Category: Chapter 10

Belize – Guatemala border disputes

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

On 20th May, the online newspaper ‘Breaking Belize News’ carried an item by Aaron Humes entitled ‘European Union provides further support for activity in the Belize-Guatemala border area’. We are grateful to Aaron Humes and Breaking Belize News for their report which is summarised below.

A new European Union funded project aims to support the political and diplomatic processes in the Adjacency Zone between Belize and Guatemala – see ENCA 73 (June 2018)[i]. The Organisation of American States (OAS) is charged with implementing the conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy activities that are funded as part of this project.

The project funding covers activities ahead of the International Court of Justice ruling on the border dispute case between the two countries. Ambassador Marianne Van Steen (EU Ambassador in Belize) said, “we recognise that peace and security are essential for sustainable development and regional stability. This is why we remain committed to continuing our support for the implementation of Confidence Building Measures in the Adjacency Zone between Belize and Guatemala.”

The EU says it upholds a peaceful resolution of the Belize-Guatemala Territorial Differendum to help the economies, trade and cooperation in both countries and as a way to enhance security and development in the region.

[i]   Mowforth, M.,June 2018, ‘Guatemalans vote ‘YES’ for ICJ Resolution of Belize Dispute’, ENCA 73, p.7, London.

Public hospitals and public health in Central America

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

The following indicators of public health provision in the seven Central American countries is taken from Nicanotes which is an online weekly newssheet about Nicaragua produced by the Alliance For Global Justice (AFGJ). The particular edition of Nicanotes (dated 11 October 2023) from which the map and information were taken was headed ‘NicaNotes: Spectacular Advances in Health in 2023!’ and was researched and written by Nan McCurdy and Katherine Hoyt. The full article can be read at: https://afgj.org/nicanotes-spectacular-advances-in-health-in-2023

Nicaragua has by far the most public hospitals in Central America, especially if compared by population. Nicaragua, with a population of 6.61 million, has one public hospital for every 85,844 people. However, Guatemala, with a population of 18.71 million, has one public hospital for every 418,604 people; Honduras has one public hospital for every 331,935; El Salvador one for every 204,516 people; Panama one for every 274,375 people; and Costa Rica one for every 180,344.

(Sources: Vistazo Alternativo and https://www.statista.com/statistics/1399508/population-of-central-america-by-country/

 

Migration hits Panama and Costa Rica

Chapter 10 / Migration and Remittances

By Martin Mowforth

Both Panama and Costa Rica are under pressure from the wave of migrants passing through the inhospitable Darién Gap at the south of the region heading, mostly, for the border between Mexico and the United States, to the north of the region. In the years from 2014 to 2020, we heard of the primary sources of immigration to the US being the Central American countries of the so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. But in more recent years, the wave of migrants from the Northern Triangle has been swollen by a new wave originating from south of the Central American region.

According to official sources in Panama, up to early September 2023, more than 348,000 people had crossed the Darién Gap into Panama, a figure 100,000 greater than the figure for the whole of 2022. Of these, 60,000 were children. Almost a half of this total were Venezuelan, and other significant South American and Caribbean nationalities included Haitians, Ecuadoreans and Colombians. There was also a growing number of people from China and the African continent, especially from Cameroon.

In September, the government of Panama announced that it aimed to intensify its deportation of migrants who enter the country via the Darién Gap from Colombia in an effort to put a stop to irregular immigration into the country. These numbers continue to increase despite the fact that the US has warned that it will not allow entry into the US to anyone who entered Panama through irregular channels.

The Panamanian director of Migration, Samira Gozaine, stated that “within our capability and our budget, we shall increase actions to gradually and progressively increase the deportations and expulsions of migrants who irregularly enter the country.” But she warned of a lack of resources to carry out the newly strengthened policy to the full: “obviously we have limited resources. If 3,000 people enter, we would like to deport those 3,000, but that’s not an operational possibility.”

The Panamanian government has also said that it will strengthen security measures in the frontier settlements and will change the locations of some police control posts. When they cross the frontier, the migrants still have to contend with wild animals, wide rivers, dense jungle and criminal gangs, although with the help of international organisations the government has established a number of posts throughout the country to help migrants.

In September this year, the Costa Rican government declared a state of emergency in response to the excessive number of migrants (more than 386,000 since January) who have entered the country through its southern border with Panama.

