 Hi everyone, welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We broadcast every Wednesday evening, 7.30pm Eastern, 4.30pm Pacific. Tonight, we're going to share with you a very special event that took place on Monday, March 8, which was International Women's Day. And this was an event that was organized principally by our wonderful activist friends at Friends of Latin America, and it's an event that is focused on women's voices of Central America, impacts of US policy on migration. So this event was co-sponsored by CodePink, Alliance for Global Justice, Friends of Latin America, as I mentioned, and the different Roots Media, POCS, Christie, and Share Foundation. The program opens tonight with a doc, I don't even want to call it a video, let's call it a short documentary, about a 25-minute documentary entitled Women Displaced, Central American Migration Made in the USA. This film was produced by CodePink's Latin America Campaign Coordinator, Michelle Elner, and the film is followed by an informative and impassioned conversation with three women, women from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and they're going to talk about what some of the causes of their purposes for migrating with a specific emphasis on US foreign and economic policy in their countries, and that form of intervention in addition to over-military intervention. So before we start tonight, I want again to give a huge thank you to two fellow activists, Jill Clark Gollum of Friends of Latin America. The first project we're going to share with you tonight was her vision and ultimately her creation, and also again a huge thank you to Michelle Elner for the film that we're going to start you with right now. So enjoy the evening and we will talk with you at the end of the program. You'd like to start. Thank you. Thank you. No human being is illegal. No human being is illegal. Thank you very much, Nilo. Thank you. And if you could please give us a little bit of another song that would be great. We're on Facebook here with this light technical glitch, but if you could give us a few more minutes of song that would be great. I'd be happy to. I'm going to sing this song for you from my album. People fighting to be a single drop of water. And right up in the sun. A trickle can be so goodbye. That's why we're just a little rushing. Excellent Lilo. Thank you so much. First of all, I would like to bring up a very important point, which is about interpretation. As we go forward, we must be aware of language justice. So right now I am going to share with you our information on how we are going to use interpretation function on zoom. If you give me just a second, I will open a window to share with you the instructions on how to use the interpretation function. Okay, now you should be seeing the information. First, I'm going to explain it to you in Spanish. If you're sitting in front of a computer, you should see an icon at the bottom of your screen of a globe that says interpretation. Click on the icon. And then you will get a drop down menu and you can select Spanish Spanish and you'll hear everything in Spanish. If you're listening on your smartphone, you should find the three little dots together at the bottom right. And then you'll get a menu that includes language interpretation and you should select Spanish, but you must also select finalizado or done. It's important to remember that last step. Otherwise, you will not get Spanish. All right. So now I'm going to go through this in English. Here's the English version are English speaking and you need interpretation. You if you're in your computer, you can click interpretation below and then click on English. And then you'll be able to hear this whole presentation in English. And if you're on your smartphone, you can click the three dots right below and then look for language interpretation. Once you find that you just click language interpretation and then the language that you want to listen to, which is English. And then you have to click done in order to make sure that you are able to listen to the interpretation. Okay, so if everybody is good with that, which is a very important piece of this presentation, I will go back to here and let's see. There we go. An important thing that I want to tell you is that over the course of this event, you are going to hear narratives from people who have suffered through different experiences. And I want to let you know that some of these experiences might be graphic so you can take whatever steps you need to protect yourself if you need a break, please take one. And I also want to extend greetings to everyone who is tuned in to this program today on Monday, March 8 International Women's Day. But now that we do have interpretation, I want to thank our friend Milo Gonzalez once again who is with us today and celebrating and singing to all of the women of the world through the group that's gathered here today. We have organized this event. Ligo Gonzalez is a singer-songwriter on topics that help us build a better world. He was a primary school teacher in El Salvador but had to migrate without documents as he tells us to the United States. I'm sorry about that interference and we're back to our program. I just wanted to tell you that Lilo had to migrate to the United States after the brutal civil war in his country and he's been singing for decades, not only on the struggle for the rights of migrants, but also on his own experiences. So we're very pleased to have you with us today, Lilo. And as we know, this struggle requires the contribution of everyone. It means all of our talents to lift our spirits and raise our awareness. Thank you very much, Lilo. We should remember that on today's International Women's Day, we should remember how it began. Initially, it was proposed as the Working Women's Day by Clara Seque during the Second International Conference of Socialist Women held in Copenhagen in 1910. A few months later in 1972, the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 3010 declared in 1975 to be the International Year of Women. And in 1977, invited the member states to declare, according to their own historic traditions and national customs, one day to be the International Day for the Rights of Women and for International Peace. We should never forget that saying that we should recall today, today is not a day for parties, rather it is a day for struggle and protest. My name is Roxana Ben-Besu. I am a migrant of Quechua descent and a human rights defender and founder of the Migrant Roots Foundation and also the communications director of Pax Christi USA. I extend greetings to you from lands that have been cared for and shared by and respected by the Inua and Okanichi peoples on Turtle Island, territory which is currently known as Durham, North Carolina, United States. I mention this very intentionally because when we talk about forced displacement as we're going to be doing tonight, we must also make the effort to understand the history of the people who inhabited the land that we are standing on today. And we should also acknowledge their descendants who live amongst us, who also are suffering within a system that was specifically created to expel them from their ancestral lands and their natural resources, criminalize them and even make them ashamed of their ancestral customs and wisdom. We know this very well, don't we? We should be consistent and take on the values of liberation for each and every one of us. In addition, I would like to mention that this event is being devoted to the memory of Sister Diana Ortiz of the Earthline Sisters congregation. Roxana, you're muted. Okay, now I'm back. Thank you. That's probably for a good reason. I think there is a good reason that I accidentally muted myself because this is a very emotional thing for