PHOTO: Irinero Mujica Arzate
They’re Being Forced out of their Home Countries by U.S. Policies
What is the cause of changes in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that result in children from those countries coming to the US without even an adult to accompany them? These countries are naturally rich and beautiful, lands with close-knit families.
The three countries all have histories of being attacked, although not directly invaded, by the oligarch-controlled US government. The methods used against each country were strikingly similar.
In El Salvador, by 1980, a military dictatorship was crushing the people with violence and poverty—and the US government was financing this dictatorship and supporting its military. In February 1980, Salvadoran Archbishop Romero published an open letter to US President Carter, pleading with him to suspend US military aid to the Salvadoran regime. On March 23, 1980, the Archbishop called on Salvadoran soldiers and security forces to disobey orders to kill civilians. Giving mass the next day, he was assassinated by a death squad trained by forces of the US capitalists.
In Guatemala, in the first half of the 20th century, the US-based corporation United Fruit Co. (now Chiquita Brands) grabbed land and worked the indigenous for almost no wages, abetted by the government there. From 1944-1954, Guatemalans stood up and took over their government by democratic elections, passing an Agrarian Reform Law in 1952. Under that law in 1953, the Guatemalan government seized 234,000 uncultivated acres of United Fruit, which was by far the country’s largest landowner. A paramilitary invasion by the CIA overthrew the president in 1954, and installed a military dictator.
More recently, in June 2009, Honduras’ democracy was smashed when a military coup forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile after an apparent military coup. To smooth the junta’s way, the US corporate-dominted government, refused to recognize the change as a “coup,” throwing its support to the military and preventing international sanctions.
The US oligarchs backed “civil wars” by the military governments in each country. The worst slaughter resulted in Guatemala where a US-funded civil war 1960-1995 resulted in 200,000 people dead, mostly indigenous at the hands of the military. In El Salvador US-funded forces killed more than 70,000. El Salvador didn’t suffer a full-fledged US-funded civil war. However, in the 1980’s, the US in Honduras supported the Contras, fighting the Nicaraguan government.
This was followed by criminal gang culture, birthed in the corporate-run US, being exported to Central America. People from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were imprisoned in the US, where the only refuge was to join a gang. Mass incarceration, done to make money on prisoners in the US, has pushed gang culture onto the victims of this sytem. In the 1990’s, upon being deported to their native countries, the ex-prisoners took gang culture with them to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. In addition, the US capitalist government began and armed the Zetas in Mexico, supposedly to fight drug wars but also explicitly trained for “counterinsurgency.” The Zetas broke away and have taken over large areas of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador where they wreak violence and engage in narco-trafficking. The high murder rate in those countries had its roots in actions of the US corporate government.
Then came NAFTA and CAFTA, devastating their economies, as discussed in a separate article.
The devastation of Central American countries which are now sending children to the US was directly caused by actions of the super rich in the US.