Similar to the efforts of the Panamanian government, the Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves announced that deportations and security measures would be increased. Rights groups such as the Human Rights Watch, on the other hand, described these measures as: “misguided and will contribute to more precarious situations for migrants in transit.”

Human Rights Watch Americas director Juanita Goebertus explained that the most serious issue underlying this hardened policy is that “people whose lives are at risk, whose personal integrity is at risk, cannot access the protections they have a right to.” Even former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla described the state of emergency as “misguided” and “highly counterproductive”.

In July, the University of Costa Rica’s fact-checking project, Doble Check, found that President Chaves’ public statements about foreigners in the country “presented a distorted image of the number of migrants in Costa Rica and the state resources directed toward that population,” while failing to recognise the economic contributions made by immigrants.

The United Nations Office for International Migration has called for collective action between Central American governments to provide humanitarian assistance.

Sources:

  • Manuel Bermúdez, 08.09.23, ‘Panamá seeks to put a stop to the passage of irregular immigrants through the Darién jungle’, Semanario Universidad, San José.
  • NACLA staff, 28.09.23, Untitled email note, North American Congress on Latin America, New York.
  • United Nations News, 05.09.23, ‘Record crossings of perilous Darién Gap underscores need for safe migration pathways’, United Nations.

November protests and blockades bring Panama to a standstill

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

By Martin Mowforth

22 November 2023

During late October this year, we began to receive reports of major troubles in Panamá. The troubles have largely taken the form of road blockages where massive protests have brought much of the country to a standstill. The protests are against the government’s approval of a contract with a Canadian mining firm (First Quantum Minerals, or FQM) for the operation of Central America’s largest open-pit copper mine.

Photo credit: Americas Quarterly

Headlines in a range of newspapers include: ‘Panamá’s Road to Ruin’; ‘Panamá explodes with protests against Canadian copper mine’; ‘Blockages and protests in Panamá due to Canadian mine contract’; and ‘Protests against mining concession given to company intensify in Panamá’. Four deaths have been reported at the demonstrations, two of them shot by a Panamanian American who in early November raged against the protests according to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.

The contract gives the company a huge land concession (almost the size of the city of Miami), is a threat to the environment, takes away sovereignty from the country and grants the company the right to prevent flights over the mine up to a height of 3,000 meters. According to a report in the Tico Times (an online Costa Rican English language weekly newspaper) which cites the Panamanian National Council of Private Enterprise (CONEP), the road blockages over 25 days (to the 14th November) have caused losses of 1.7 billion dollars.

Groups taking part in the protests include Indigenous peoples, trade unionists, schoolteachers, students, and environmentalists. Dozens of people have been arrested and the police have been heavy-handed in their response to the road blockages using tear gas in their attempts to dislodge the protesters who in some cases have blocked roads with burning tyres and piles of rubbish.

The Panamerican Highway has suffered numerous blockages which have affected not only the distribution of goods within Panamá itself but have also begun to affect distribution and supply in other parts of the Central American region.

According to the organisation Eko, FQM plans to build ports and power plants to service the expansion of the mine and the government is keen to benefit from the promised royalties which amount to a minimum of $375 million a year under the contract. This is a major improvement on the $35 million which it received from the first contract signed in 2019.

In an effort to appease the protesters, President Laurentino Cortizo, who has been criticised for inaction on the issue, announced that his government would use the funds to lift pensions for retirees to a minimum of $350 dollars per month, a 75 per cent increase over the current minimum. Many Panamanians saw his announcement as an attempt to buy off retirees whilst ignoring the main demands of the protest.

But Eko calls the deal “a classic tale of modern-day colonialism: Panamá’s government receives a tiny fraction of FQM’s massive profits while the mine will continue damaging communities, forests and water supplies.” And the Construction Workers Union, Suntracs, claimed that “this is the handing over of our land and our country to a multinational company,” which many Panamanians are reluctant to agree to having wrested control of the Panamá Canal away from the United States at the turn of the century.

Another related issue perceived by some environmentalists is the large-scale mining industry’s propensity to contaminate large swathes of the country surrounding the mine as well as causing devastation in, under and on the area of the mine itself.