me. My colleague Diana Ortiz recently passed away. She was an Ursuline nun and she herself lived through the nightmare of being abducted and tortured in 1989 when she was in Guatemala. Unlike so many other people, managed to escape from her captors. However, she was never able to escape from me living in her mind and body that horrible experience. As a way to help herself heal, later on she helped found the International Coalition to support the abolition of torture and in support of survivors. This became a global movement. I'm going to put her image here for all to see. So we are very humbly devoting this event to her. I also would like to read a paragraph from a New York Times article which says with the passage of time, declassified documents show that the Guatemalan forces that committed acts of genocide during the Civil War had been trained and equipped by the United States. And so, Francis is why we are here today to raise these banners and say never again. We are here to tell our stories from our own lived experiences. No one else can tell these stories for us. We have our own voices. We never were and never will be voiceless people. We have always had a voice. We are many voices. What we need are platforms. So now we are going to show a beautiful video to you which was put together, edited and compiled by a colleague, a compañera. I don't know how to describe her because she puts so much of herself, so much of her time into this project. I would like you to see her because she is a wonderful person who at all times throughout this project showed a great desire and passion for this struggle. She put all of herself into this and we are most grateful to her. Thank you. Let's watch the video together now. So I'm going to be signing a national emergency because we have an invasion of drugs, an invasion of gangs, an invasion of people. And it's unacceptable. So I knew that gangs have more power than the authorities in my country. So I knew that there were two things that could happen. One was that they achieved their goal and killed me. Or that they took away my child, which was one of the two things that they wanted. So the moment came when after so many threats, so many bad deals and all of that, I decided to leave Honduras basically three years ago, in 2018. This became visible to the United States public with a flood of unaccompanied minors from the three Northern Triangle countries starting in 2012 and large caravans of migrants in more recent years. They took us to the church, so from there we decided to join them in a group. Like on the phone, there is a message that they send, so they send caravans. So we went to join the caravans. But it's difficult to walk on the road because you have to walk on the road, you have to walk on the road, you have to be cold, you have to be hungry. We walk on the road almost every two weeks. Just walking on the road is hard. The mainstream narrative often implies that the poverty and violence that trigger the migration of Central Americans are of their own making. Some argue that immigrants should stay in their own countries and work to resolve their problems. But this fails to recognize the role of US intervention. From outright military aggression to trade agreements that attack small farmers, all of these forms of US meddling have contributed to the northward flow of migrants. Nobody wants to leave their country. But regardless of whether you leave with documents or without documents, when you leave the country, because you can't raise your family, you can't have that support in the economic part to be able to take out the daily life or to be able to project the life of your family to the future. The US government has repeatedly intervened in Central America to protect US companies, starting in the early 1900s with the United Fruit Company, which was the largest landowner between Colombia and Mexico, and which violently quashed all banana workers' efforts to organize unions. US Marines were called in whenever necessary. My name is Elva Guilard. I came from El Salvador at the age of 36. The reason why I came was mainly economic. I saw that it wasn't enough to be a single mother. I saw that the situation was increasingly difficult. I lived in that insecurity, in all those houses that seem to be locked up in prisons, because you don't know if someone is going to come in at night. We used to sleep in El Salvador with one eye closed and the other open. The circumstances that forced me to go to the US were poverty. Here in El Salvador, my father was killed in the war. In 1990, I was 5 years old, and my mother was left with 9 children. It was a very difficult time for me because I always wanted to study and move forward. But my mother said she didn't have money to give me and I could continue my university career. In December 10, 1981, the Salvadoran Army Brigade, based in San Miguel and the Atlocat Battalion, an elite infantry unit based in San Salvador, arrived in El Mazote. Over the next two days, these troops methodically and viciously murdered the town's residents and those of nearby villages. On the morning of December 11, troops assembled the people of the town square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked them in separate groups in the church. The convent and various houses. Around noon, they began taking the women and girls in groups, separating them from their children and machine gunning them after raping them. Many families were ordered to remain in their homes while soldiers set fire to their houses. Over 140 of the children, some mere infants, were jammed into the convent next to the church. Their soldiers blocked the doors, aimed guns through the windows and fired into the mass of children, murdering them all in cold blood. They then threw an incendiary bomb into the building, collapsing the roof and adobe walls. In the 1980s, the United States armed, trained and equipped the Salvadoran Armed Forces, in particular the Army. At El Mazote, U.S. guns and bullets were used to massacre infants, children, women and men. The causes for the recent wave of emigration from El Salvador date back to the early 1980s, a popular block inspired by the triumph of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1979, clamored for change, including revolutionaries, group in the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. In the face of this challenge, the United States and the President Reagan spent more than $6 billion in aid to the government and military. These programs contributed to the fierce repression that resulted in the death, disappearance and rape of over 75,000 people in a cycle of violence that left the country with widespread poverty and long-term post-traumatic stress. Hi, I'm Sonia Humansor. I'm originally from El Salvador. I'm a migrant at the same time. I suffered the war. I had to leave El Salvador in the 1980s because there was a very large intervention from the United States. This intervention was military, economic and political. We were about to have a progressive revolution, but just like in Vietnam, the United States intervened to prevent it, and what was achieved was a long civil war of 12 years, in which thousands of young men fled, so as not to be recruited by armed forces. They didn't want to join the guerrillas either. When they arrived in the United States, they were alone, without family, without their mothers, without good friends, without a favorable environment to be able to study and overcome. What they found was a hostile environment, of harassment by the gangs, because of the desire to survive. They joined these groups, in addition to seeking family heat. They found it somehow among the criminals on the street. After a while, these young men were sent to prison and deported to their countries of origin, El Salvador, Honduras. The