Guatemala

During the summer of 2014 tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors surged across the U.S-Mexico border. Over the course of the fiscal year, nearly 70,000—mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—endured brutal and at times even deadly conditions as they made their way to the United States. While most of these children were between the ages of 13 and 17, the fastest growing group was 6 to 12 years old. Of the many factors that influenced their individual decisions, four stand out. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, “Unaccompanied Alien Children Encountered by Fiscal Year,” 2015. The first is violence. In 2012, the homicide rate in Honduras reached 90 per 100,000—the highest in the world. El Salvador and Guatemala’s homicide rates were 41 and 40 per 100,000, respectively, some of the highest in the hemisphere. Much of this violence is gang related, fueled by robbery, kidnapping, extortion, and drug trafficking. Extreme poverty and inequality also leads children north. Nearly 67 percent of Hondurans, 45 percent of Salvadorans, and 55 percent of Guatemalans live in poverty. One in two Guatemalan children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, affecting their physical and cognitive development for life. Add in bad schools and few good jobs, there is little reason to stay. The third driving force is family. Over 3 million Central Americans live in the United States, the result of past migration waves. Surveys by Fulbright Scholar Elizabeth Kennedy found that 90 percent of the unaccompanied minors she interviewed from El Salvador had a family member living in the United States. One in three said reuniting with them was the main motivation for leaving home. The importance of family networks is reflected in the disparities in migration paths: despite extreme poverty, few Nicaraguans head to the United States; instead they flock to Costa Rica. Finally, misinformation from client-seeking coyotes pushed many to come. Last spring and summer these traffickers spread rumors that for a limited time United States government would give children amnesty. Pushed out through social media, many families spent upwards of US$8,000 to take advantage of this supposed relaxation in rules. The surge seemed to end as quickly as it began. By September illegal apprehensions were less than half May numbers. One reason for this rapid decline is seasonality. More Central Americans (and Mexicans) come in the spring and summer months when labor needs spike. A second are U.S. efforts to counteract coyotes’ erroneous claims. A US$1 million Spanish-language multi-media “Dangers and Awareness” Campaign ran some 6,500 radio and television advertisements in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to dispel the falsehoods being spread. Perhaps most importantly, Mexico stepped up its southern border and transit route enforcement; curtailing, for instance, migrants riding the infamous train “The Beast.”In 2014, deportations back to Central America jumped by a third. Still, the United States should prepare for a new influx this spring. Poverty, inequality, and violence continue unabated in the region. And a decent U.S. economy provides opportunities that, for many, outweigh the dangers of the trip. If early trends hold, unaccompanied minors heading north in 2015 will likely be second in number only to the record breaking 2014 flows. To help tackle the root causes, President Obama has asked for over US$1 billion to, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, support the “difficult reforms and investments required to address the region’s interlocking security, governance and economic challenges.” Skeptics may argue that the billions of dollars spent in the past have little to show. Others may question whether just US$1 billion, divided between three troubled nations, can make a difference. Leadership and political resolve will matter just as much as resources. But without steps to change the calculus, Central America’s youth will continue their treks to the U.S. border.