At the time of uploading this batch of articles to The Violence of Development website (November 2023), the protests are ongoing and the issue of the mining concession contract is in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Sources

  • People’s Dispatch, 30 September 2023, ‘Protests against mining concession given to company intensify in Panamá’.
  • Eko Petition, 11 October 2023, ‘First Quantum Minerals: No expansion or extension of the Cobre Panamá mine’.
  • AFP, 23 October 2023, ‘Bloqueos y protestas en Panamá por contrato con mina canadiense’, semanariouniversidad@ucr.ac.cr
  • AFP, 30 October 2023, ‘Gobierno panameño insiste en consulta popular sobre mina pese a rechazo de Tribunal Electoral’, Redacción Universidad.
  • Michael Fox, 30 October 2023, ‘Panamá explodes with protests against Canadian copper mine’, The Real News.

 

Ricardo Martinelli, ex-President of Panama, sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

Summary by Martin Mowforth

Key words: Ricardo Martinelli; Panama; money laundering; ‘New Business’ case; Odebrecht corruption case.

 

In February this year (2024), Ricardo Martinelli, ex-President of Panama from 2009 to 2014, was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison for corruption. The Supreme Court of Justice confirmed the sentence passed on Martinelli last July after his last legal appeal had been rejected.

This makes Martinelli, 71 years old, the first ex-President to be sentenced for corruption in the democratic history of Panama. This prevents him from running as a presidential candidate in the elections next May. He had already declared his candidacy for his newly created party, RM or Realizando Metas.

Martinelli (pictured) was charged with money laundering in a case known as ‘New Business’ which involved the purchase of public funds. New Business was the name of a front company which collected approximately $43 million from firms that received lucrative government contracts. Those funds were then used to buy a media conglomerate with control of several national papers.

The ex-President has also been ordered to pay more than $19 million in fines. He also faces charges of money laundering and bribery associated with the case of the Brazilian Odebrecht construction company. Additionally, he is under investigation in Spain in a case of corruption by bribery involving a Spanish Construction company and in a case of spying in Mallorca.

Two of Martinelli’s sons previously served prison sentences in the United States for their involvement in money laundering schemes, and they also face trial in Panama. Martinelli and his sons are banned from entering the United States. The US has also barred former President Juan Carlos Varela from entering the country due to his role in “significant corruption” while in office.

Sources:

Honduras and Guatemala vie for interoceanic infrastructure investment: Honduras invites investment in a transoceanic railway

Chapter 10 / Transport infrastructure developments

By Martin Mowforth

February 2024

Key words: Honduras; tourism; transoceanic railway project; Mundo Maya Organisation.

In January this year (2024), the Honduran Minister of Tourism, Yadira Gómez, attended the 27th Conference of Iberoamerican Tourism Ministers in Spain and invited Spanish investors to participate in the construction of a railway across Honduras to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

In an interview with the Spanish News Agency, EFE, Gómez described the rail project as an alternative route to the Panama Canal, an increase in internal connectivity within Honduras and as offering tourism growth to communities in the interior of the country. But she also acknowledged that Honduras lacked tourist infrastructure.

The Panama Canal is suffering a restriction in the daily passage of boats due to the climate crisis and the drought, and this planned rail project across Honduras would be presented as another option. “We could ensure the transport of merchandise on a large scale,” said the Minister. She suggested that various countries have expressed an interest, among them the USA, Japan, Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Gómez said that Honduras was also suffering from the effects of climate change with the loss of beaches, especially in the Bay Islands, and the bleaching of coral on parts of the second most important coral reef in the world. She suggested that these problems referred not just to HondurasHHonduras but also to the rest of the region and that through this project she wanted to unite all the Ministers from the neighbouring countries with her own Ministry in Honduras.

Whilst the Minister was in Spain, she also attended the International Tourism Fair, FITUR, where she attempted to attract investors from the tourism sector and to increase the connectivity provided by airlines, especially as Spain is the European country that provides most tourists to Honduras.

She acknowledged that security within the country was an issue for the tourism industry but said that her government was trying to do all it could to combat the problem, such as the creation of specific tourist police.

Gómez said that Honduras was one of five Central American countries which make up part of the Mundo Maya Organisation and explained that her vision was for all five countries to work together to attract tourists and to ease their passage along the Maya route. It is worth noting that since the beginnings of the promotion of the Mundo Maya there have always been questions regarding the degree of involvement of the Mayan people in the promotion of the tourist scheme. The implication of such questions is that the tourism ministries of each of the five countries are promoting a money-making scheme for the tourism industry exploiting the existence of the Mayan culture whilst few of the benefits of the scheme actually find their way to the Maya Indigenous people.