intervention of the United States has been in different fields, in different moments in our country, and these are the results. Right now I don't have a job. Yes, I'm working in San Pedro, but I quit. I quit to emigrate, because the minimum wage was not enough. I have four children. That's why it's my main basis, to have a house for them. In the 1980s, the U.S. under the Reagan administration trained a paramilitary group known as the Contras on Honduran soil, in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua. The sale of arms and military aid to Honduras increased, as did the militarization of the country. This set the state for massive Honduran immigration to the United States. Another immigration surge occurred in the wake of the U.S. aided overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, who implemented popular reforms. Since the 2009 coup, a series of corrupt administrations have unleashed open criminal control of Honduras, intersecting organized crime and drug traffickers with the country's police force, all with the blessing of the United States. It was a neoliberal coup. The end was to privatize, privatize, privatize. The result has been that people see themselves in more danger, that health is getting worse and worse. It's the root of the crisis on the border we have now. To have a job here in Honduras, to be looking at the machine, let's see. The minimum I earned was 2,900 or 2,300, because they gave me deductions and that to spread it in my past, in the case of the school, the school, my children. I'm Carla García. I'm the coordinator of International Relations of the Fraternal Organization, Negra Hondureña. I've been living in New York for centuries. The United States has been working permanently for eight years to achieve what is claimed once the rights of our communities are defended. In this particular case of the Garipuna community. We defend life, we defend the territory. By defending the territory, we are defending the right to nature, to continue being and providing for our generations, not only the Garipuna community, but the generations in the world. However, we see how governments agree on cooperation. We talk about governments, for example, like the one in Canada, the government of the United States, the government of Japan, Taiwan, China. To stay with pieces of territory in Honduras, which unfortunately are territories that are located in the area where we live, to make economic developments, whether it's a hotel or production. Production brings as a consequence chemicals that harm our land and hotel complexes do not allow us to return in a natural way to the beaches or to the sea. My name is Annalisa Hermelde. I'm 36 years old. I have five children. I'm from here in Progreso. And I dedicate myself to recycling of bottles and of iron. I was 16 years old. I worked more than that because we... Well, for me, it was never a study. My study was only the third grade. The work we do is... I leave from five in the morning until three in the afternoon. When things are going well, people give it to them because there are people who give them the bottles, iron, they give them materials, so we fill the bottle, then we return in the morning. But when we don't, we have to walk all day. We go with the coffee. We eat all day. When we are like this, because when I help the children, they get hungry, so what I do is that people give me my bottles. But it's difficult. Good afternoon. My name is Ana Jose Farrayo. I'm originally from Managua, Nicaragua. My first career was when I left the university, I took out industrial engineering, with the time and with the opportunities I gave to start studying pharmacy, I took out medical technology, I took out the career of the company administration and I achieved the opportunity to get a master's degree. A master's degree in public health and a master's degree in mental health. The political situation in Nicaragua in the last nine years has been a bit difficult. However, despite that difficulty, we are still the country we belong to. In Nicaragua, it has been established as one of the safest countries in the military. The security in Nicaragua is marked also by the support or the organization's progress that the population has developed and also by the support that institutions in the government have been implementing. I believe that the opportunities for work in Nicaragua have increased. In the case of women, each time we are having more opportunities, opportunities are being opened to study, to work and that also helps to improve the family economy. All of this helps us to keep ourselves sometimes or to fight for being a family and to take care of the core of the family which is very important. So, there are a number of factors that we have to consider and that have allowed the situation of immigration in Nicaragua to be improved considerably. In neighboring Nicaragua, few people are migrating north today. This is partially because the country is one of the safest in Latin America. In stark contrast with its Central American neighbors and also as a result of social programs implemented by the Sandinista government to alleviate poverty, the migration that occurs tends to be of a temporary nature, mainly seasonal work, to get higher wages. But Nicaragua is not free of U.S. intervention. In the 1980s, Nicaragua's popular revolution was stymied by the U.S. run counter-revolutionary war which killed over 30,000 Nicaraguan peasants and government workers, maimed thousands and decimated the economy. In a desperate bid to end the war, the terrorized population voted for Washington's candidates in 1990, ushering in 16 years of neoliberal rule. The Sandinistas returned to power in 2007. The U.S. responded by imposing sanctions to block Nicaragua from accessing development loans. Last year, journalists uncovered a U.S. aid plan for regime change in the country that seeks to impose a corporate-friendly economy. We also have a small farm located in the municipality of Esmigalpa. We have five apples on the ground. There we have a pig farm. We have cattle, not a large amount of cattle, but milk is extracted to make a farm, and we have chickens from different areas. I emigrated four years ago when I went to meet the country of Panama. Panama, right? But this is why I did it. Because I was thinking about trying to strengthen that farm that we have agricologically, because we have various fruit plants. I wanted to tell my father that I wanted to emigrate because he was looking at the wages and all the policies offered to young people. Those false policies from all the countries where they tell us that if you emigrate to a country you will have a very good salary earning well and that you will be able to send returns to your country, to your family. But it really isn't like that. Nicaragua is a country evidently agricultural. The effects of climate change generated in previous years migration from the city, from the countryside to other countries, especially Costa Rica, thanks to the institutionalization of productive programs for the agricultural sector of the government of reconciliation and national unity. Today the families are doing resistance in the countryside through agricultural production. Programmes such as Hambresero, Usurasero, food production, among other things are programs that have come to transform the quality of life of women, to transform the quality of life of families and above all to generate development in the countryside. I was assigned, chosen within the whole place. We were several chosen by the government. I was also assigned with a cow. She was learned. So she brought another cow which is now learned by her and a little girl who is the one she is loving. US-backed governments in Honduras and El Salvador have promoted free-market capitalist policies