The news and statistics from Guatemala are anything but reassuring. More than half the nation’s sixteen million citizens live in poverty. Worse, almost one in two children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, which affects not just their immediate well-being but also limits their physical and intellectual potential for the rest of their lives. Violence is rampant. Guatemala City ranks among the most dangerous cities in the world and the national homicide rate, of 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, is bested by just four countries worldwide. Women especially are vulnerable, not just on the street but inside their homes, as domestic violence and femicide rates are also among the worst in the world. Few receive justice, with prosecution rates averaging just 2 percent of all crimes. Federal actions to take on these challenges have been largely absent or ineffective. And small islands of progress, such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-backed independent body that has prosecuted several serious criminal cases, have been undermined. Even if the political will existed, with tax collection at just 11 percent of GDP—the lowest in Latin America—the government lacks the resources to do much. Despite the dire national outlook, after a recent trip I left with some glimpses of optimism—mainly from both local and private sector efforts to break the vicious cycles of poverty and negative dynamics more generally. These organizations and business are changing the lives of at least some individuals, families, and communities. Trying to take on the debilitating effects of malnutrition is Asociación Puente. The non-profit works directly with pregnant women and young mothers to help ensure better food and nutrition at the vital early stages of life. They also help women start micro-enterprises, to generate the basic income needed to continue putting (nutritious) food on the table.  Founded by former Guatemalan first lady Wendy de Berger and Edna Lima de Morales, the organization has reached over 2,000 families so far. Another is Sheva.com. Started by Marisabel Ruiz, it works to remove at least one of the barriers to girls’ education—puberty. In so many villages Guatemala girls can’t afford sanitary pads. Once they start to menstruate, they miss one out of every four weeks of school, falling permanently behind their classmates and their potential. For each purchase at their U.S. based company, they donate products to girls in need, helping them stay in school. Also in the social entrepreneurship mode is Wakami, an organization started by Maria Pacheco. Originally visiting poor rural communities as a trained biologist, village women kept telling Pacheco what they needed most was jobs. And so Wakami began, harnessing the weaving skills so many women already had but differentiating their products through more modern designs (as opposed to the beautiful but endlessly repeated weavings sold in Guatemala’s local markets). Today, the for-profit business employs nearly five hundred artisans by selling its jewelry in twenty-four countries—including a collaboration with Ann Taylor Loft in the United States. On technology’s cutting edge is MILKnCOOKIES, an interactive communications agency founded by Karla Ruiz Cofiño. Working with clients worldwide to design and build websites, apps and social media strategies, the company leaps up the skill ladder. Competing with technology and app developers globally, it provides not only high paying jobs for those already skilled but also training, presenting at least a handful of fellow citizens a profitable alternative to migration. Each shared what their organizations have found matters to make a difference. One is focusing on women. Studies worldwide show that money given or earned by women is more likely to be spent on children’s food, health, and education. These organizations find similar patterns in their towns, with kids eating better, staying in school longer, and dreaming of a different future than that of their parents when their mothers’ income rises. Another lesson is incorporating men. By providing training and opportunities to everyone in a village, resistance to women’s financial gains lessen. In a society that often restricts a woman and wife’s physical realm to the home, Asociación Puente found that offering workshops and classes to the whole town literally opened the door for women’s involvement. And in a telling discussion with Matilde Garcia, a founder of one of Wakami’s workshops, she related how she employs her husband as her accountant to gain his buy in, though she was quick to share that she is the one that controls the business’ bank accounts. These efforts do help—mattering greatly to those involved by changing individual, family, and community lives. The question remains though can countries such as Guatemala scale these and dozens of other small businesses, non-profits, and non-governmental organizations to change the direction of the nation. Visiting and talking with these women makes you believe that it might in fact be possible.

The region will hold just two presidential elections this year, choosing new leaders in Guatemala and Argentina. More prevalent will be congressional and local elections. Midterms in Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia in particular may prove bellwethers for the direction of these three important regional economies. With term limits barring Otto Pérez Molina from running again, Guatemalans will head to the polls in September. The current front-runner is Manuel Baldizón of the Libertad Democrática Renovada (LIDER), returning to the electoral ring to try and avenge his second round defeat by Pérez Molina in 2011. The president’s Partido Patriota (PP) has thrown its support behind former Minister of Communications, Infrastructure, and Housing Alejandro Sinibaldi. Sandra Torres of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), who divorced former President Álvaro Colom to be constitutionally eligible to run for office, also has significant name recognition and possibilities. Early polls suggest that none of the candidates has the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round. More closely watched, at least from the global financial world hoping to