Sources:

  • EFE, 23 enero 2024, ‘Honduras quiere construir un ferrocarril transoceánico que conecte el Pacífico y el Atlántico: “Es un proyecto de miles de millones”, El Economista.
  • Reuters, 8 July 2023, ‘Honduras probes Chinese interest in investing $20 billion rail line’, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-probes-chinese-interest-investing-20-bln-rail-line-2023-07-07/
  • Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2016, Tourism and Sustainability: Development, Globalisation and New Tourism in the Third World, (4th edition) Routledge, London. (See page 234)

 

Not to be outdone, Guatemala develops its own interoceanic corridor

Key words: Guatemala; interoceanic transport corridor; Lakshmi Capital.

 

A Guatemalan interoceanic corridor is a relatively new plan, although the idea first seriously emerged in 1998 when the limitations of the Panama Canal became apparent. In February this year (2024), the Guatemalan Interoceanic Consortium (CIGSA), the Indian company Lakshmi Capital and the Office for Links and Businesses with Latin America (ODEPAL) jointly signed a letter of intent to promote the development of this megaproject.

Valued at $10 billion (USD), the project would include the construction of a multimodal transport system (road, rail and pipeline) covering a strip of land of 372 km in length and 140 meters in width to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

A communiqué issued by the Indian Embassy in Guatemala stated that “the port infrastructures will be connected by two independent systems for the transport of containers and hydrocarbons.” The communiqué added that the developments would include industrial, commercial and service zones.

It is intended that Lakshmi Capital will support the scheme with their technical experience and investment mechanisms and will facilitate the construction, implementation,,management and maintenance of the Corridor.

In the previous December (2023), Lakshmi Capital signed a letter of intent with the Salvadoran Ministry of Public Works to develop a metro system in El Salvador.

Sources:

 

Note to readers:

News of these intentions (as described above) means that four countries of Central America – Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala – are now investigating possibilities for the development of interoceanic corridors as ways of competing with the Panama Canal.

President Arévalo Acts to Remove Attorney General Consuelo Porras

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

In the February 2024 additions to The Violence of Development website we included an article describing the award of ‘Corrupt Person of the Year’ to María Consuelo Sánchez, Guatemala’s Attorney General. The award was made by the OCCRP (the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) for 2023. In its most recent of its regular updates on happenings in Guatemala, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) gave more information on the battle of the new Guatemalan President (Bernardo Arévalo) to dismiss the corrupt Attorney General (appointed by the previous administration of President Alejandro Giammattei, himself accused of being “involved in significant corruption” by the USA).

We are grateful to the GHRC for their regular updates on the situation in Guatemala and for its generalised permission for the reproduction of its information.

By the Guatemala Human Rights Commission
https://www.ghrc-usa.org/
By the Guatemala Human Rights Commission
Ghrcusa, May 7, 2024

As the four-month mark of the Bernardo Arévalo administration approaches, the battle between the president and Attorney General Consuelo Porras has intensified. In recent weeks as Porras has remained in office, the criminalization of human rights defenders and others has increased. A prosecutor who was shot at and injured in March and whose mother was killed in the assassination attempt has been arrested; criminal cases against Indigenous environmental leaders have been reactivated; and violence against defenders has increased. The young son of an Indigenous environmental defender was gunned down and killed by assassins in mid-April. On May 6, Arévalo took a bold step and submitted to the Guatemalan Congress a proposal that would allow the law governing the Public Ministry to be changed so that he can remove Porras from office. Porras has asked the Constitutional Court to block the action. More details are given below.

Governance

Arévalo Makes a Bid to Remove Attorney General Porras

On May 5, in a televised message, President Bernardo Arévalo announced that he would ask Congress for a reform so that the Attorney General can be removed from her position. He said the proposed law would re-establish parameters already in the Constitution for the removal of the attorney general. He pointed out that she is stalling investigations of corruption, such as the purchase of Sputnik vaccines and the relationship of former government officials with confessed drug traffickers, while prosecuting and jailing those who denounce corruption. He also noted that she led the attack against democracy by attempting to question election results without having the competence to do so. He had already invited Consuelo Porras to resign, and she had refused. Hours before his announcement, Consuelo Porras filed an appeal before the Constitutional Court to try to avoid her removal, alleging that the president was exceeding his authority and that his actions represented a true and imminent threat to the rule of law. On May 6, a crowd of supporters accompanied Arévalo to Congress to present the bill.