known as neoliberalism and the weakening of the country's limited social programs which in turn has exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities and poverty setting off the massive migration that we have seen in recent years. Corporations undertake mega-projects for the exploitation of natural resources which have a devastating environmental effect ruining small farmers who end up leaving the area. The government is responsible for that because I think the government is responsible because it must see the situation of all the people of the poor communities because there is no work for the people. Finally, women are the silent victims of the violence that these Washington-promoted policies have produced. Just as they are the most vulnerable in their own violence-ridden countries, they are the most vulnerable in the precarious journey north. What conditions would have allowed me to stay in Honduras? A little more security? Well, a little bit of security I would have been able to stay. In this moment it is very difficult, insecurity is terrible more and more the economic situation is very difficult in my country and when the economic situation is difficult, insecurity grows more. When we look at the history of the United States intervention in Central America and its impact on migration flows, it becomes clear that the best path to immigration reform is to reform US foreign policy. Perhaps if the US could see its southern neighbors as equals and respect our differences, Central Americans could work out their problems without having to leave their home. And we could begin to work together as equal partners to tackle the world's biggest problems that require global cooperation such as pandemics and most particularly the climate crisis. For migration, the war on drugs, poverty and the environment we only stand to benefit from a policy that is facing peace, cooperation and respect. Go to codepict.org to find out more and let's work together to transform the US into a good neighbor. You can also take action against sanctions and economic war by visiting sanctionskill.org slash petition to tell the new US administration to end economic sanctions in the face of the global pandemic. Also, if you want to read a good analysis of the Biden-Harris Administration Plan for Central America, go to www.migrantroots.org slash reports. All right. And now we have to say bravo. One little thing. We have to unmute our microphones. Johnny, if you can help me let people unmute themselves because I think the interpreters have to interpret. Yes, both can unmute themselves now. Great. Thank you for doing that. And please help me thank Michelle for this amazing work that she has done for our community for the world, really. Gosh, I mean, talking about so many countries here that have been affected by US foreign policy and this work is incredibly important. So, now I see I reverted to English. Thank you, Michelle. Bravo. I thank all of you for being here. When they first talked to me about this project, I fell in love with it. I never thought that I was going to fall in love with it this much when I began to do it now. When I see in person the women leaders and all these faces that I've gotten to know I'm so thrilled. This is very important work. We see that people talk about the lives of migrants and their suffering but often we really don't understand the role of the United States intervention in all of this. That's why I fell in love with this project. I hoped everyone would be here to see it and I'm so pleased that you are. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michelle. I also would like to take a moment to introduce the other people who have been working on this for a few months now. Thank you. All right, Leslie, could you please come on screen? Let me add you in here. I'm so grateful for all of your work. Let's see where's Jill. I don't know why it doesn't allow me to spotlight you and maybe it's because you're interpreting right now and Jill Clark is someone else who supported us throughout this project. Christy Graciela Lobo is also someone who collaborated with us. Let's see if I can get Christy on screen. There you are. Thank you very much. We also have Marina. Where are you, Marina? Oh, maybe she doesn't want to be seen, but Rina Adler is an academic who helped us do a lot of the research that went into this video. There's Marina. Nice to see you. Thank you very much. And Terry Matson from Code Pink is also part of the team. Let's see, I can add you in, Terry. Hi, how are you? So this has been a rather large group that has been growing and there are even more collaborators who have joined us from the Alliance for Global Justice. We also have Natalia with us. I don't know whether I can put you on screen, Natalia. We have such a long list of participants that it's hard to find everyone, but I want you all to be aware that this event has been implemented by an impressive group of women who have put their all into it. We also want to thank the interpreters as I said one of them is Jill Clark and also Jasmin Rumbol who is interpreting right now. Thank you, Dylan Hasmin. Excuse me for the accidental screen share. All right, so we can now continue and I am very excited to introduce the wonderful panel that we have for you of leaders, women leaders from three countries. I will first introduce Sonia Imansor. Where are you, Sonia? I'd like to put you on screen. There you are, Sonia. Sonia is a native of El Salvador and one of the founders of Clinica del Pueblo in Washington DC a human rights activist a political refugee in the United States and the director of Casa Rutilio Grande. How are you, Sonia? I'm very well. Thank you. It's an honor to be here today with all of you women struggling for a battle world and I'm very excited to extend warm greetings and revolutionary embrace to the other women leaders working all over the world of course my sisters in El Salvador and I want to tell you that today is the day to reiterate our commitment to fight for a better world. Thank you. We also have Carla Garcia with us. Carla Garcia is a Garifuna it's a spiritual leader and the director of international relations which is the Black fraternal organization of Honduras. Thank you very much for being here today Carla. Thank you very much Roxana and a very good evening to this incredible audience and I see that it's been very loquacious in the chat. I am a member of the Garifuna community in Honduras and I currently live in New York but from here I am trying to work to raise awareness about the efforts being made by the Garifuna community the indigenous community and the Honduran community itself to move forward. