Among many 2018 news, those about the Central American emigrants’ caravans were some of the most resonant. On an emblematic date for Latin America and Spain, October 12, 160 Hondurans—including children—met at a bus station in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second largest city, to march north, fleeing from hunger and violence. Some aspired to stay in Mexico, others to continue to the United States. Then, word spread. The next day, at the time of leaving, about a thousand people had gathered. On their way to the border, more joined the caravan. Four others followed this first caravan: one from Guatemala and three from El Salvador. The different groups added more than seven thousand walkers.
Following a glimmer of hope for better opportunities
For days, media from around the world reported, hour by hour, the progress of the pilgrimages. Numerous journalists joined and experienced the daily difficulties suffered along the way for themselves. The stories of mothers with babies in their arms are overwhelming. A person who starts a journey of more than 3 thousand kilometers, with no more than bread, bananas, and a bottle of water in the backpack, exposed to the ravages of climate, hunger, thirst, and disease, is a desperate human being that keeps a glimmer of hope of finding a better place. As UNHCR has warned, the desire to leave the country is stronger than the danger of rapes, robberies, and deaths that the Zetas—groups associated with the Gulf Cartel that are dedicated to drug trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping, since the 1990s—perpetrate against migrants, often with support and even protection of police officers.
Out of the many chronicles, it is difficult to forget the stories of the exemplary solidarity that the passage of the caravan prompted in rural, dispersed, and poor villages. While Trump issued threats and false accusations—including that the caravan was a cover for terrorists—, very poor families from Guatemala and Mexico helped to alleviate the pilgrim’s hunger and thirst.
A senior prelate of the Honduran Church said that about 300 people leave the country every day. Honduras has a territory of 112 thousand square kilometers and a population of over 9 million inhabitants, of whom more than 6 million live in poverty. Moreover, two thirds of them, about 4 million people, suffer extreme poverty, in an environment of lack of employment, an educational system ravaged by precariousness, and—this is key—in the presence of racial discrimination. In mid-2018, the United Nations Population Fund recognized the “obvious” disadvantages that affect young Afro-descendants and indigenous ethnic groups in fundamental issues such as education, health, and economic opportunities.
The main trigger for these caravans
Although it is a well-publicized situation, it is necessary to allude to violence, which is the main trigger for the forced migration of Honduran families. Until 2016, Honduras led the ranking of the most violent countries in the world. In 2017, San Pedro Sula was, after Caracas and Acapulco, the most dangerous city on the planet, with 112 murders per 100 thousand inhabitants. The list continued with two other Honduran cities: La Ceiba, with 91 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants, and the capital, Tegucigalpa, with 85 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants.
And, although the authorities report a decrease in mortality, in 2018 and so far in 2019, the figures continue to be scandalously high, similar to those of Guatemala and El Salvador. Furthermore, violence is not only about the number of murders. Gangs rape girls and young women, force teenagers to join their ranks, extort transporters, and traffic in drugs. The maras or gangs patrol the families that live in their neighborhoods. In addition, they threaten, extort, and force them to hide weapons, drugs, or criminals. Even worse, they kidnap girls to turn them into sex slaves.
There are neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and La Ceiba, where the purchase and sale of drugs—mainly crack and cocaine—takes place in the streets, in the light of day, and involves minors working with prostitution networks. To this we must add the massacres resulting from territorial struggles between gangs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that there are 12,000 gang members in Honduras, while the police claim that there are 25,000! Including those who, without being members, integrate their networks of collaborators.
International transcendence
Many of the criminals of the most famous gangs—such as Barrio 18, Mara Salvatrucha, or MS13—operate beyond the country. As is known, Honduras is an important transit station for drugs that, originating in Colombia, arrive in small planes from different parts of Venezuela. Authorities from the United States and other countries, as well as experts and officials from different multilateral organizations, have denounced the link between the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles and the Honduran Cartel del Atlántico. Many of these operations have the disastrous collateral effect of corrupting the police forces.