Arévalo’s First Hundred Days Focus on Corruption but Fall Short of Hopes

On April 23, President Bernardo Arévalo held a ceremony to mark his first hundred days in office. Speaking to the crowd gathered in Guatemala City, he outlined seven areas that his administration has addressed, including security, education, wildfire response, health care, and transparency. He announced he was lowering the president’s salary by 25 percent and signed the decree before the crowd. Prior to this, as Jeff Abbott points out in The Progressive, the Guatemalan president was one of the highest paid heads of state in the hemisphere, earning nearly $20,000 dollars per month prior to the decrease by Arévalo.

In February, Arévalo’s administration launched the National Commission Against Corruption (CNC), which worked with ministries to expose acts of corruption linked to former president Alejandro Giammattei’s cabinet. The CNC reviewed over 1,400 public works contracts, most of which were left incomplete by the previous administration. During Arévalo’s initial hundred days in office, the CNC has filed 17 allegations of government corruption with the Guatemala Attorney General’s office.

In the first 59 days of Arévalo’s presidency, Guatemalan authorities reportedly seized nearly 5 tons of cocaine, doubling the amount confiscated in the entirety of 2023.

María del Carmen Aceña, associate researcher at the National Economic Research Centre (CIEN) and former Minister of Education, stated that the first hundred days have been complicated and this is due, in her opinion, to the fact that Guatemalans forget that in the first days of government, progress is slow. A chief complaint is that Arévalo has been unable to oust Attorney General Consuelo Porras, recognized as corrupt by the European Union, the United States, and now Switzerland, as well.

On April 10th, Switzerland announced sanctions against Porras, as well as against the Secretary General of the Public Ministry, Ángel Pineda; head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity Rafael Curruchiche Cucul; prosecutor Leonor Eugenia Morales Lazo de Sánchez; and Judge Fredy Orellana.

On the occasion of President Arévalo’s first one hundred days in office, the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán held a press conference to address the primary concerns affecting the Maya, Garífuna, and Xinka communities. Edin Zapata Tzul, the president of the 48 Cantones, described the presidential period as “one hundred days of a spring that has yet to bloom.”

The 48 Cantones emphasized the rising prices of basic necessities such as food and gasoline, increases which disproportionately affect Indigenous groups. Additionally, the 48 Cantones called for the immediate dismissal of prosecutor Consuelo Porras and allied judges due to concerns regarding impunity and corruption. They also stressed the importance of inclusion in the decisions of the government. “It is important that the Maya, Xinka and Garífuna peoples be included in the decisions of the current government for the betterment of our peoples, in economic, agricultural, natural resources, energy and mining, education, health, infrastructure and the priorities of the nation’s budget,” said Zapata Tzul.

Record migrant surge crosses the Darién jungle in 2023

Chapter 10 / Migration and Remittances

By Martin Mowforth

14 May 2024

Key words: migration; Darién crossing; Panama; President elect Mulino; repatriation.

A January 2024 AFP (Agence France Presse) report relates that over 520,000 migrants crossed the Darién jungle zone of Panamá during 2023. Of these, Panamá’s Ministry of Public Security reported that 120,000 were minors. This is more than double the next highest rate of the passage of Darién migrants which was in 2022.

On its X social network account, the Ministry said that it takes migrants between three and six days to cross the natural border between Colombia and Panamá which is 266 km long and covers 575,000 hectares of land. For humans, the area is one of the most inhospitable on the planet and migrants face many natural dangers as well as exploitation by criminal gangs. In November 2023, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had treated more than 400 cases of migrants who were victims of sexual assault, 97 per cent of them women, some of them girls. Despite the dangers, crossing the Darién remains an attractive route, and already this year (by the end of April, 147,000 migrants had entered Panama overland from Colombia.

The Ministry also gave details of the origins of the migrants. The greatest number of nationals crossing the Darién are from Venezuela who accounted for around 60 per cent of the total. They were followed by Ecuadorians, Haitians and Chinese with smaller numbers from Vietnam, Afghanistan and numerous African nations.

The situation has forced the Panamanian government and some international organisations to establish migrant care centres at various points in the country. In recognition of the fact that most of the migrants are trying to reach the United States of America, the Panamanian government’s initial response to this phenomenon was to arrange buses to transport the migrants through the country to its border with Costa Rica.

More recently, however, the government has been taking an increasingly hard line in its treatment of migrants who entered the country irregularly. President elect José Raúl Mulino (who takes over the presidency on 1st July this year) has said he will try to shut down the Darién migration route.