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. Thank you sis Roxana. We also have Yolanda with us. National coordinator of the movement of women of the countryside of ATC a part of La Via Campesina the ATC is the Rural Workers Association. How are you Yolanda? Can you turn on your microphone? There you go. Yes greetings to everyone says Yolanda. It is an honor for me to share this forum with you particularly with such wonderful women as Carla and Sonia whom I know have a tremendous experience in this social struggle to transform the lives of women and their living conditions and the lives of migrants and immigrants. So greetings to you from Nicaragua today on March 8th International Women's Day in which we are also raising awareness about the struggles we women are engaged in every day. Thank you for having me here. Thank you Yolanda. So we have this extraordinary panel of women from three different countries in Central America and they have the authority to speak about their own communities and their own lived experiences. First of all I wish to tell you that we have some questions ready for the panelists but we also hope to get questions from the audience. So if you are interested in getting questions to the three women leaders please post them in the chat and we have our colleagues looking for those questions and they will share them with us to see what our panelists might respond. So let's get started with the first question. And any one of you can respond but we hope that your responses are relatively short no more than two minutes because we want to have a fluid conversation in which all of us can participate. So the first question is that the documentary talks about direct military intervention but these days the US government has found less visible forms of intervention such as challenging elections results when their candidates don't win or when the US favored candidate wins through electoral fraud the US helps them gain international recognition through forums where they have influence such as the organization of American states. Could you comment on this? Carla says go ahead Sonia Carla Well that's a very interesting question because of what has been happening in Honduras since the coup d'etat first they ratified the coup d'etat rather gave the blessing to a coup d'etat in which the president was removed from the country violently and then repression was imposed on the population that was protesting in the street and then they formed the so-called unity governments in which members of different parties came together to continue or rather perpetuate the coup d'etat after that they called elections and even though the candidate who won is not the one that the population voted for they stay in office it's important to look at what's happening in Honduras under the current president a president who by the way is appears in the documentary we just watched his brother is in jail in the united states awaiting sentencing in the southern district court and also hear the name of the president of the republic Juan Orlando Hernandez and gauged in very high level drug trafficking we see this in high definition and this individual got re-elected against the rules of the constitution the most absurd thing is that the representative of US interest in Honduras because after the coup d'etats there is no embassy or ambassador as such but rather a representative of the US interest the US interest section and so this is the person from the public US interest section went into the vote counting hall and changed the vote count and said that the US surfer was the president and in this way they perpetrated a government that is destroying and feeding destroying the country and feeding the chains of immigrants fleeing to the united states in this regard I can say that in El Salvador for the past couple of years we've had a young president a millennial from the bourgeoisie and who is right-wing but he won spouting left-wing discourse and his discourse was we're going to destroy all of the corrupt political parties but then he associated with one of the most corrupt political parties whose founder is still in jail and now El Salvador is suffering under a a government that really has dictatorial features just in my country observing the elections in El Salvador and I was a witness to what happened at the end of the day the results came out which are really devastating for the left and the other parties but despite all of this and these results are going to be legitimized even though there has not been a final vote count they would don't have a final official report but we do expect that it will be a big victory for Bukele but based on all of the deceit that he has been practicing and the manipulation and a campaign of hate, violence, confrontation and intolerance this has been taking place on a daily basis under this young politician for the last couple of years in addition we are now seeing that this president used the entire state apparatus and all of the states resources to promote hatred against the social movements left wing parties other political parties this has been very impressive and very worrisome the loss of human rights the political rights for the opposition and of course the Salvadoran population has been losing benefits that were put in place by the FMLN administrations the two progressive administrations that existed before Bukele so it's a very unfortunate situation and I was going to start out by saying Roxana what you said this is our daily bread we see how the US moves to one side or another according to what serves their interests I would say that in the case of Nicaragua historically we have been resisting aggression from the United States this is already very well known the armed conflict that cost thousands of Nicaraguan lives and now their means of aggression have taken a different form the attempted coup d'etat of 2018 showed us in Nicaragua that we were not mistaken we do have an enemy there threatening and attacking the Nicaraguan people and will not allow the people of Nicaragua decide their own national policies but we Nicaraguans continue to put up the fight we are aware that the United States is not going to change its policy towards Nicaragua however the people have shown dignity in withstanding the US aggression and we know that this aggression only seeks to hold back the development of the Nicaraguan people so the fact that there was an attempted coup in 2018 and there are sanctions imposed on a number of Nicaraguan figures means that the US government is continuing to use the same methodology but right now it's not an open armed conflict it's taking other forms and the clear objective is to not only subject the people of Nicaragua to their will but peoples of the world and so the Nicaraguan people and the peoples of the world are going to continue to resist this to preserve our dignity and our sovereignty which is the most important thing Roxana, thank you very much and we can see that we do have allies in the United States there are people who work to have some impact with the bill for example right now there is a bill before the senate and another one in the house of representatives to try to remove the US support for the Juan Orlando Hernandez regime and also obviously people for several years pushing for the which I know you are very familiar with Carla I don't know if you want to mention this this was mentioned by one of our very dear companion who is very closely involved in this work to support the communities in Central America Carla thank you Roxana I also do not want to miss the opportunity to speak about the communities in Honduras there are no more US military bases than in any other country in Central America and they are located in strategic points not necessarily near the sea which we know that given the international chess board these bases tend to be placed in coastal areas but rather these are also in places of natural resources gas minerals natural gas and forestry resources that's not for the case of the US in which the US military fired on Miskito fishermen and also recently we had a very similar problem one of the naval bases of Honduras fired on a group of Garifuna who were going from their community to the beach because there is no road and they the US soldiers said that they mistook them for drug traffickers that's a normal occurrence Bertha Caceres our sister Bertha Caceres whose five year anniversary death anniversary just took place it's five years since she was planted as a seed for us she always said that they never stop doing what they're doing with the Honduran people particularly with the Lanca people and the Garifuna people we have always worked together with our two organizations of Rene and Copin she always said that the US should stop supporting the regime in Honduras Bertha Caceres this bill which has been there for a few years since shortly after her assassination by this usurping murderous