrage/2019/02/23/bc0fe13e-3481-11e9-8375-e3dcf6b68558_story.html?noredirect=on">to try again to pass a controversial amnesty law</a> that would pardon former military officials convicted of crimes against humanity during Guatemala’s civil war and prevent those accused of human rights violations from being prosecuted. </p>
<p>Given his military ties, Giammettei would likely sign such an amnesty bill into law. </p>
<p>Guatemalan judges who, with the support of the CICIG, have <a href="https://www.ijmonitor.org/2018/05/four-retired-senior-military-officers-found-guilty-in-molina-theissen-case/">put former military officers and corrupt politicians in prison</a> have <a href="https://www.cejil.org/es/csj-guatemala-debe-garantizar-independencia-del-juez-pablo-xitumul">faced unfounded investigations</a> against them and <a href="https://www.latribuna.hn/2019/02/11/expertos-de-onu-destacan-mas-amenazas-a-jueces-en-guatemala-tras-fin-de-cicig/">threats to their safety</a>. So have <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/comunitario/los-riegos-de-los-defensores-de-derechos-humanos-persisten-en-guatemala-donde-cada-semana-mueren-dos-de-ellos/">human rights actvists and environmental defenders</a>. </p>
<p>These attacks on the rule of law in Guatemala would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/how-us-apathy-helped-kill-a-pioneering-anticorruption-campaign-in-guatemala/2019/06/14/cc4f464a-1e5e-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html">ordinarily draw criticism from the United States</a>. Now they are met with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-trump-administrations-self-defeating-policy-toward-the-guatemalan-elections">silence</a>, both from the Trump administration and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-49290661">Guatemala’s new president-elect</a>. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/corruption-triumphs-in-guatemalas-presidential-election-119076">article</a> original published on June 21, 2019.</em></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/121717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Roht-Arriaza is affiliated with Due Process of Law Foundation as president of the Board.</span></em></p>Conservative Alejandro Giammattei beat former first lady Sandra Torres with 60% of the vote. But turnout was the lowest in Guatemala’s modern history, in apparent protest of both candidates.Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California College of the Law, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202702019-08-02T12:23:09Z2019-08-02T12:23:09ZScammers don’t cheat because they need the money — they cheat because they’re cheaters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286293/original/file-20190730-186833-1mvc061.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cheating in games may have more to do with personality than with economic necessity, a new study finds.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/479597200?src=uyAnloX-B0Zr1I6Wdjl95w-6-61&studio=1&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why do people cheat? </p>
<p>When we hear that a poor person scammed others out of money, we may attribute this behavior to their poverty, rationalizing that the person violated ethics and the law because <a href="https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/07/23/cy-vances-tale-of-two-cities-bus-fare-evaders-go-to-court-subway-scofflaws-go-free/">they needed the money</a>.</p>
<p>But the rich and powerful also cheat: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/manafort-pleads-not-guilty-state-mortgage-fraud-charges-n1023311">falsifying loan applications</a>, evading taxes, and running <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/jun/29/bernard-madoff-sentence">Ponzi schemes</a> that defraud investors of millions.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://hbl.tamu.edu/people/">behavioral economist</a>, I am fascinated by how money affects decision-making. If money were the driving factor behind cheating, for example, it wouldn’t really make sense for wealthy people to break the law for financial gain.</p>
<p>To find out whether cheating is driven by economic necessity or personality, economist Billur Aksoy and I conducted an experiment. We wanted to understand the role money plays in financial frauds. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268119302148?via%3Dihub">findings</a>, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization in July 2019, suggest that people’s propensity to cheat does not reflect their economic situation. People inclined to cheat will do so whether they are rich or poor.</p>
<h2>Perfectly isolated</h2>
<p>To conduct our study, we identified an <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0c06/e25f99c4a78b6723fd107eb13840ef2e4273.pdf">unusual</a> place – a kind of petri dish where the same people experience both wealth and poverty. It’s a remote and isolated coffee-growing village at the base of Guatemala’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guatemala-s-erupting-volcano-fire-prompts-evacuations-n937796">Fuego Volcano</a>.</p>
<p>Part of the year, the seven months before the autumn harvest, the villagers experience scarcity. During Guatemala’s five-month coffee harvest, however, the village is relatively prosperous. Without banks or access to credit, the farmers can’t really make their earnings last much beyond the harvest period.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286282/original/file-20190730-186819-attw3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano and surrounding villages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Guatemala-Volcano-of-Fire/bb8f0996ba9b41b8ae6a868eed9ce317/14/0">AP Photo/Santiago Billy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I say “relatively” because even during the harvest, the Guatemalan village still lacks access to health care, food and clean water. Residents told us they earn, on average, about $3 a day. The coffee harvest is a time of comparative prosperity that briefly eases their poverty. </p>