Whether Mulino can effectively reduce the numbers passing through the Darién is uncertain. The large extent of the Darién has limited governmental presence and control. Giuseppe Loprete is the Chief of Mission in Panama of the United Nation’s International Organisation for Immigration and has pointed out that if the government manages to block the legal and well-trodden routes, “migrants run the risk of turning to criminal networks, traffickers and dangerous routes.” One such alternative route could be the dangerous sea route from Colombia to Panama.

Another possible policy option for Mulino would be to massively repatriate the migrants, but Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America says that “… in mathematical terms I don’t know how they hope to massively deport migrants. …. A daily plane, which would be extremely expensive, would only repatriate around ten per cent of the flow (about 1,000 to 1,200 per day). The United States only manages to do about 130 flights monthly in the entire world.”

Sources:

  • AFP News Agency, 10 May 2024, Update, https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1788780797757186550
  • Tico Times, 7 January 2024, ‘Record Migrant Surge Sees 120K Minors Enter Panama Jungle’, San José.
  • Alma Solís, 11 May 2024, ‘Panama’s next president says he’ll try to shut down one of the world’s busiest migration routes’, APNews.
  • Martin Mowforth, 27 November 2023, ‘Migration hits Panama and Costa Rica’, https://theviolenceofdevelopment.com/migration-hits-panama-and-costa-rica/

 

 

 

As U.S. Legal Pathways Expand, New Analysis Examines the Channels and Current Numbers from Mexico and Northern Central America

Chapter 10 / Migration and Remittances

Migration Policy Institute

PRESS RELEASE
August 22, 2024
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

WASHINGTON, DC — Legal pathways for Mexicans and northern Central Americans seeking to enter the United States have grown in recent years, as the U.S. government has increased its focus on managing migration cooperatively with neighbours in the region. With an emerging body of research suggesting that access to legal channels may reduce irregular migration pressures, a new fact sheet out today explores the permanent, temporary and humanitarian legal pathways that exist for citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, how widely these pathways have been used and how these numbers have changed over time.

The fact sheet by Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysts Ariel G. Ruiz Soto and Andrew Selee draws on U.S. government data to provide an analytical overview of U.S. permanent and temporary visas and humanitarian pathways available to Mexicans and northern Central Americans.

The fact sheet, U.S. Legal Pathways for Mexican and Central American Immigrants, by the Numbers, finds that:

  • Family sponsorship for an immigrant visa (also known as a green card) is a significant route for the arrival of Mexicans and, to a lesser extent, northern Central Americans, with the number ranging from about 80,000 to 120,000 annually for much of the past decade out of an average 469,000 green cards issued yearly to all new arrivals to the United States during the fiscal year (FY) 2014-2023 period.
  • Non-immigrant visa issuance more than doubled for Mexicans and northern Central Americans between FY 2012-2019, increasing their share of overall non-immigrant visas from 9 percent to 16 percent. As of 2023, their share stood at 20 percent of all non-immigrant visas, which includes the H-2 seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural visas, F visa for international students, H-1B specialty occupations visa, TN professionals visa and the L-1 intra-company transfer visa.
  • Mexicans still dominate the categories of H-2A visas for temporary agricultural workers and H-2B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers, receiving more than 90 percent of H-2A visas and over 70 percent of H-2B visas since FY 2010. While this reflects long-established recruitment practices and networks, a small but increasing share of H-2 visas are going to northern Central Americans. Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans accounted for 18 percent of H-2B visa issuance in FY 2023, up from 5 percent three years earlier and representing a more than eightfold increase in the overall number of H-2B visas issued to these nationals.
  • Refugee resettlement and humanitarian parole are increasingly important mechanisms to provide Mexicans and northern Central Americans entry, in particular temporary humanitarian parole,facilitated by the CBP One app to schedule admissions at a port of entry. Mexicans were the fourth largest nationality receiving appointments through the CBP One app between January 2023 and March 2024. Combined, Mexicans and northern Central Americans were 28 percent of CBP One appointments during that period.

“The pathways available for Mexicans and northern Central Americans seeking to enter the United States legally have grown gradually in recent years. These include visas for seasonal work and, in the case of Mexican citizens, high-skilled work; green cards for family members of those already living permanently in the United States; and refugee resettlement and humanitarian parole for people seeking safety,” Ruiz Soto and Selee write. “These pathways account for a small but growing proportion of all migration from these countries; unauthorized migration remains larger, but they hold the potential to increase over time and provide lawful alternatives to otherwise dangerous journeys.”