resolve the current debt impasse, will be Argentina’s October presidential elections. President Cristina Kirchner has yet to throw her weight behind any of the precandidates, though most expect her to (grudgingly) endorse Daniel Scioli, current governor of the province of Buenos Aires, who comes from her Frente Peronista para la Victoria (FPV) and is the front-runner in most polls. Other favorites include Sergio Massa, a Kirchner defector and current federal legislator attracting dissident peronist and opposition support behind his candidacy and party, the Frente Renovador. Mauricio Macri represents the one non-peronist in the leading bunch, leveraging his track record as a well-known businessman, former president of the storied Boca Juniors soccer team, and now mayor of Buenos Aires. To win in the first round Scioli would need to convince 45 percent of voters to stick with the FPV (or 40 percent and a 10 percent advantage over the second-place finisher), otherwise he will face a November run-off. Among midterm elections, Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto and his Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) may face significant challenges come July, when the entire lower house, nine governorships, and control of Mexico City’s delegations are up for grabs. The lack of immediate benefits from the recent spate of economic reforms combined with an evolving and deepening political crisis due to several instances of state associated violence and corruption make the PRI vulnerable. The question is whether the fractured PAN and PRD opposition can overcome their own problems to take advantage of their governing rival’s weakness. Colombia will hold regional elections in October that, among other positions, will determine the next mayor of Bogotá—the second most powerful elected office in the country. With well-known leftist Gustavo Petro stepping down, candidates from across the political spectrum have jumped into the race. In polls, the leftist Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA) leads with Clara López. President Santos’ coalition, the Unidad Nacional, will likely endorse Rafael Pardo of Partido Liberal Colombiano (PLC), while former president Álvaro Uribe is already pushing Francisco Santos of the Centro Democrático (CD). Finally, Venezuelans are scheduled to head to the polls in December to renew all 165 members of its National Assembly. In the face of falling public support—with just 25 percent approving of Maduro’s performance—rising inflation, food and basic good shortages, the government has responded with increasingly authoritarian measures. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been in pre-trial detention since February and Maria Corina Machado has been recently charged with conspiring to assassinate President Maduro (along with the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker). Assuming the elections occur as planned, the opposition will have to overcome its own deep historic divisions to do well—a challenge for newly elected executive-secretary of the opposition coalition Democratic Unity (MUD) Jesús Torrealba. If they do, and the Partido Socialisto Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) loses its legislative majority, the stage will be set for the potential recall of Maduro in 2016.  

Despite the standstill in Congress on immigration reform, state and local governments have been very active in passing their own immigration legislation. In this article for Foreign Policy, I look at what different states and cities are doing regarding immigration and the effects of their policies. You can read the beginning of the piece below:  With all the mudslinging and acrimony in Washington over unaccompanied minors and unauthorized immigrants, you might have missed it. Immigration reform has already happened -- in fact, hundreds of times. With the federal government incapacitated, states, cities, and municipalities have stepped into the fray. In 2013 alone, forty-five of the fifty state legislatures passed over four hundred laws and resolutions on everything from law enforcement and employment to education and public benefits. Among this flurry were a few in the Arizona SB 1070 style -- bills making life more miserable for undocumented immigrants. These laws ranged from blocking access to health care and schools to criminalizing common activities such as driving cars or buying homes. But the majority are actually designed to find ways to integrate undocumented immigrants -- funding English language and citizenship classes and providing access to medical care and other social services. You can read the rest of the piece here on ForeignPolicy.com.

This is a guest post by Natalie Kitroeff, a research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations who works with me in the Latin America program. She received her BA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has been acting strange lately. Just one month after his inauguration, he is already ruffling U.S. feathers, and making waves in the politics of the region in unexpected ways. Pérez Molina’s military past and hard-line “mano dura” security policy made many worry that he would backtrack on justice reforms led by the UN Commission against Impunity (CICIG) and the new Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz. Instead, the new president has come out in support of these institutions. Last week he announced that when CICIG’s mandate runs out in 2013, he plans on extending it for another two years without seeking congressional approval. This preemptive decision was in response to a lawsuit filed last month against Álvaro Colom, alleging that CICIG has no right to be in the country because the executive branch bypassed congress to approve its current mandate. The interior minister followed up by asking CICIG to vet his staff to identify any links they may have with organized crime. Vowing to keep Paz y Paz on board for the foreseeable future, Pérez Molina has also stayed neutral as her office tries former de facto President Efraín Ríos Montt on crimes against humanity charges for his role in the civil war (in which the current president was deeply involved). But after this string of pleasant surprises, Pérez Molina’s most recent about face has drawn annoyance