<p>The unique financial situation of these villagers meant we could study the same group of people in both scarcity and abundance, knowing that mitigating factors – stress level, physical activity, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">domestic instability</a> and so on – would remain similar across the population. </p>
<p>And since a recent <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26958830">study</a> conducted in 23 countries shows that people cheat at about the same rates in rich and poor countries, we knew that our results would not be <a href="https://www.econometricsociety.org/publications/econometrica/2019/07/01/preferences-truth-telling">exclusive to Guatemala</a>. </p>
<h2>Roll of the dice</h2>
<p>We first visited these Guatemalan villagers in September 2017, before the first harvest, when their financial resources were scarcest. We returned in December, when coffee sales had significantly boosted their disposable income.</p>
<p>On both visits we played a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article/11/3/525/2300098">simple game</a> with the same set of 109 villagers. The participants in our study would put a six-sided die in a cup and roll it. They would then tell us – but not show us – the outcome of their roll, and shake the cup again so that no one else could see what they rolled. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286283/original/file-20190730-186809-9yqsor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After repeated rolls, each side of a six-sided die should come up 16.67% of the time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1102676027?src=Np5vPfvl34dxxS_AYO1tdg-1-2&studio=1&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The game’s design ensured we wouldn’t know whether individual players were accurately reporting their rolls.</p>
<p>The villagers were paid the Guatemalan equivalent of US$1 for the number they rolled. So, if they rolled a four, they got $4. A two earned $2. The exception was six, which according to our rules paid nothing. </p>
<p>Statistically, we knew, the three highest payout numbers of the six possible rolls – three, four and five – should have come up 50% of the time. The rest of the rolls should be low-earning numbers: one, two and six. </p>
<p>Yet, on both trips, the participants in our study reported rolling the high payout numbers about 85% of the time. The number five, the most lucrative roll, was reported more than 50% of the time. And almost no one admitted to rolling a six, which paid nothing. </p>
<p>These results indicate cheating on a large scale, both in prosperous times and in poverty. If people are inclined to cheat, it seems, and they think they can get away with it, they’ll do it – rich or poor.</p>
<h2>Unexpected generosity</h2>
<p>After running this first experiment, Prof. Aksoy and I asked players to roll the dice again. </p>
<p>This time, their roll would determine the payment for someone else from their village. In a small town like this village, in practice that meant people were playing to boost the earnings of their friends, family, neighbors and coworkers. </p>
<p>In this round of play, the high-payout numbers were reported at a somewhat lower rate than during the first round – 73% during the abundant harvest season and 75% during lean times. Cheating was still occurring, but somewhat less often. As in the prior round, the cheating rate was similar in scarce times and abundance.</p>
<p>That pattern changed when we asked the villagers to roll the die to determine the payment for a stranger – someone from outside the village.</p>
<p>In December, a time of abundance, the villagers reported both high and low payouts about 50% of the time – right in line with their statistical probability. They did not cheat for the financial gain of strangers. In times of scarcity, however, the villagers reported rolling high payout numbers about 70% of the time, lying to benefit strangers at roughly the same rate they had for their neighbors.</p>
<p>Why would people break the rules for someone else when they themselves were at their poorest?</p>
<p>We believe that the villagers became more empathetic during times of scarcity, feeling the same concern for outsiders as they did for their friends and family.</p>
<h2>For richer or poorer</h2>
<p>Our two biggest findings – that people will game the system at roughly the same rates whether they are rich or poor and that generosity for strangers does not depend on wealth – should be taken with caution. This was just one study in one country.</p>
<p>But researchers in Thailand recently reached conclusions similar to ours in an experiment they conducted with rice farmers. The participants in their unpublished study also lied for personal gain in both good and bad times.</p>
<p>The evidence suggests that wealth influences cheating much less than a person’s ethics – that is, whether or not they are inclined towards cheating. This conclusion is in line with recent studies suggesting that people who engage in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109000365">antisocial behavior</a> or commit <a href="https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/rational-misbehavior-evaluating-an-integrated-dual-process-model-">crimes</a> may have a genetic predisposition to do so.</p>