government since then there has been a movement to have a bill or a law that rather than taking away funds from the government of Honduras but would insist on a true investigation of what is happening internally and by the way we would find out who are the allies in the United States that are keeping these types of governments in place with all of the nepotism that this carries I know that the bill has undergone some amendments over time and I understand that it has a lot of support but it hasn't yet been passed we continue to fight for it as Roxana said and these are some new things in addition to the Bertha Caceres bill there are a couple of new bills so we have to see what will happen with this obviously these types of bills also are tools for raising awareness and raising the voices experiences and stories that give us the history of the roots the displacement of our communities so we can now go on to the second question at present the United States is applying unilateral sanctions on 39 countries around the world including Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela which is illegal under the UN OES Charters what methods has the US been using to interfere in your countries so Sonia we're a little bit shy well I'll take the floor again to say that I keep running out of time because we don't have enough time to truly describe the situations we have been living through and which we continue to live in through our people are subjected to this because of this intervention that all of this intervention from the United States in our countries leave us devastated leaves us with problems of all kinds there's the immigration problem which is what is most visible up here and if you they look at immigration as if well we immigrants wake up one day just dreaming of going to the United States but we know that in actuality there are situations that have forced us to leave our countries Lilo knows this and so many of our brothers and sisters who are here know this because they lived it in the flesh they know how heart wrenching it is to make a decision to leave your country and migrate so many years and struggle in our countries for example have to be abandoned what we have witnessed is electoral fraud and support for electoral fraud and also candidates are prevented from getting on the ballot or they throw out presidents and they use the organization of American states that mentioned Roxana and they also use these infamous economic sanctions to strangle our countries in the case of El Salvador after so many years of struggle you know what happened or what started in the 1980s we had a 12-year long civil war of armed conflict the public unarmed uprising but then the peace accords were reached after so much effort by the Salvadoran people to say that we should leave war behind and the peace accords were signed 29 years ago it's almost 30 years and we see that all kinds of struggles have been put in the way to prevent us from carrying out the peace accords and later we had an FMLN government a leftist government that was in office for 10 years and these administrations brought in many benefits and the most social spending that our country had in its history more accountability a whole series of programs education and health and everything else but at any rate it so happens that because the United States did not like that government because it was not supporting the near liberal policies and there wasn't as much profit to be made in the country but a series of strategies were put in place to plant in our populations collective consciousness that the FMLN president or FMLN administration was no good and they began to delegitimize all of the good things that were happening in the country despite the fact that people were experiencing the benefits they tanked them we're all familiar with terrorism waged over the media and the lies told a thousand times become the truth and so that has been a practice of the United States of Empire this is more frequently their means of intervention to dominate our countries Ruxana yes when we have governments that are willing to work for the people more you were saying Sonia they put obstacles in the way and of course everything is not perfect but they create these obstacles to get people to say well whether you're with a party that supports the people then people still have to migrate it's not just as soon as you elect a leftist government that everything becomes a paradise that's not how it works the after effects remain and the hurdles put in the way remain we're not trying to say that any country is a paradise we're talking about some that offer more opportunities and more programs but of course everything isn't perfect I wonder whether any of the other would like to say anything Ruxana it is important in the case of Nicaragua to mention that the United States Department of the Treasury have been imposing sanctions they say that these are individual sanctions on several of our compañeros and compañeros that are government officials and but the Nicaraguan population does not believe those arguments their argument is that these are individual sanctions and that they Nicaraguan people but the people are aware that the sanctions are on them for being rebellious for not allowing themselves to be dominated by US policy and in Nicaragua we continue to flatly reject these acts of aggression on the Nicaraguan people and even though they are imposed on some specific government officials we know that they are really aimed at the Nicaraguan people and the main objective is to intimidate and threaten us forcing us to surrender but the Nicaraguan people are aware that we have to continue to resist these acts of aggression Ruxana, yes, precisely Compañera Carla Carla in Honduras more than talking about sanctions we have to talk about interventionism and I think we already discussed that when the US charge the affairs tells you who the president is we know that in Honduras they don't lift a finger unless the US tells them to do and it doesn't matter what kind of administration is in office in the US so have a lot of influence from Canada in my country and later I hope that we can touch on some issues related to that I would just remind you that when the voting was taking place during the coup d'etat in Honduras to reinstate and José Manuel Manuel Celaya Rosales the only country that opposed this was Canada Ruxana says yes we have to be very clear it's not just because there are democrats in office that things are going to be better US interventionism is the same the issue of foreign policy is if not exactly the same it's pretty much the same we should not be deceived in thinking that one is very different from the other so let's go to the third question we know that time is running out in the 21st century all of your countries have 21st century experience with neoliberal pro-market pro-us governments and also with governments that promote policies to reduce poverty please tell us how life is different under neoliberal governments compared to governments that promote social programs and particularly with how this impacts women and workers I know that you have touched on this I wonder if you want to add anything and then maybe we could go on to the questions that Leslie has prepared I would just like to talk a little bit says Carla about what is happening right now and why are women often have to migrate while it is true that policies are very much tied to immigration in the case of Honduras what happened in 2012 beginning of 2013 was really notorious the first caravan that came to the United States came specifically from the Garifuna community and they always said that there were unaccompanied minors there who were crossing the border but there are also mothers and children the schools were left virtually empty