Central America

Escape From Fear

November 28, 2018 Beth Geglia, Redpepper.org.uk Resist! Caravan, Central America, Immigration

I remember sitting across the table from my friend Pavel in a coffee shop in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa in 2014. The conversation was casual and frank, as it often is, when talking to Hondurans about the imminent possibility of death. ‘The worst thing is that I know I could die in the dumbest way. It’ll happen while I’m leaving the grocery store, walking out of a coffee shop, or driving to band practice.’ Pavel was a well-known musician and activist. His rock band had played an important role in denouncing the 2009 military coup in Honduras and reaching popular audiences about themes of poverty and structural inequality.

No One Is Illegal – Solidarity With The Migrant Caravans

November 21, 2018 Staff, Internationalviewpoint.org Strategize! Caravan, Central America, Immigration, Solidarity

Thousands of migrants from Central America have made politically and socially visible the structural violence and systematic violation of their human rights that they experience on a daily basis, without governments attending to the causes or the basic necessities of survival, through their organisation into caravans. These are some of the reasons that forced them to flee their countries, with only what they carry on their backs and suffering the hardships of a long journey towards an uncertain destination. They flee from capitalist criminal, institutional, state and patriarchal violence. They advance in defiance of the threats of the police and military who guard the different borders, as if at war with the wretched of the earth.

Migrant Caravans Challenge the Continent’s Governments

November 17, 2018 Dan La Botz, Newpol.org Educate! Caravan, Central America, Immigration, Internationalism, Migrants

Central American migrants, both desperate and courageous, have thrust themselves into the center of Mexican and U.S. politics with their demand for refuge and asylum. As the head of the NGO Pueblos Sin Fronteras told a reporter, “This isn’t just a caravan, it’s an exodus created by hunger and death.” The thousands of migrants organized in caravans and walking north from Central America, through Mexico, and to the United States—some 3,000 miles—have raised a challenge to the governments and to the people of North America. Driven by poverty and violence, their long march is an implicit critique of the Central American governments that have failed to protect them and have made it impossible for them to earn a living.

Press Release From The Central American Migrant Exodus For Life

November 15, 2018 Staff, Resumen-english.org Educate! Caravan, Central America, Immigration, Migrants

Today marks 31 days of the historic exodus of Central American migrants, known as the “Migrant Caravan,” which departed from Honduran territory on October 13, 2018. Our exodus is a consequence of forced displacement caused by the widespread systematic violence suffered by men, women, children and entire families who flee from poverty and impunity in our countries of origin. The whole world is watching with great concern as more than 13 thousand people in Mexican territory advance towards the U.S. border. This monumental collective rejection of violence has reached the dimension of a humanitarian crisis. In an exercise of autonomy as a displaced group, we named a delegation to dialogue with United Nations authorities in Mexico on behalf of the more than five thousand migrants housed at the shelter in Mexico City, Mexico.

Is There Really A ‘Militia Caravan’ Traveling South To Protect US Border From Marching Migrants?

November 7, 2018 Igor Ogorodnev, Rt.com Educate! AltRight, Border, Caravan, Central America, Immigration, Racism

Most media outlets have published as fact claims that vigilante groups incited by Donald Trump are organizing themselves to confront the migrant caravan, but the story appears to be based on little more than an unverified boast. Variously named as “armed militias” and “far right activists,” some “gun-toting” groups have been reported as “forming their own caravan” in scores of media reports over the weekend, from the Huffington Post to The Hill in the US to international outlets such as the UK’s the Sun, Turkey’s Anadolu, and Russia’s Sputnik. The vigilantes are reportedly equipped with military-level tech, and will form units hundreds-strong. They have caused alarm among both local residents – afraid that their land will be invaded– and the army contingent forced to separate sides.