<p>In other words, some people may be born with a propensity to cheat others out of their money. If so, then environmental factors like poverty and opportunity are not the reason for cheating – they are an excuse to explain bad behavior.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco A. Palma 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>Why do even the rich cheat on their taxes? Roesearch suggests some people may be genetically predisposed to break the rules for their own financial gain.Marco A. Palma, Professor of Agricultural Economics and Director Human Behavior Laboratory, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1199202019-07-14T12:19:25Z2019-07-14T12:19:25ZAs Mexico appeases Trump, migrants bear the brunt<p>U.S. President Donald Trump’s politics of control and fear toward Mexico and other Latin American countries has resulted in serious consequences. </p>
<p>In an effort to avoid a tariff of five per cent that would rise gradually to 25 per cent on all Mexican exports to the United States, Mexico agreed on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/us/state-department-mexico-trump.html">the following measures to stop so-called illegal migration through its territory</a>:</p>
<p><strong>1)</strong> Secure the northern and southern borders with 21,500 soldiers from the newly established National Guard; </p>
<p><strong>2)</strong> Strengthen efforts to deter, detain and deport “irregular migrants”; </p>
<p><strong>3)</strong> Dismantle human smuggling organizations; and </p>
<p><strong>4)</strong> Require those migrants who have already entered the United States to await the adjudication of their asylum claims in Mexico.</p>
<h2>Deter, detain, deport</h2>
<p>The bilateral migration announcement on June 7, 2019, corresponded with a field course on migration and human rights we were running in Mexico with undergraduate students from Wilfrid Laurier University. </p>
<p>On the ground, the effects of the U.S.-Mexico agreement were immediate, palpable and harsh.</p>
<p>The three-pronged policy to deter, detain and deport was already in effect under the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, but it was accelerated following the June announcement.</p>
<p>Throughout Mexico, a system of non-governmental shelters provides migrants a place of respite, protection and humanitarian assistance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hope-and-anguish-in-a-mexican-refugee-shelter-researcher-records-stories-of-central-american-asylum-seekers-110147">Hope and anguish in a Mexican refugee shelter: Researcher records stories of Central American asylum seekers</a>
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<p>We (Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, S. Richelle Monaghan and our students) visited one such shelter in the northern state of Zacatecas. Run by the Catholic Church, the inconspicuous concrete structure is set at the end of a dirt road off a main highway. Fenced in and “protected” by state police, the shelter cares for families with small children. </p>
<p>Of the 120 guests present on the afternoon of our visit, more than half were children. Most were barefoot and wore clothing that was either too big or too small. </p>
<p>As children played a game of duck-duck-goose and squealed with delight, the parents told us about their destination. When they all responded that they were “going home,” we realized that the shelter is being used by Mexican migration authorities as a detention centre for families awaiting deportation back to Guatemala.</p>
<p>At another shelter, one of the largest in Mexico City, we met families waiting for permanent refugee status or temporary humanitarian visas. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283772/original/file-20190711-173370-17i91k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laurier University student Madison Drost converses with a little boy at a Mexico City migrant shelter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neala Hayratiyan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>During a friendly game of ping pong, we were approached by a little girl. She nodded at our invitation to play, but stood frozen as the ball bounced off her arms. </p>
<p>I (Stacey) put the ping pong paddle down, knelt to her level and asked if she was sleepy. When she indicated she was not, I hugged her until her body relaxed and her chin rested on my shoulder. I then learned that the little girl had arrived only minutes before with her parents. After what must have been a long and harrowing journey from Honduras, she was dazed and in shock, possibly afflicted by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41748485?fbclid=IwAR0moTS6b-XvrLvOQjreMjRXcqOasKo1fu7grjpaavGOggHloO09KxqoIZc">resignation syndrome</a></p>
<h2>Frontera Sur: The gateway to North America</h2>
<p>The ramifications of the migration agreement are most pronounced along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, an area known as the Frontera Sur in the Mexican state of Chiapas. </p>
<p>In the city of Tapachula, Chiapas shelters are so full that people waiting to receive refugee status have no option but to camp out in the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/trumps-border-policy-takes-toll-mexico-migrant-caravans-turned/">city’s Plaza Hidalgo</a>. Here they wait for weeks or months, completely exposed to the elements as scorching hot, humid days end in torrential evening rains. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283771/original/file-20190711-173329-bfej7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Central Americans camped out in Plaza Hidalgo in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>As we sat in a nearby restaurant, another little girl asked us for food. We followed her back to the plaza and met her family. Her parents spoke with us while they fanned her baby brother, who slept on the bare concrete. </p>
<p>“Where are you from?” we asked. </p>
<p>“Aren’t you going to ask me where I am from?” responded the pre-schooler. </p>
<p>“Where are you from?” we repeated. </p>