and even anger from the United States. Last Saturday he raised the possibility of legalizing drugs in Central America, saying he’d put the debate on the table in future meetings with regional leaders. He followed through on this promise on Monday, when he discussed decriminalization with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes (who first agreed to consider the option, and later retracted facing pressure from Washington). The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala responded with a swift condemnation of the proposal. So what is Pérez Molina’s endgame? A popular theory is that he’s trying to pressure the United States into lifting its ban on weapons sales to Guatemala, instituted in 1978 due to the military’s role in human rights abuses during the civil conflict. This makes sense. The president has spoken openly and frequently about his desire to buy U.S. arms, pressing the issue with head of Southern Command Douglas Fraser during their meeting last November (Fraser said the embargo may well be lifted in the near future). Threatening to decriminalize drugs as a last resort solution the problem of organized crime could pressure the United States to offer an alternative: renewed military aid. But Pérez Molina may also be making a more ambitious attempt to alter the long-standing foundations of U.S. relations with Guatemala and Central America more broadly. The six-country region has largely been an afterthought in U.S. security cooperation with Latin America, which has historically centered on the larger economies of Colombia and Mexico. In FY2013 Central America will receive $60 million in U.S. security aid– less than half of the funds destined for Colombia and a third of total aid to Mexico – and of that Guatemala gets a paltry $2 million. Meanwhile, Pérez Molina inherited a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, and an impunity rate of 95 percent (meaning just 5 in every 100 crimes are solved). The legalization debate is a way of putting Central America – and Guatemala in particular – on the United States’ radar screen. It is also a way of asserting the country’s autonomy from Washington. Pérez Molina joins a long list of leaders calling for decriminalization, including former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In an era of waning American influence in Latin America, he may to be trying to align Guatemala more closely with its regional partners, pulling a country long beholden to the United States out from under its powerful shadow.  

This is a guest post by Natalie Kitroeff, a research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations who works with me in the Latin America program. Without fanfare, or so much as a public arrest, this weekend Guatemala took another historic step toward justice for a genocidal civil war that took the lives of more than 200,000 innocent, mostly indigenous civilians. Just a week after losing his diplomatic immunity, General (Ret) Efraín Ríos Montt was ordered to testify in court about his role in abuses that occurred between 1982 to 1983, when he was de facto President of Guatemala. If judge Patricia Flores decides there is enough evidence to proceed to trial, Ríos Montt will be prosecuted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity (including 626 massacres of civilians in Chimaltenango, Quiché, Huehuetenango and Baja Verapaz). Ríos Montt has made his defense quite clear. Over the past month, he has repeatedly said that he can’t be tried for any human rights violations because he wasn’t in charge of the military’s on-the-ground operations as the country’s political leader. His lawyer has echoed these claims, telling the press recently, “We are sure that there is no responsibility, since he was never on the battlefield.” This strategy is a radical new approach in the Guatemalan context. Until now, the military has consistently denied that genocide was ever a part of the civil war. Even the current president, Otto Pérez Molina, said that he doesn’t believe the findings of the UN truth commission, and that he could “prove that [genocide] did not occur,” during the conflict. But Ríos Montt is now arguing not that the atrocities didn’t happen, but that he is not culpable. While this doesn’t yet amount to an open acknowledgement of genocide, it does suggest that things have changed (if slightly) since the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) first brought charges against Ríos Montt in 1999. The discovery of mass graves by the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) and the tireless work of victims groups in pushing for trials – finally winning convictions for four ex-soldiers this year – has made it untenable for the military to negate the genocide outright, at least in a court of law. Whether or not the “I didn’t make the call” line of defense will work remains to be seen. To win, public prosecutors will have to prove that the army’s brutal scorched earth tactics were part of a coherent state policy designed by the president (not just the work of individual rogue officers). This concept of “intellectual authorship” has yet to be tested in Guatemala, as so far only low-ranking soldiers – the material authors of the crimes– have ever been convicted for war crimes (the one exception is Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, who was convicted as an intellectual author of Myrna Mack’s assassination, but escaped imprisonment and is now a fugitive). Ríos Montt is also taking a further risk with this legal strategy, threatening the military chain of command by deflecting responsibility for wartime violations onto military commanders. His three top officials are now in police custody, including an ex-minister of defense, an ex-military chief of staff and an intelligence officer, undoubtedly alienated from their old boss. As the Chilean and Argentinean justice processes have shown, once the military turns against itself it becomes much easier to prosecute human rights violations. Though Guatemalan prosecutors say they have documents proving a rigid, top-down chain of command, witness testimony from former high-ranking officers would certainly boost their case. And if he isn’t careful to maintain military loyalty, that may be just what Ríos Montt hands them.