The US Helped Destabilize Honduras. Now Honduran Migrants Are Fleeing
Political and Economic Crisis
By Democracy Now!
24 October 18
President Donald Trump is lashing out at the Central American migrant
caravan of some 7,000 people making their way through Mexico and toward the
U.S. border. On Monday, he claimed without evidence that terrorists and
members of the MS-13 gang had infiltrated the group. Trump has doubled down
on his threat to cut aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and called
out Democrats over U.S. border policy, in an ongoing attempt to turn the
caravan into a main issue in upcoming midterm elections. We speak to two
Central American-born activists, Patricia Montes of Centro Presente and
Oscar Chacón of Alianza Americas.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! Im Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: President Trump continued to lash out at the Central American
migrant caravan making its way toward the U.S. border on Monday, claiming
without evidence that terrorists and members of the MS-13 gang had
infiltrated the group.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Go into the middle of the caravan, take your cameras
and search. OK?
Youre going to find MS-13. Youre going to find Middle
Eastern. Youre going to find everything. And guess what. Were not allowing
them in our country. We want safety. We want safety.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump also doubled down on his threat to cut aid to Honduras,
El Salvador, Guatemala, and called out Democrats over the U.S. border
policy, blaming them for the caravan, saying theyre behind it, in an
ongoing attempt to turn the caravan into a main issue for the midterm
elections. Meanwhile, locals who live on the caravan route have been
providing volunteer assistance, basic necessities to the migrants heading
north. This is Mexican resident Ana Gamboa.
ANA GAMBOA: [translated] The only thing I can say to people is that they
should be more human, that we should look into our hearts and imagine
ourselves in the migrants shoes, because it isnt easy, what the migrants
are doing. We Mexicans like to criticize Donald Trump for the way he treats
Mexicans in the United States, and now were acting just like him. We dont
have any walls on our border, but sometimes we ourselves are the wall.
AMY GOODMAN: We are joined right now by two guests. From El Salvador, Oscar
Chacón is with us, executive director of Alianza Americas, an immigrant
rights group based in Chicago. And in Boston, Honduran immigrant Patricia
Montes, executive director of the Centro Presente in Boston, which has
worked with members from Honduras and Central America since the 80s.
I want to start there, in Boston, to talk to you about what is taking place,
Patricia. And if you can respond to President Trump talking about the Middle
Easterners and the MS-13 and the terrorists in the group that are heading
north? The criminals, he said.
PATRICIA MONTES: Yes, Amy. What were definitely seeing right now is a
humanitarian crisis as a result of the structural problems that Honduras has
been facing for a very long time. It is an alarming crisis in Honduras and
an alarming level of corruption, impunity, extreme poverty and extreme
violence that Honduras has been facing for a very long time. And this crisis
has been invisible within the conversation about forced migration in the
United States.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Oscar Chacón, I wanted to ask youyoure there in El
Salvador. Could you talk about how the countries of Central America are
viewing this confrontation now, this caravan? Because as youve noted, these
caravans have become a regular part of the migration process, as many people
who are desperately leaving Central America feel safer in groups of people
because of all the assaults and the attacks by criminal gangs through Mexico
as they migrate to the U.S. border.
OSCAR CHACÓN: Well, I think that if you ask me what the governmental
reaction has been, it has actually been mainly quiet. There hasnt really
been any official responses by the governments of Honduras, El Salvador,
Guatemala, precisely to the threats made by the president that he will cut
off aid to these countries.
From the perspective of people just talking about what these caravans
represent, I mean, most people in government that Ive talked to, but also
civil society actors, people are very surprised, because, in many ways, it
is not that it is new that so many people are leaving Honduras, Guatemala,
El Salvador. What is really new is that they gather together at the moment
of departing Honduras, in this particular instance. But the reality is, all
you need to look at is the data from the past several years. It is very
clear that there has been an increasing number, especially of Hondurans,
leaving the conditions that Patricia was describing.
And again, the only surprising factor here is the timing, because, clearly,
in the U.S., the fact that this caravan is happening now is playing into the
hands of President Trumps very well-established campaign to essentially
demonize foreign nationals as if they are the source of all the trouble that
we have in the U.S., indeed on many fronts. But sadly, I mean, this is not
something that is based on anything that Hondurans themselves planned. I
mean, its not like people said, Oh, lets schedule this caravan for the
time when the midterm elections are about to happen. Frankly, most people
in Central America are not even aware that there was a midterm election
happening in the U.S. That is how distant the narrative from the president
and the reality on the ground happen to be.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to one of the migrants responding to President
Trumps comments yesterday. This is Melanio Soto, a 44-year-old teacher from
Honduras.
MELANIO SOTO: [translated] If Trump is human, he should think and reflect on
what is happening, why Honduras or why people migrate from their country. As
Trump said that if the Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández did not
stop this, then there would be no economic support for Honduras. So I say,
What support for Honduras? Because you never see any kind of support. What
does he do with this support? What does Trump do with the support he gives
to Honduras? Because Hondurans dont see anything. Therefore, we are
frustrated and tired of so much repression from our country.
AMY GOODMAN: Oscar Chacón, if you could talk about the U.S. support, the
Trump administration support for the president of Honduras, who they call
Joe, the whole idea of the contested election, that people protested days
on end, that international groups said there should be a new election, and
how that contributes to this march northward?
OSCAR CHACÓN: Well, first of all, I think its important for the viewers of
this program to understand that U.S. foreign aid is not what most Americans
like to think it is. Very often, U.S. foreign aid is sort of like a
boomerang. I mean, you put money nominally abroad, but what they have to do
with the money is essentially purchase either merchandise or services from
the U.S. And in the case of Central America, in specific, the last four or
five years, which indeed show an increase in the nominal amount of U.S.
foreign aid, has been primarily earmarked for essentially security and
defense purposes. So, the person you were interviewing is absolutely
correct. You know, the average Honduran, the average Guatemalan do not
necessarily see, in a tangible manner, what those U.S. aid means.