<p>“Honduras” she smiled. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/06/18/mexico-border-crackdown-some-central-american-migrants-heading-south/1487354001/">Ciudad Hidalgo</a>, Chiapas, the border town where 98 per cent of irregular border crossings occur, Central Americans await their return trip to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras on the shiny white tour bus that leaves the migration facility each afternoon. </p>
<p>Those not from Central America, such as the hundreds of Haitian migrants who are also stranded on the border, will be returned on planes.</p>
<h2>Unwelcome National Guard</h2>
<p>When we arrived on June 29 at the shore of the Rio Suchiate that divides Mexico from neighbouring Guatemala, state police were present but the National Guard was just arriving. </p>
<p>The daily flurry of black market trade between the two countries continued unchecked as merchandise floated across the river on rafts.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-frontera-sur-life-carries-on-in-this-place-of-permanent-mobility-112686">Mexico's frontera sur: Life carries on in this place of permanent mobility</a>
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<p>Merchants expressed concern that the soldiers would disrupt the daily exchanges of goods upon which both local economies are dependent. In the Frontera Sur, Guatemalans and Mexicans move back and forth over the river with little need to prove their country of citizenship. </p>
<p>The presence of some elements of the National Guard has also compelled migrants to reinvent new routes that are often more dangerous. And rather than being dismantled, networks of human smugglers, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/border-business-immigration-coyotes-cbsn-originals/">known as “coyotes,”</a> appear to have grown even stronger. <a href="https://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN1U32B4-OCATP">Several truck trailers have already been reported abandoned with men, women and children inside</a>. </p>
<p>At a secondary border crossing in Talisman, Chiapas, migration officials stopped us as we headed to the port of entry. However, two state police allowed us to walk along the river and underneath the bridge. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283144/original/file-20190708-51278-c3vf7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In this photo, people cross the Rio Suchiate using a rope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>On the bridge, official business takes place: passports are stamped, customs duties are collected and people await documentation to enter Mexican territory. Under the bridge, unofficial business takes place. </p>
<p>Here we observed a man being paid by another to take off his clothes and transport goods on his back by wading through the rapids. We also watched a family exit a raft attached to a rope extending to each bank of the Rio Suchiate.</p>
<p>The family said “buenos dias” as they passed, exchanged words (and possibly money) with the police officers and entered Mexico.</p>
<h2>Everyone has the right to seek asylum</h2>
<p>A long history of U.S. exploitation and oppression portrays Central Americans as undeserving of prosperity, and criminal. Over the past month in Mexico, we were reminded once again that these migrants are not nameless, faceless statistics. They are people. </p>
<p>Nor are they illegal. They are exercising their rights to flee dreadful conditions of deeply entrenched economic insecurity, social exclusion, legacies of war and chronic violence. </p>
<p>The recent migration agreement between the United States and Mexico violates international refugee law and <a href="http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LRPCAP_301014.pdf">Mexico’s 2011 Refugee Law</a>, which de-criminalized migrating through Mexico without documents. </p>
<p>Under the 2011 law, the government provided migrant shelters with exceptional status from Mexico’s migration authorities. They are meant to be sanctuaries, not detention centres. </p>
<p>The 2011 law also gives people entering Mexican territory 30 days to apply for asylum. However, in its haste to placate Trump, Mexico is detaining and deporting asylum seekers before the deadline passes.</p>
<h2>Complications, contradictions of migration</h2>
<p>We were also reminded during our time in Mexico that migration is <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/amet.12053">complicated and often contradictory</a>. Residents in Tapachula, Chiapas depend on migrants as consumers even as they also resent their presence in the community. Migrant shelters provide much-needed humanitarian assistance, yet they also facilitate irregular migration, hence falling into the American category of “human smuggling operations.” </p>
<p>In the end, it’s likely the United States will continue to threaten Mexico with trade tariffs, and Mexico will respond with more drastic, inhumane measures. </p>
<p>But these measures will not stop the migration. Desperation is, after all, a powerful motivator.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119920/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 organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The U.S. will likely continue to threaten Mexico with trade tariffs due to Central American migrants, and Mexico will respond with more drastic, inhumane measures. None of it will stop migration.Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Associate Professor Human Rights & Human Diversity, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityDiana Correa Corrales, Associate lecturer, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de MonterreyIván Francisco Porraz Gómez, Profesor-Investigador, ECOSURS. Richelle Monaghan, Associate Professor and Chair of Health Studies Department, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.