in our communities so it's a massive migration because women said in Honduras that if they came to the United States and put their children in school then the Obama administration was going to protect them I would very much like to go back to your opening remarks Roxana about forced displacement excuse me if I'm rushed to highlight this but just last night at 11pm Honduras time and midnight eastern standard time the Honduran system of justice finally released to Garifuna woman who had been jailed for three days and I want to thank the network that I've met through this event for all of their solidarity and support these women were incarcerated for defend the rights to territory that have belonged to us even with documents since 1901 and the prosecutorial authorities were never able to prove that they had committed any crime the people accusing them are simply representatives of Canadian companies in the Rio Negro community of Trujillo and yesterday in Fort they were given the opportunity to be unreleased and had to defend themselves against charges of forced displacement now it seems like the plan is backfiring you started talking about peoples who have been forced to disappear and move out of their homes their spaces but when we our peoples begin to demand our rights then they accuse us and put us on trial so right now we have those two compañeras if the government achieves what it's trying to do then they would have to serve nine to 15 years in prison but there are 30 more people involved in this complaint and it not only has to do with women, women are the one who lead the community who educate the children who hand down knowledge from one generation to the next, who care for the ecosystem and who make sure that growth is in the proper way women have to guide their children and give them food, then they think about migrating I'm not saying that I agree that our people should emigrate but we are being forced to do so and this is why I was trying to draw the connection between 2013 when women were told come up here and that was the first caravan precisely from the Garifunu community and they all got through and they're all up here but none of their cases been resolved except just a few the state is imposing terror on women who are leading this struggle I want to talk about them even if I take two more minutes of your time because today we're celebrating International Women's Day and those women are waging an all out battle for their future the future of their community the future of their culture and the future of future generations so that they will not have to go to the United States how to do so what can we do to keep a country from opening up its borders if we know that nobody lifts a finger in Honduras unless the United States allows it if we're going to talk about migration and the suffering of immigrants we have to talk about the projects behind this and what they're doing is emptying out our territory they're emptying out Honduras they're emptying out El Salvador they're emptying out Guatemala because those territories have already been set aside for a special project in which they don't want us to be there we're not included it's easier to bring us up here when we don't have any status but at least an excuse me for taking so much time but we're up here waiting to get some kind of status either as political refugee or Israeli or refugee we can't go back home but outside of our borders we are never going to get what we need and so I think that here we truly need to begin to talk about the true context and get to the bottom of this dark matter of migration because it is forced migration if we stay behind and defend ourselves the authorities excuse us and if we leave the country and go to any of these so-called safe countries as they declared them recently then we have no rights so where are communities going to go excuse me for speaking for so long Roxana says that is an extremely important topic and I thank you for bringing it up because the issue of extractivism that our countries have been living through this hasn't been just for 10 15 or 20 years but rather the fact is we've been facing this ever since they first invaded us and we can't take it anymore and so they are displacing communities and we'll continue to displace communities and we don't see an end to it so this is a very important issue to look at the links from the US government and other governments as well and many of us live here and we have a responsibility an additional responsibility to look at what the government where we are is doing and how it affects other communities not only in Latin America but throughout the world so we have to draw these connections between why they can extract those natural resources and why are they displacing us they're doing so with the support of these governments and with the government of the US that's how it is able to happen so it is fundamental to understand this and fundamental to know this and now I'd like to invite excuse me says Sonya I just wanted to say something because this is extremely important for me and for our women I would just like to say how serious the situation is right now in El Salvador I need to let people know about the harassment that Karina Sosa and Daniela Henove have been suffering the first one is a deputy to the National Assembly the other one was a candidate and things have happened to them even today several people have been attacking them specifically there is someone who we know is a YouTube activist someone who is extremely vulgar who has been sexually harassing them and in fact threatened to kill them today so they have filed complaints before the authorities and the civil police do not intervene in these kinds of cases there is persecution there let's please bear in mind that it seems that El Salvador is returning to the days of the 1980s when Monseño Romero was assassinated and how many women how many other people more than 80,000 people dead so please friends but it does seem that we're returning to dictatorship and I'd like us to please keep these women leaders in our hearts and minds Yolanda, yes I'd like to say something very quickly Nicaragua is a country that has lived through a neoliberal period and it's a very bad memory because this was the time when all of our important systems were privatized for example the health system and education system and there was a counter-agrarian reform which had been a great accomplishment of the revolution and that is when we had one of the biggest outflows of migration to Costa Rica for example so the experiences that we had with the neoliberal governments is what inspires us to stay in this fight to keep in our system of government we have had a government that is giving social benefits to the great majority of the people and so that is another struggle that we have to keep in our system of government because this is what is benefiting the overwhelming majorities it is also important to mention the struggle being waged by Cuba and Venezuela to defend their revolutions because the people in those countries also know that they cannot afford that they have won after so much struggle and so much effort the same is true of Nicaragua we also want to keep this government and we are not tempted to trade it in for a neoliberal government we are going to continue fighting to make sure that in the next election we still have a government that benefits the overwhelming majority I just wanted to say that Roxana, thank you Yolanda it is very important to know that the governments that call the radical or rebel governments these are the ones that are fighting against neoliberalism and imperialism we know that nothing is perfect as I said before but we continue to move forward I now would like to invite Leslie to share some questions with us yes and there