There are factors that may be overlooked why Latin Americans leave their homes, family, neighbors and country to travel elsewhere on dangerous paths.  These factors include destabilization of democratically elected progressive Presidents which relates to decreasing economic improvement and increasing poverty.  Also, violence, the destruction of natural resources and racism are driving people out of their homelands.

 

I was stunned by the Veterans For Peace “Timeline of U.S. Acts of Aggression in Latin America” website. Rationale for these aggressions were spurred by the 1823 signing of the Monroe Document written that any country to the south of the U.S. can be invaded at the will of certain powers to the North. According to the Veterans For Peace website, its basis is “to prevent independence within countries due to increasing Democracy”.  The U.S. pandered to the Latin American oligarchy so both can maintain control. The list of invaded countries includes the following.

 

American William Walker invaded Nicaragua in 1856 with the aid of mercenaries and the U.S. military and made himself President lasting ten months. He overturned their antislavery laws. Later, after trying to invade Honduras, he was sent back to Nicaragua and executed.  In 1954, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, who proposed land reforms, was ousted assisted by the U.S. military. Then in 1964, President Joao Goulart of Brazil, another land reformist, met a similar fate.  Again in 1973, Chilian President Salvador Allende was overthrown and replaced by dictator Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet had over a hundred thousand killed. Torture, rape and imprisonment soared, as did refugees. Worker union activity and land reform policies were suppressed.

The U.S. supported denying the return of President Manual Zelaya, thrown out by a coup in 2009. His sin was to support land reforms and social security measures.  After, the number of femicide and refugees increased. The Honduran president between 2014-2022, Juan Orlando Hernández, is presently under investigation for involvement in illegal drug trading. His brother Tony, in 2019. was given a life sentence for smuggling cocaine into the U.S. and now resides in a U.S. prison.

 

Indigenous leader Berta Carceras, after threats, sent her children out of Honduras and was assassinated in her home in 2016; her crime was to organize the community against a mine project that will destroy natural resources. During the trial of her assassins, a member of the white oligarchy complained of being offended because an Indian dared to enter the restaurant where he was eating.

 

It is ironic that some of the immigrants coming to North America are descendants of those who thousands of years ago arrived from the North and Pacific Ocean to migrate South. Our neighbors need our support to reduce the factors which cause them to leave their homelands.