Read the fact sheet, published by MPI and the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Centre, here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/us-legal-pathways-mexicans-central-americans.

For a policy analysis by MPI and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of legal pathways within the entire Western Hemisphere, click here.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández sentenced to 45 years in jail

Chapter 10 / Selected political developments and politicians in Central America

Since the US-supported military coup in 2009 in Honduras, The Violence of Development (TVOD) website has featured many articles which have included reference to or have focussed on President Juan Orlando Hernández (two terms, 2014 to 2022). Such frequent reference was made to him because of his role in turning the country into a virally corrupt narco-state. He has now been sentenced to 45 years in jail for operating a drug cartel and for turning the country into a gangster fiefdom during his time in office. He should never have been in office. His election was fraudulent on both occasions and was supported by the governments of the USA and Canada, in the name of ‘democracy’ of course.

Here we have included various clips and references to reports about his trial and sentencing.

 

From ENCA Newsletter No. 91, July 2024.

On June 26, 2024, former President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced by a New York City court to 45 years in jail on charges of operating a drug-trafficking cartel during the entire time he was in office, propped up as a “democratic ally” by the US and Canada. It is hard to overstate how much damage and violence this regime did to the institutions of the State, people and environment of Honduras.

 

From Rights Action, 27 June 2024.

45 years in jail: Former U.S. & Canadian-backed, drug-trafficking President of Honduras

https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/45-yrs-in-jail-for-former-pres-of-honduras

It is impossible overstate how complicit the U.S. and Canada are in having supported, enabled and legitimized for close to 13 years the repressive, “open for global business”, drug-trafficking regime headed by former President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced on June 26 to 45 years on charges of drug-trafficking.

Rights Action is a US- and Canada-based organisation that supports human rights and justice, land and environment defence struggles in Guatemala and Honduras.

 

From Al Jazeera, 26 July 2024.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/26/honduras-ex-president-sentenced-to-45-years-for-helping-drug-traffickers

US ally with tough-on-crime politics, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his conviction on drugs and weapons charges. A Manhattan jury in March found Hernández, 55, guilty of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect United States-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat.

US District Judge Kevin Castel passed down the sentence in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday. “I am innocent,” the 55-year-old Hernández, who led the Central American nation from 2014 until 2022, said at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”

Hondurans at home and abroad had cheered the conviction, celebrating it as a rare instance of accountability for corruption and deceit by a member of the country’s ruling class.

In March, the jury found that the former leader, often known by his initials JOH, had taken millions of dollars in bribes to shield large shipments of cocaine bound for the US.

Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence, arguing that it would send a firm message to other politicians who use their power to protect powerful criminal groups. “Without corrupt politicians like the defendant, the kind of large-scale, international drug trafficking at issue in this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, is difficult if not impossible,” prosecutors wrote on Monday.

During a two-week trial, prosecutors said Hernández used drug money to bribe officials and manipulate voting results during Honduras’s 2013 and 2017 presidential elections.  convicted traffickers testified they bribed Hernández.

Testifying in his own defence, Hernández denied taking bribes from drug cartels. His lawyers, meanwhile, accused the convicted traffickers of being out for revenge over Hernández’s anti-drug policies. JOH’s brother Tony Hernández was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2021 on drug charges.

 

From Rights Action.

Rights Action recommends Episode 7, parts I and II, of the ‘Under the Shadow’ podcast series that recap the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup d’état of June 27, 2009, and then 13 years of unconditional U.S. and Canadian support for the Honduran narco-regime.

In Update 3 of the podcast, Karen Spring (former Rights Action colleague, long-time co-coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network) takes the listener inside the trial that found Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of drug trafficking. Karen provides a devastating summary of just how much violence and damage the narco-regime did to Honduras, its people and society, government and State institutions, all enabled and legitimized by the U.S. and Canada.

Update 3 – Narcodictator, Convicted

‘Putting the U.S. and Canada on Trial’ campaign

Rights Action encourages folks to follow the work of the Honduras Solidarity Network leading a campaign to hold the U.S. and Canada responsible for supporting the Honduran narco-state.

https://www.hondurasnow.org/category/narco-trial-campaign/

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Nicaragua will sell carbon credits’

Chapter 10 / Climate change, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon credits

Nicaragua will join other Central American countries in selling carbon credits. In 2012, small hydroelectric projects, those which produce less than 15 megawatts of electricity, will sell carbon credits to the German company Mabanaft. The sales will be registered through the United Nations as part of the Kyoto Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. In addition to the Central American countries, Chile and Colombia also sell credits.

