Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jul 2014
Source: Post-Standard, The (Syracuse, NY)
Copyright: 2014 Advance Publications
Contact: http://www.syracuse.com/mailforms/opinion/index.ssf
Website: http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686
Author: Paul Welch

OUR MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO UNDOCUMENTED CENTRAL AMERICAN YOUTH

Do Americans have some moral responsibility for the thousands of
Central American youths at our door?

The vast and continuing flow of Central American youths should give
Americans cause to ask why. Poor living conditions in their home
countries would be one obvious reason. However, a deeper look at these
countries' recent history is enlightening.

War and violence is the overwhelming cause for the vast migrations of
people. Over 2 million Iraqis fled their country after Saddam Hussein
fell. Living under Saddam was horrible, but it was the violence of war
that made them flee. Jordan, a country of 8 million, gave refuge to
700,000, while the U.S. took in 85,000 Iraqis.

Guatemala had 10 years of democracy until 1954, when the United Fruit
Company decided that the land redistribution legislation proposed by
President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was a communist.

President Arbenz wanted to turn Guatemala's unused arable land over to
the poor, landless campesinos. He proposed paying the assessed value
for this land. The United Fruit Company had been paying low taxes
because of a low assessment for years.

However, when asked to exchange their unused land, they contacted
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. The U.S. government sent in the
CIA. President Arbenz was deposed. A right-wing government was
installed. Six years later, civil war broke out.

>From 1960 to 1996, the conflict claimed 200,000 lives in a land of
about 7 to 8 million people. One million Guatemalans became refugees
during the 36-year civil war. However, they could not receive asylum
in the United States, because we supported the murderous military
juntas. Some stayed in Mexican refugee camps; others became
undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Archbishop Jose Gerardi was the Oscar Romero of Guatemala. His
tireless work on behalf of poor Guatemalans brought him into constant
conflict with the military juntas of Guatemala. By 1998, his Recovery
of Historical Memory project (REMHI), entitled "Nunca Mas,"
substantiated that 85 percent of the war's human rights violations
were committed by the military.

More than 1,000 individuals and military men were named in the report.
Two days after "Nunca Mas" became public, a military officer with two
accomplices bludgeoned Gerardi to death. This murder was an ominous
sign of the violence ahead.

The School of Americas (SOA) Watch displays a litany of Guatemalan
military murderers on their web site. A sub group of these murderers
are those who attended or graduated from SOA.

In just over a decade, drug war violence replaced civil war violence.
Drug-related violence has surged to "alarming and unprecedented"
levels in Central America as Mexican drug cartels have shifted their
operations, says a United Nations report.

According to the annual report by the International Narcotics Control
Board, the move "has resulted in increased levels of violence,
kidnapping, bribery torture and homicide" in Central America. "The
countries of the so-called 'Northern Triangle' (El Salvador, Guatemala
and Honduras) now (2010) have the world's highest homicide rates." The
2012 homicide statistics from just Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras
show more than 15,000 deaths.

"In Central America, the escalating drug-related violence involving
drug trafficking organizations, transnational and local gangs and
other criminal groups has reached alarming and unprecedented levels,
significantly worsening security and making the sub-region one of the
most violent areas in the world," the INCB report said.

A Rand study commissioned by the U.S. government estimates American
citizens pay $100 billion for illegal drugs annually. This is more
than total U.S. expenditures on tobacco products and $17 billion less
than all alcohol purchases. The same study estimates 24 million
illegal drug users in the U.S.

Whereas it took 14 years to repeal prohibition of alcohol, we are over
40 years fighting the futile drug war. A wide range of leaders,
including conservative icons William F. Buckley and George Schultz,
have advocated for a change in our drug policies. With 24 million
Americans funneling tens of billions of dollars to drug lords, they
have systematically corrupted all arms and levels of Central American
governments. Our drug war is an undeclared war against the people of
Central America.

The above evidence makes the case for U.S. moral responsibility for
the waves of undocumented Central American youth. Listening to what
these brave children tell us, determining whether violence brought
them to the U.S., and treating them with compassion are necessary. It
isn't a pretty task but neither was our sordid involvement in their
countries.
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