...as our government was guilty of in Honduras in June 2009 (yup, under Obama, though probably Bush Junta-designed**)--a coup d'etat in favor of John McCain's telecommunications interests, U.S. retail interests, Chiquita Banana's interests, et al, and Pentagon interests, et al; in Guatemala in 1954 in favor of the United Fruit Company (Chiquita) and genocidal military rule (same year the CIA destroyed Iran's democracy); in El Salvador in the 1970s in favor of murderous military rule, and, of course, in Nicaragua, in the 1980s, where Reagan's forbidden (by the U.S. Congress) 'contra' warriors murdered teachers and mayors who supported the righteous revolution against the Batista scumbags. The U.S. could stop doing all this, covertly and overtly.
Then there's CAFTA's impacts on the poor (slave wages, no rights; destruction of small farmers; environmental degradation by foreign mining corporations; privatization of services, etc.). The U.S. could stop doing that. But, above all, right now, there is the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs," which has been used to soften these countries up for U.S. "free trade for the rich" by militarizing and brutalizing society, arming the police with the latest repressive weapons and methods, slaughtering peasants and driving millions from their lands, waging war on the smaller or non-CIA/DEA-cooperating drug traffickers and pitting one group against another, to eliminate these players, probably in favor of Big Ag and Big Pharma as well, who seem poised to make their move on the drug trade, at long last.
Interestingly, the rightwing president of Guatemala (Molina) joined the rightwing president of Colombia (Santos) in calling for the complete legalization of all drugs (not long ago). THAT ought to be an interesting discussion between Obama and Molina. (When is the corporate payoff coming?)
So, many decades of the foulest kinds of rapacious profiteering and murderous interference by the U.S. and its corporations, all aimed at robbing and disempowering the people of these countries (and enriching the tiny few, as bribery).
The presidents of Guatemala and Honduras (both s/elected in very corrupt elections--the one in Honduras involved egregious, direct interference by the U.S. State Department) probably want propping up, and will probably get it. Anything to keep the Left from getting elected in these countries! El Salvador now has, as elected president, a former FMLN leftist guerrilla. I don't know what he will want. He's in a dicey position because El Salvador's economy gets a big boost from remittances from El Salvadorans working in the U.S. He can't afford to get too uppity.
You will notice that Nicaragua is not part of this problem. They've had a democratic Leftist government for some time, and it really tells, in the disinclination of Nicaraguans to migrate, or need to migrate.
It is NO WONDER that Honduran parents want to get their children out of that murderous, fascist, U.S. client state. OUR government really WRECKED and continues wrecking Honduras, with militarism and fascism. What little hope they had, when ousted president Mel Zelaya was raising the minimum wage and subsidizing bus travel, etc., is gone. Guatemala has been a basketcase ever since the U.S. coup against the Arbenz government--pretty much lurching from one corrupt fascist scumbag to another, since then, and including a period of horrendous murder--genocide--of the Mayan peasants, and also wracked by the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." In one recent so-called election in Guatemala, FIFTY political murders occurred.
I'm just shaking my head. This situation seems so hopeless. I'm thinking really desperate thoughts--such as, some Koch Brothers-like scumbags, Miami mafia or CIA planting rumors in these countries that children could get out and, if they could get across the border, wouldn't be deported--doing this as an embarrassment against Obama. Or maybe the scumbag, militarized rich elites in these countries started the rumors, to pressure Obama for more filthy lucre. Why would all these children come, in this surge? It's not as if ordinary Central Americans are ignorant of the dangers and the unlikelihood of success. It's hard to figure.
Or, most likely, the militaristic U.S. "war on drugs" has escalated so much, and is being used, as in Colombia, to kill labor leaders, leftists, community organizers and others, and to drive more peasants from the land, and the CIA/DEA-instigated internal drug war has also been intensified recently, so that conditions have become simply intolerable, for those who are migrating and sending their children out of the line of fire. From what I've read, this is the case in Honduras--a big escalation of violence, including official military and police violence against the poor, and especially against the organizers of the poor (and against journalists), and unofficial rightwing death squad activity.
The U.N. head recently stated that these children should be considered refugees. There is most certainly a very strong case for that, and for asylum--IF our asylum system was just. it is NOT just. We give asylum to fascist scumbags and former CIA killers, not to the needy.
What is clear to me is that our own government is largely responsible for the chaotic, violent conditions in Honduras and somewhat less directly in Guatemala in the current era, and that U.S. "free trade for the rich" is the goal (weak government, cowed workers, powerless populace). Central America is the U.S. "military-industrial complex"'s 'circle the wagons' region, against the leftist tide--democracy, social justice and sovereignty movements--which has been so successful in South America. They don't want any Venezuelas, or Bolivias, or even Brazils, in Central America. They want subject client states like Honduras, and like they have always had, and have arranged for, in Latin America, over the last half century or so. Central America and Colombia are pretty much it, now, as for U.S. client states in Latin America, given the success of the Left in South America. Our rulers also don't want us--the people of the U.S.--to know about the success of the Left in South America. They're trying to keep it at bay.
One of the coup generals in Honduras stated that their coup was intended "to prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States." (--quoted in a report on the coup by the Zelaya government-in-exile). Interesting, huh? (Venezuela is NOT a communist state.)
It may be that ending the U.S. "war on drugs" will have some beneficial effect, at least temporarily, even if it ultimately means, say, GMO-ized marijuana and the destruction of all of the enterprising small developers and retailers here, and a yet more difficult economy for small farmers there. The U.S. "war on drugs" is SO BAD--was so excessively corrupted by the Bush Junta (and was never honest to begin with)--and is so murderous, so violent, so utterly destructive of democracy--here, as well, especially with vast imprisonment of the poor, but also with the LOSS OF RIGHTS of the "accused" (their property confiscated, their lives ruined, their families destroyed, their children terrified by Swat teams)--that it really MUST BE stopped, even if it means corporate monopoly of recreational and medicinal drugs.
I don't think that the rightwing/corporatist presidents of Guatemala and Colombia would have dared to come out publicly for an end to the "war on drugs" without White House approval. So part of the discussion IS going to be about that. (I think it is also an important point of discussion in the Colombia/FARC peace talks taking place in Cuba--another Colombian action that would not be taking place without U.S. approval.) Other points of discussion will be the distribution of these countries' resources, land and work forces among the corporate players, with benefits to the local elites. That's one of the reasons that it feels hopeless. The people of these countries are NOT on the agenda, except as peripheral assets or as expendable human beings.
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**(Only six months into the Obama administration--Obama's plate very full at the time, with 2 Bush wars and the threatened Great Depression II. However, Obama and H. Clinton reacted very, VERY badly on Honduras--in essence supporting the fascist coup. This also seriously alienated Obama/Clinton from the rest of Latin America, especially South America, where nearly every president is a Leftist. They were able to foil the Bush Junta coup attempt in Bolivia in 2008, but could not do so for Honduras, though they tried--so there is bitterness as well.)
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