"When I was living there in 2013-2014 in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, I could hear gunshots every night from my house," said Professor Pine. "I learned to distinguish what a firecracker and a gunshot and a car backfiring sounded like because I heard all three of them so much, from my apartment. It's a terrifying situation to be in the midst of that kind of violence," she said. "And it was in 2010, I think, the first year that Honduras achieved the level of most murderous country in the world, according to the UN homicide statistics. Rather than responding by providing greater citizen security, job opportunities, and education, what the Honduran administration has done, post-coup, and with full US support, is to militarize the country and put military police on every corner. This has had a terrorizing effect on the population, and it doesn't do anything to increase people's chances, to increase people's life chances. The people are living in terror. Almost everybody I asked, when I would give lectures, I would always ask, 'How many of you have lost a loved one or family member to homicide?' I would generally get between 70% and 100% of people raising their hand," Pine said.
"So if you think about, not just the homicide rate but the impact that it has on the population as a whole, which is all experiencing some kind of trauma, it's no surprise that so many people are desperate to come to the United States, knowing full well that on that journey they could get maimed, attacked, raped, or even killed. Because that's how bad the situation is thanks to the US militarization, the US economic policy, and the US support of the military coup in 2009."
Pine said there seems to be a common misconception about what is now the root cause for everyday violence in Honduras. Pine maintains that most of the violence is being triggered by the Honduran government with the full support and knowledge of the US, and not renegade street gangs.
"I think the popular talk that we often hear is that the gangs have gotten out of control," said the Fulbright Scholar, "but really, if you look at the timing of the increase in violence, it corresponds directly with the 2009 coup and, in particular, with the impunity that's accorded to the state agents who are carrying out violence: The military, the police and now the military police as well. The impunity that's accorded them for their crimes against humanity that they carried out following the coup, and which have only really been exacerbated since then. I think in terms of analyzing the violence that's going on in Honduras," she said, "it's perhaps even more important to talk about the state violence than about the gang violence, because there was a total breakdown of the legal and judicial system as a result of the coup, which cleansed the whole system of any lawyers who had opposed the coup. So with the breakdown of the judicial system, and with the total impunity accorded to the military and police, they are actively operating death squads within their ranks."
Dealing With the Flood of Central Americans
Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has promised, if elected, to build "a big, beautiful wall" like the Great Wall of China along the 2,000-mile border between the US and Mexico. Candidate Trump says he will deport all 12 million if he has to purge the country of illegals. But while those directly in the crosshairs of Trump's racist rhetoric find it frightening, they are more concerned with the actual policies of the current administration, both in its record-breaking number of deportations and, even more important and less talked about, its pro-coup policies that have indeed led thousands of men, women, and children to pull up roots and make the long and dangerous journey north.
And the deportations continue apace. According to credible reports, thousands more victims lie naked on the anvil of American injustice, waiting for the hammer of deportation to fall once again. On December 26, The Washington Post reported in a piece titled "Homeland Security Preparing 'Trump Style' Mass Deportation Raids" that "the Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation."
The reports of expanded ICE sweeps already have thousands of undocumented people bracing for the worst. In an extended interview on January 6th, Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), addressed the impending crackdown and some of the root causes that are driving so many to make the often futile and sometimes lethal journey north. Alvarado is just back from a fact-finding tour to Honduras, where the violence faced by everyday people, he said, "is at least as bad if not worse than what is going on in Iraq and Syria."
"The crackdown doesn't come as a surprise to us," said Alvarado, recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America. "It is consistent with the deportation policy of this administration. Very consistent. The idea that you need to deport some to provide relief to others. The idea that you need to deport first and then legalize later. The idea that somehow deporting some people is necessary for others to get relief has been the way the Obama administration has operated for the last seven years," said the labor and human rights activist. "And the intention was that by being tough on immigrants, the xenophobes and the nativists would actually support immigration reform."
Alvarado says the Obama/Clinton policy has been a dismal failure from start to finish -- from its record-breaking deportations to its support for the deposing of President Manuel Zelaya. Meanwhile, he says, the issue of true immigration reform has been swallowed up by right-wing campaign rhetoric and the meet-me-under-the-flagpole attitude among Republicans and many Democrats as well, regarding who is going to be tougher on the floods of Central Americans that keep heading north.
"Central Americans are bracing for the worst," said Alvarado. "Obama's policy has definitely been a failed policy. Now this new wave of deportations comes at the worst time. Deportations are bad at any time, but at this time in particular we're going into an electoral year, and the sentiment that has been created by Donald Trump has essentially dominated American politics."
But Alvarado added, "While Trump stigmatizes immigrants with his derogatory and racist language, the president is deporting them. So when we see what is happening, we feel there is no difference between what the Republicans do and what the Democrats are doing, when it comes down to deportations. And the worst thing is that there is no political gain that the president can make by spearheading this new wave of deportations of children and mothers. The only people benefitting from this type of initiative are essentially the right wing. It's essentially the Republicans, the xenophobes and the nativists. Which is exactly what they want."
National Security Deportations
Alvarado said it was downright dangerous for Homeland Security to characterize the mass deportations of Central Americans as an issue of national security, rather than an issue of human rights and people fleeing for their lives. "I mean, they treat the issue of refugee children and their mothers as a matter of national security," he said, "but we see it as a matter of human rights, as a humanitarian crisis. The administration claims that they have the situation under control, that 'the surge' as they called it, has ended and that the numbers of unaccompanied minors and their mothers has decreased. However, what we've noticed is that the United States government has invested a lot of money in a project called Frontera Surge."
According to Alvarado, the US is now spending millions in direct funds to the Mexican government to cut off the flow of Central Americans coming to the US, before they ever cross the southern border. And the Mexicans are brutal, he says, in their enforcement of the "surge" against those fleeing the violence and economic devastation resulting from US free trade and pro-Honduras coup policies.
"They are funding the Mexican government and its military, and its other repressive bodies," said Alvarado, "to actually apprehend Central Americans on the southern border of Mexico. Now many folks still get to make it to the US/Mexico border, but a significant number are apprehended in Mexico, and deported from Mexico to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador."
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