Carbon credit sales allow countries to sell some of the rights to produce greenhouse gas they are allowed under the Kyoto Agreement to other countries that are producing more than permitted. By producing energy from renewable sources like water, wind and biofuel, Nicaragua is polluting less than it is allowed under Kyoto and thus can sell the excess. Authorities believe that, once all the qualifying projects are registered, the carbon credits will bring in between US$286,000 and US$430,000. At the moment, ten small hydroelectric plants in the Departments of Matagalpa and Rivas are affiliated with the programme.

El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 4
Taken from the Nicaragua News Bulletin
9 August 2011

Tourism, Home Burnings and Territorial Evictions Along The Garífuna Coast in Honduras

Chapter 10 / Tourism and protected areas

The following report comes through Rights Action and is originally from OFRANEH, The Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras.

September 11, 2016

By OFRANEH, Sambo Creek, Aug 10, 2016 (translated by Steven Johnson)
https://ofraneh.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/presiones-territoriales-en-la-costa-garifuna-fallo-a-favor-de-barra-vieja-e-intento-de-desalojo-en-santa-fe

Yesterday, the Court in Tela issued a not guilty ruling in favour of the Garífuna community of Barra Vieja, which is being harassed by the Indura Hilton, by means of the National Port Company and the Honduran Institute of Tourism.

The trial against the leadership of Barra Vieja took place after 64 members of the community were put on trial in June of last year.  The court declared them innocent of the crime of seizure of property.  The ruling in the case indicated, among other things: “It is unknown at this time how many hectares or manzanas are registered in favour of the National Port Company, or the Honduran Institute of Tourism, the National Agrarian Institute and the Tela Bay Project.”  There certainly exists an overlap between the various government entities and the investors. However, it remains clear that the land in question is part of Garífuna ancestral territory.

For over four decades, the Garífuna communities in Tela Bay have suffered strong threats to their territory, accompanied by assassination of leaders, promoted by business people and politicians who have sought to create a tourism enclave, refusing to consider the environmental and social costs.

While in Tela the ancestral territory rights were recognized for the Barra Vieja community, last Thursday, September 8, in the afternoon, a contingent of police accompanied by a group of armed civilians attempted to evict a group of neighbours from the community who had recovered a piece of land that had been “sold” in an irregular manner to foreigners.

screen-shot-2016-12-27-at-11-11-17

The police presented an order of eviction, issued on April 7, 2016, by judge Víctor Manuel Melendez Castro.  The eviction order was sought by Mr. John J. Scott and Sandra L. Scott, who claim they are the owners of a piece of land in San Blas, located in the Municipality of Santa Fe, Colón.

The use of hired thugs by the police to burn down the dwellings and their contents is, by itself, a violation of the law, as well as violating the rights of the Garífuna people to their ancestral territory.  The members of the community of Giriga (Santa Fe) emphatically rejected the eviction attempt.

In 2007, Trujillo Bay became a piñata of territory, promoted by the Canadian Randy Jorgensen, known as the King of Porn, who received unlimited help from the Municipalities of Santa Fe and Trujillo.  Apparently, the Scotts are connected to Jorgensen, as is indicated in a blog about tourism published by Sandra Scott.

During the administration of post-military coup, regime leader “Pepe” Lobo, Jorgensen counted on his unconditional help to obtain environmental permits and “legalize” his projects of real estate speculation and the construction of the Banana Coast cruise ship docks.

In December 2011, the Public Prosecutor’s office issued an order against Jorgensen, accusing him of seizure of property.

It took until 2015 for him to finally appear in court in Trujillo, which then granted him a provisional acquittal.  The Appeals Court of La Ceiba nullified this provisional acquittal and required Jorgensen to appear again before the courts, which Jorgensen refused to comply with.  The “King of Porn” has thus far avoided facing justice.

Both Trujillo Bay and Tela Bay have become focal points of dispossession in the name of tourism, and the businesspeople and investors supported by the State come and push out the Garífuna communities, which have to endure the overlapping pressures.

With the advent of petroleum production in the Moskitia region, there arises a new threat to Trujillo Bay and its inhabitants: the construction of a petroleum refinery, which endangers the fragile and rich biodiversity of the region.

Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, OFRANEH

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Rights Action has sent an initial $1,000 to OFRANEH to help the families of Santa Fe whose homes were burnt.