The most serious aspect of gang multiplication is not limited to its quantity and ability to generate victims. The main thing is that they have established a subculture in many Central American neighborhoods, which indicates that whoever enters a mara will hardly leave it. The rituals of initiation, the language, the messages contained in the tattoos, the ways of organizing themselves, the systems of hierarchy and loyalty, the practice of terror, codes, and obligations, are not exclusive to its members, but permeate society. The gang is the vector of a fundamental message: to live is to ignore all forms of authority and impose force on those who live nearby. Despite the efforts of different authorities to control them, reflected in small decreases in the murders, Honduras, like El Salvador and Guatemala, is far from achieving a substantial reduction in violence.
In 2014, President Obama promoted the creation of the Alliance for Prosperity of the Northern Triangle of Central America, aimed at Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. It was the government’s response to the so-called crisis of migrant children. Joe Biden, then Vice President, met with the leaders of the three countries and announced an investment of almost $200 million to address the causes of migration. In addition to fostering regional integration, the program sought to increase opportunities for the inhabitants of the three countries through revitalizing the productive sector, boosting human capital, improving security, and strengthening institutions, which amounted to deepening Democracy. In contrast, the response of the Trump administration to the migratory problem, ratifying the predominant logic of exclusion, was to announce a reduction of the aid committed, and not to execute budgeted resources for that cooperation policy.
Imminent challenges threatening Honduras
In November of 2017, after changing the Constitution to make his re-election possible, Juan Orlando Hernández was elected to a second term as president of Honduras. The irregularities denounced by the rival candidate led the OAS to recommend repeating the elections, but this was not attended. Hernández, sworn in January 2018 amid protests, will govern until 2022.
Surrounded by scandals, including that of a brother linked to drug trafficking, President Hernández tries to govern in the country. An example is the agreement signed between companies, unions, and the government, on January 8 of this year, to increase the salaries of 1.8 million people. The scale of increases, which ranges from 4.7 to 7%, in addition to mitigating the impact of inflation (4.2% in 2018), stands out as the result of an agreement. In broad lines, in a scenario of widespread poverty, the economy grew 3.8% in 2018, less than the 4.2% achieved in 2017.
With growth rates ranging between 3 and 4%, Honduras will hardly manage to reduce poverty significantly. On one hand, there is the immense burden of violence on the gross domestic product, which exceeds 6.5%. On the other hand, there are the unpredictable consequences of climate change that will affect agriculture, the main bastion of the Honduran economy. Between 54 and 55% of Honduran exports depend on products such as coffee, bananas, palm oil, fruits, cocoa, sugar, wood, and others. In recent years, some crops have begun to decrease dramatically as a result of violent cycles of drought and floods. What happened with the corn is a representation of the danger the country is facing: in 2018, 80% of the crop was lost. The experts are categorical: Honduras is the country most affected by climate change in the world, so it faces a real risk of expanded hunger in the near future.
Action Required in the Immediate Future
These are the realities that Honduras and its leadership must face in the present and immediate future. The caravan of some 500 migrants, who, on foot and in the rain, began walking towards the United States on the night of January 14, suggests that this phenomenon will continue to occur. So far, attempts by Honduran authorities—and from Guatemala—to “convince” migrants not to cross into Mexico have not been successful. The World Bank has warned that the situation will probably get worse. This means that more Hondurans will try to enter the United States in the coming months and years.
The question about the future of Honduras does not admit partial answers. Many issues have to be articulated to create basic conditions that allow changing the destiny of the 6 million people whose lives are torn between hunger, gangs, and the inclemency of the road to the United States. Diversifying the economy, creating investment programs in critical areas, depoliticizing the judiciary and public administration, purging the police bodies and closing the territory to drug trafficking, punishing corruption, reforming the electoral law, approving measures to protect the environment, strengthening the quality of education, carrying out urgent actions towards discriminated sectors, and many other necessary measures, can only be implemented if politics allow it. That is, if the political class redefines its role, recognizes the priorities of the population, makes it possible to strengthen institutions, and guarantees that corruption and violations of laws will be punished.
For its part, US foreign policy must deepen economic cooperation and development. The economic opportunities that Honduras offers, similar to that in all of Latin America, has been underestimated. There is no need for a costly wall in the southern border of the US to reverse these migratory patterns. Instead, efforts have to be put in to reduce poverty and violence. The institutional stability and economic prosperity of Honduras will undoubtedly bring benefits to that country, as well as to the United States.