What is true is that the people in government, and in this case in Honduras
with Juan Orlando Hernández, he has been able to build far more than anybody
else before him his armed forces, his police, which are used as political
tools to essentially shut up people who are criticizing him. So, clearly,
what we are seeing here is the end result, if you want, of a series of
missteps that have been taken by the U.S. government, not only the support
to an illegitimate election last November, but also, remember, the coup
détat that was justified and supported by the U.S. government back in 2009.
So, in many ways, what we are seeing is the logical consequence of all these
missteps that U.S. foreign policy in the region have actually been taking
for many, many, many years.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Patricia Montes, I wanted to ask you about the pressure
that President Trump is putting not only on the Central American
governments, but now especially on Mexico, to disperse and stop this
caravan. Obviously, the Mexican President Peña Nieto is in the last months
or weeks of his presidency, before December 1, when López Obrador, Manuel
López Obrador, takes over. Your sense of what Mexico is doing in reaction to
President Trumps pressure?
PATRICIA MONTES: Mexico has been repressing migrants for a very long time,
and I think that the president obviously right now is putting more pressure
on Mexico in order to stop forced migration, especially from Central
America, coming to the United States. But I think that, unfortunately, the
Mexican government has been implementing policies that are being designed in
the United States in order to stop forced migration from Central America.
And I think that they have been repressing people for a very long time,
especially Central American migrants.
And I think its important to understand that Mexiconot just Mexico, but
all governments in the migrant route have the opportunity right now to
reflect and think about why people are coming to the United Statestrying to
come to the United States, and they should respect basic human rights of all
people in the caravan. Unfortunately, they have been implementing programs
like the Plan Frontera Sur that is more militarization, and thats the
answer to receive migrants. And, unfortunately, I dont think thats the
good answer. More militarization and repression is not the answer to receive
people that are coming and looking for international protection.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Luis Sabin, who is a 32-year-old unemployed salesman
from Honduras. Hes one of the thousands of people making their way up from
Honduras right now.
LUIS SABIN:: [translated] Trumps tweet is very worrying, but he doesnt
know how weve suffered, as he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Well, we werent. If he put himself in our shoes, it would be very different
if he walked what we walk. He never walks.
PATRICIA MONTES: Patricia Montes, talk about how this particular caravan was
organized. And what are the numbers youre seeing right now? Up to 7,000
people making their way north now in southern Mexico?
PATRICIA MONTES: Almost 7,000 people, and most of them are from Honduras.
And I think its important to understand what is going on in Honduras, what
has been happening in Honduras, and the role of the U.S. in the crisis that
Honduras has been facing for a very long time. There are two particular
moments in history in the past 10 years, like the
coup détat that took place in 2009 and, of course, the unconstitutional
re-election of Juan Orlando Hernández. These two moments in history
increased the political and economic instability in Honduras, and now were
seeing the results.
People are leaving because they dont have alternatives. Its not about
looking for better opportunities; its about looking to survive. And
Honduras has an endemic problem of corruption and impunity. The Honduran
people have no trust in these public institutions. We need to see
fundamental changes.
And the other problem is that the United States is now threatening the
Honduran government and saying that they are going to cut aid. Thats very
controversial, because most of the aid that is going to Honduras is to
militarize the country, to militarize our society. And thats not the
answer. Thats not the solution.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Oscar Chacón, I wanted to ask youthe efforts of
President Trump to raise this issue and stick on it are clearly having some
impact. Your sense of how this may actually impact the elections that are
coming up in just a couple of weeks here in the United States?
OSCAR CHACÓN: Well, I dont doubt that there may be some impact, but lets
be clear about the following. The fact that this president has been so
obsessed with immigrants and immigration as a key component of his message,
from the day he announced his desire to become president of the U.S. in
2015, should not make any one of us surprised that hes using the caravan,
essentially, to further advance his well-established line against immigrants
by demonizing them, by dehumanizing them.
And frankly, I believe that the fate of the 2006 [sic] election was shaped
the moment that parties did their respective strategies. If there is indeed
a negative impact in terms of who will come out and vote, I dont believe
that the caravan could in any way be blamed for defining that particular
event. I think that, again, we should not be surprisedif I regret one
thing, its that there is no strong counternarrative from the Democratic
Party about an event like this caravan or migration altogether. And I
believe that thats a flaw that we need to deal with and find a way of
fixing in the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: Oscar, the vilification that Trump uses, whether hes talking
about the criminals from Central America or the Middle EasternersSarah
Sanders was asked about this at the White House, the spokesperson, and she
offered no backing up of saying there are Middle Easterners in the middle of
this as they talked about terrorists. But what effect this has on the
communities across this country?
OSCAR CHACÓN: Well, look, this is banking on almost three decades of
systemic messaging to the effect of Foreign nationals are a threat. They
are terrorists. They are killers. They are rapists. And this is what
consistently has been said both about Latin American immigrants
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
OSCAR CHACÓN: oh, especially Mexicans. So, I just believe they are
continuing pounding something theyve been pounding forever.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both for being with us. We want to
ask you to stay with us. Wed like to do another interview in Spanish for
Democracy Now! en Español. Oscar Chacón, executive director of Alianza
Americas, an immigrant rights group based in Chicago, though hes speaking
to us from San Salvador, and Patricia Montes, immigrant from Honduras,
executive director of Centro Presente in Boston.
Ill be speaking in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, California, Wednesday
night at Soka University. Check our website. Im Amy Goodman, with Juan
González. Thanks so much for joining us.
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