Chicanos Welcome Central American Caravan

November 6, 2018 Sol Marquez, Fightbacknews.org Resist! Border, Caravan, Central America, Immigration, Nationalism, US military

Los Angeles, CA – On October 26, as the caravan of refugees from Central America traveled through Mexico, they were welcomed with food, festivity, aid, and clothing. As Chicanos, we must do the same when the caravan arrives at U.S. border. Attacking Mexicans, and by extension Chicanos, Trump has dispatched the U.S. military to the U.S.-Mexico border to block the caravan. We say down with Trump, down with him hiding like a coward behind the U.S. military, down with the continued militarization, killings and abuses at the border, down with the injustices to the undocumented in the U.S., and down with the U.S. destabilization of Central America. We must demand legalization for all current 11 million undocumented people in the U.S., and asylum now for the caravan refugees when they arrive at the border.

US And The Central American Exodus

October 31, 2018 Angel Guerra, Resumen-english.org Educate! Central America, Immigration, United States

The exodus of Central Americans, mainly to the United States, has been made visible by the current caravan that crosses Mexico, this is not new and is a long-standing phenomenon.In 2017, the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, reported that 450,000 migrants, predominantly Central Americans, annually cross Mexico to the country to the North. This phenomenon began to take off in the 1980s as a result of Washington’s massive support for the armies and repressive forces of El Salvador and Guatemala in their bloody war against the liberation movements of those countries that, along with Honduras, were badly affected. The war generated, especially in El Salvador, a great flow of refugees, among them thousands of young orphans, on their way to the powerful U.S.

US Imperialism Is Responsible For Central American Migration

October 28, 2018 Joint Declaration Socialist Organizer (US) and CORCI (Mexico) Educate! Caravan, Central America, Migration

The Central American Caravan a result of the continued interventionist policies of U.S. imperialism, which considers this region to be its “backyard.” The forms of U.S. intervention are many: U.S.-funded wars and military interventions, coups d’état, “free trade” agreements (which are another form of warfare against workers and oppressed peoples), plundering of resources, dismantling of national economies, violations of the sovereignty of the peoples. This is what has caused hundreds of thousands of people to leave their places of origin to seek a better future

It’s The Other Way Around

July 7, 2018 John Tarleton, Indypendent.org Educate! Border, Central America, Immigration, Nationalism

Children locked in dog kennels, crying by the sides of roads at night, wrapped in glittering Mylar blankets on the floors of Border Patrol processing centers, stowed away in an abandoned Walmart, flown thousands of miles from their parents. The sounds of their wails an “orchestra” to the ears of a border guard, who is heard quipping in audio captured at a child detention center that all that is “missing is a conductor.” But there is a conductor. He sits in a leather chair in the Oval Office, his arms crossed in a gesture not unlike that of a petulant toddler on time-out. He blames his political opponents for the nightmare troubling America’s conscience — 2,300 children, including infants, separated from their parents since April, when he instituted a “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute parents on criminal charges for attempting to enter the United States at its southern border.

The US Is Once Again Supporting Death Squads In Central America

June 11, 2018 By Brett Wilkins, Counterpunch Educate! Central America, Death Squads, War crimes

The United States has been quietly funding and equipping elite paramilitary police units in El Salvador accused of extrajudicially murdering suspected gang members, according to a forthcoming United Nations report reviewed in advance by CNN. Beginning with George W. Bush in 2003, successive US administrations have provided tens of millions of dollars in aid for Salvadoran military and police in support of the government’s “Mano Dura” (“Firm Hand”) security program, an aggressive campaign to combat out-of-control gang violence in a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates. The United States has long operated or supported death squads, from the CIA’s Phoenix Program in Vietnam (40,000 killed) through the implementation of the “Salvador option” during the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. The latter effort was run by Col. James Steele, a decorated veteran of Central America’s dirty wars, including a stint training Salvadoran death squad units during the civil war. Unsurprisingly, secret prisons, torture and extrajudicial killings became commonplace throughout occupied Iraq. It now appears that the “Salvador option” has made its way back home from halfway around the world, further terrorizing guilty and innocent alike in what was already one of the most frightful corners of the planet.

