Migration, Summit, and Wrong Ideas

By Javier Herrera

HAVANA TIMES – On October 22, 2023, representatives from 11 countries within the region, plus Mexico, met in the border city of Palenque, Chiapas, to analyze and take measures to tackle the unprecedented migration crisis in the region. Attendees included Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica and Panama, the main sources of migrants who embark on one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

The summit takes place 15 days after a high-level migration meeting between the US and Mexican governments, and at a time when both countries are increasing fast-track deportations.

During the summit, the main motives for mass migration in the region were analyzed, which heavily impacts Central American countries as they are the epicenter of migration as intermediary places on the way to the final destination of the USA.

Strategies outlined agreed on drawing up an action plan that centers around food security, protecting the environment, energy security, trade, investment and fighting organized crime.

The summit ended with a joint statement that rejected “coercive measures”, the promise to respect humans’ right to migrate and the appeal for more legal alternatives to migration, clearly addressing the US, where migrants try to go.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador committed himself to presenting a unified regional stance to US President Joe Biden, in November.

Reading the closing statement, it’s especially powerful to see that these countries agreed to lobby for sanctions and coercive measures to be waived in the region, referring to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as encouraging a dialogue between the Cuban and US governments.

At a summit of this level and rigor, we can assume that participants are informed enough about situations in these three countries, or maybe they just prefer to turn a blind eye and ignore reality.

It would have also been good if they had urged dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to do something for their people and to withdraw from power, if possible, to give way to a free and democratic government, giving free reign to the productive forces in each of these countries.

Migration has always existed, but ever since man went from hunter/gatherer to farmer, thousands of years ago, a bond was created with their place of origin. Mass migration used to only be seen when there were natural disasters that made a region uninhabitable or if there was war and invasions.

More than migration, Cuba is suffering a mass exodus today. Young and old, workers and professionals, children, entire families and anyone with the financial means to pay for a ticket or has someone to buy them a ticket, are fleeing the beautiful Caribbean Island.

Digging into the motives for this Cuban exodus, it’s normal to hear that people’s first response is the poverty that is destroying the country and a lack of hope that any of this changes in the short or mid-term. After laying out the economic reasons for migrating, Cuban migrants then tell you about the lack of freedoms they suffer, how it’s impossible to complain to the authorities if they don’t want to be persecuted and locked up by mobs from Cuban State Security.

Somebody needed to explain to leaders present at the summit that “coercive measures” that prevent the Cuban economy from taking off aren’t the US embargo’s sanctions on the island, but political/economic policies made by the Cuban Communist Party, which has been in power for 64 years. Proof of this came when 20 representatives from MSMEs (the budding private sector in Cuba) recently visited Miami with the purpose of finding training, business opportunities and funding in the country that the regime claims is blocking the island.

It’s not the US embargo that is stopping Cubans from fishing in national waters. It’s not the embargo that is stopping Cuban farmers from selling their hard-earned produce freely, while their goods rot in the Cuba’s state purchasing entity ACOPIO’s establishments. It’s not the embargo that has been stopping the slaughter and commercialization of beef for 60 years. It’s not the embargo that dismantled over two thirds of the existing sugar mills, which were the country’s main economic activity.

Similarly, it’s not the embargo’s fault that Cuba’s misgovernment is incapable of honoring its debts because it’s taking the money it collects in the country to invest in political propaganda, to pay pro-regime militant groups in different places and is boosting its internal repressive apparatus. It’s not the embargo’s fault that the regime is paying Cubans in a currency without any financial backing and is selling food and other basic essentials in US dollars. It’s not the embargo’s fault that the regime is exporting professionals to countless countries and is only paying them 20% of the wages agreed in work contracts, making them virtual slaves.

It’s not the embargo that has locked up over a thousand young people for the “terrible” crime of taking to the streets and demanding a change of regime given the current one’s inability to fix the systemic crisis that is devastating the country.

If governments within the region really wanted to stop the Cuban migration flow, they should stop supporting the dictatorship with biased and false statements, and demand the regime give its citizens all the political and economic freedoms every human being has a right to.

Another part of the closing statement that makes one sad to hear and read is the fact that they are demanding destination countries – the US – to extend legal, organized and safe migration channels with a special emphasis on work mobility and to promote the reintegration and return of seasonal workers.

They aren’t taking into account the fact that it’s every State’s sovereign prerrogative to grant entry to migrants or not, no matter what their status. If these whining leaders were to achieve food security, protect the environment, energy security, trade, investments needed and keep organized crime at bay, with objectives like they are drawing out at this summit, they wouldn’t be dealing with emigration that is burdening Central American countries today.

It’s interesting that none of these action plans to reduce migration flow talk about political/administrative corruption present in so many Latin American countries today and are the breeding ground for the evils that are devastating our region. There’s proof we can win this fight, and we have El Salvador, a country that has gone from being one of the most violent in the world to an example of citizen security in just a few years, where they are working for a better future, a future that Salvadorans are living today.

It’s time to stop blaming the neighbor to the North for all of the evil that is suffocating us and to turn our gaze inwards at our own societies. The US isn’t in debt with the rest of the Americas for the poverty it’s planted with decades of corrupt governments and Marxist guerrillas that became criminal gangs that have taken our lands to war, death and destruction. 

It’s in every country affected by migration’s hands to stop the exodus and complaining to the powerful neighbor isn’t the way to do it. We have to restructure our societies and governments and if there’s one thing we should be asking the US, it’s for help and advice. But careful! It’s one thing to ask and another thing to demand that they change their migration policy under the threat of continuing to allow caravans of migrants that creates a crisis on the Mexican border and affects this country too as a result.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times