In the
latest from Black Agenda Report we find the following:
Why can't Latino politicians and corporate media call the current wave of Central American children refugees, when that's what they plainly are? What's the role of the US drug war, US trained cops and military, and US funded death squads in the violence and poverty that sent them here, and why won't Latino politicians mention that either? And why are none fleeing Nicaragua, which is just as poor as Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador?...
Nicaragua's homicide rate is a third that of Mexico, and its socialist government is free to provide low-cost health care, education, food security, democracy and hope to its people. Hence Nicaraguans are not interested in smuggling themselves north. You'd think Latino politicians would be eager to acquaint a larger US public with these facts, backed up as they are by irrefutable UN statistics.
Anyone else see the obvious question here? No? Let me ask it:
Why, if it is so good in Nicaragua, which has a better situation than Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador, the destination of people from said countries?
Nicaragua borders Honduras. Clearly if the issue is simply fleeing crime, the cheapest and shortest escape would be Nicaragua. Why bother with the far longer and dangerous trip north?
Similarly a person from El Salvador would only have to pass though Honduras to get to Nicaragua. It is probably the same distance as crossing New Jersey.
Guatemalans have a further journey, but still, it is closer than the United States. Furthermore in Nicaragua you don't have people relatively hostile to your culture, including the language.
So why? Why with all these obvious options do persons instead head north to the United States?
Secondly, while we have no disagreement with BAR in their recitation of US interventions in South America, we disagree that the logical conclusion is to shit on African-American working people by telling them they need to support their own dispossession and dilution of political power, the swamping of their schools by students with emotional issues, language issues, educational issues, and the like. Particularly given the dire straights many predominantly African-American schools are already in.
Lastly, BAR's commentary on what Nicaragua has attained shows that depopulating Honduras, etc. is not the way to deal with any real problems in those societies. It is actually by the people who demand better, staying and
making it better, will the situation in those countries change for the better.