US-Mexico Border Convergence Webinar Series

July 13, 2017 Staff, www.soaw.org Resist! Border, Central America, Militarization, South America

By School of the Americas Watch. The SOA Watch movement began as a response to the call of solidarity to the people affected by the political, economic, and military US intervention in Central America during the 1980’s and 1990’s. However, the patterns of violence and forced migration established during the dirty wars of the 20th century have continued unabated. How do we respond to this reality? How do we build a shared analysis? In order to respond to these questions and create bonds of solidarity and resistance, SOA Watch invites you to participate in a series of webinars leading up to the Encuentro, to listen, learn and stand up in active solidarity with communities that challenge the militarization of the border. Our first webinar is this Thursday, July 13 at 8:00 pm ET.

Conference Signals Further US Militarization In Central America

June 20, 2017 Jake Johnston, www.cepr.net Educate! Central America, Latin America, Militarization, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism

By Jake Johnston for CEPR - In a high-level meeting Friday, the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador will discuss the region’s security with American and Mexican officials. Innocuous enough, you may think. But part of the meeting will be held on a US military base in Miami, Florida ― the headquarters of the US Southern Command, the Pentagon’s regional subsidiary that oversees American military operations throughout Central and South America as well as the Caribbean. Under President Donald Trump, the militarization of US foreign policy is about to stretch more deeply into Central America. Central America policymaking, hardly an open book to begin with, is set to become more secretive. With the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America just days away, there is no official agenda of speakers or publicly listed events and no involvement of civil society organizations, and even press access is extremely limited. What we do know is US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be there, as will Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and of course, General John F. Kelly, the director of Homeland Security and the previous head of SOUTHCOM.

Water, Climate, Energy Intertwined With Fight Against Poverty

August 28, 2015 Diego Arguedas Ortiz, www.ipsnews.net Create! Central America, Environment, Poverty

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz in IPS News - Central America’s toolbox to pull 23 million people – almost half of the population – out of poverty must include three indispensable tools: universal access to water, a sustainable power supply, and adaptation to climate change. “These are the minimum, basic, necessary preconditions for guaranteeing survival,” Víctor Campos, assistant director of the Humboldt Centre, a leading Nicaraguan environmental think tank, told IPS. These three tools are especially important for agriculture, the engine of the regional economy, and particularly in rural areas and indigenous territories, which have the highest levels of poverty. Campos stressed that this is the minimum foundation for starting to work “towards addressing other issues that we must pay attention to, like education, health, or vulnerable groups; but first these conditions that guarantee minimal survival have to be in place.”

Caravana Para El Buen Vivir Kicks Off, Arrives To Amilcingo

July 15, 2015 Caravana Para El Buen Vivir, www.caravanaparaelbuenvivir.com Create! Central America, Land Rights

By Caravana Para El Buen Vivir - We’re only a few weeks away from kicking off this collective project, which will bring us to communities in resistance throughout Central America. The goal is to document and exchange tools that strengthen processes of resistance and land defense. At the end of July 2015, we’ll head southward to the coast of Oaxaca and the highlands of Chiapas in Mexico, then onward to communities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Stay tuned as we fill our media library with the voices of the land defenders we visit. While we’ve acquired a mode of transport as well as materials to remodel and equip our mobile laboratory, we’re continually in need of material and financial support to cover the costs of the trip!

7 Reasons To Scrap The $1 Billion Aid Package To Central America

July 9, 2015 Various, www.cipamericas.org Create! Aid, Central America, Corruption, Food and Agriculture, Immigration, usa

By Various in CIP Americas - This summer, Congress will decide whether to support the $1 billion aid package to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Prompted by the surge of children and family to the US’s southern border last year, the “Strategy for Engagement in Central America” aims to attack the ‘root causes’ of unauthorized migration. Promoted by Vice-President Biden, the plan has been endorsed by commentators across the political spectrum. Biden’s plan would invest in border security, law enforcement, economic development, and the UN’s new human rights initiatives in the region. These measures will purportedly keep Central Americans at home, busy with new jobs in safer communities under more transparent, responsive governments. At the same time, tighter border enforcement is intended to discourage migration.

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