are several questions but I know that time is short so I am just going to share one question that I think is very important the question says what can be done to get the people of the United States to push their government to have respectful relations with the peoples and governments of Latin America Sonya I think that this is the big challenge and that is why this International Women's Day we are very pleased and honored to be here with you discussing this I think that quite clearly achievement is only made with the people of the country and the people of the United States have raising consciousness this video that shows about the root causes of migration talks about the intervention of the United States in our countries we hope that this will help raise awareness amongst the people who live in the United States and the ones who vote in the government and can determine the policies we know that you the citizens of the United States are the ones who need to become aware and fight so that these terrible interventions that are so devastating to our populations that seek to dominate them just result in major waves of immigration to your countries and this is a problem that is not of their own making so we hope that if you can stop these US policies but it has to come from the people of the United States well, I am Yolanda I am very optimistic I think that the people of the United States are already doing what needs to be done and one of the most important tools that they have is solidarity amongst peoples I think that all of the peoples of the world should be grateful that the people of the United States have expressed solidarity at the most difficult moments when there has been aggression from their government Nicaragua for example acknowledges and appreciates the sacrifice of Brian Wilson at a very difficult time that Nicaragua was experiencing during the Contra war and the people of the United States are doing what they can through solidarity solidarity is a tool that helps change the world I think that the important thing will be as Sonia already mentioned the biggest challenge is to get the migrant population in the United States to be aware that the policies of the United States are what forced people to migrate and the US government isn't doing those migrants any favor we need to raise awareness and try to change US policy I think that this is the big challenge before us and I invite the migrant population in the United States to raise awareness social consciousness political and ideological consciousness to change the situation in the United States so that this can in turn change the situation in the rest of the world Carla Leslie when you leave your country well I lived in Honduras for more than 30 years and then I migrated to the United States and at that time I had an idea of what the United States was I didn't come pursuing the American dream and I didn't think that I was coming to live in the land of honey that wasn't the impression that I had but I did have a preconceived notion of what the United States was it wasn't necessarily a good one I have always cited with my community and when I arrived in the United States I found that there are two countries here two United States there's the United States that's close to you close to me people have a high level of consciousness and people in the United States that creates laws imposes laws on our country so it's like two different worlds and I have come to know conscientious people in the United States truly humane people and I have come to realize that policies and politicians look at us in Central America as less than human beings and there time comes when a migrant him or herself begins to look at his or her compatriots in the same way because we are taught that being in the world of capitalism to make money and spend money and have money is the best thing you can aspire to it makes you more attractive it makes you whiter it makes you it makes you someone who can go everywhere and show off but it dehumanizes us it uproots ourselves from our true space from where we come from so I have seen and had the opportunity to observe political campaigns in the United States and I do understand that there's a power here that we don't have in our countries we can in fact tell people who are running for office what we want them to do what we want to see in their proposals and I think that that's the US kind of people that I have come to know real humane human beings and they can begin to work not only with the people who are already political social consciousness but we can begin to work with future generations they're people in my country and in Central America we are creating these future generations we need to begin to talk to them and talk about what we need what is causing harm because if we just get looked at as human beings in Central America and Honduras doesn't mean they're going to change the policies economic policies of the US they might even empower them more so those are my first thoughts vis-a-vis what people in the United States can do you should demand things of your politicians at all different levels get them to look at the impact of their economic policies to not look at them more humanely but how they impact human beings Sonia says yes I need to say something and I think that my companions here have but there's something I would like to say sometimes the US public or politicians in the US use the word compassion we have to have compassion for migrants no we do not want compassion we want justice we want you to understand the problem we are here because you were there because the intervention of the United States in our countries has been terrible and this is why we have had to get out of the gum furthermore I left my country not ever with the intention of coming to the United States I left my country because I had to get out I had to find some place I would not get killed and I know that this is true of Lilo and many other Salvadoran refugees and I know they will agree with me so please let's begin to think the US public about taking this responsibility seriously the problem of migrants in the United States today is the direct consequence of the interventions that we have been suffering for centuries in our country thank you Leslie thank you very much companions with those beautiful words and excellent messages I think we need to end the conversation now we have really gone past our allotted time and we need to give the floor to the friends who are going to read the call to action what we have to do from our different trenches of struggle and I want to thank the panelists so much for your remarks your words and your analysis because we are not just sharing our stories and I want to end this discussion today and I thank you very much for your presence today and I will now give the floor to Leslie and Terry who I am going to put on screen Leslie says I will start and I am going to read this in English because we wrote it in English and we are addressing the English speaking public of the United States in particular because those of us Sonia and the other companion said we are obliged to change US policy because it not only injures our people but it also causes harm to the people of the United States it uses up resources that needs to be used for the people of the United States this large wealthy country people don't even have the right to health care so I am going to read this message in English we demand that our government from intervening in other countries because that is what is causing the forced displacement we demand that our government stop all military intervention and military and police training the US government has never brought peace and prosperity to another nation with weapons end all sanctions now unilateral sanctions are another form of warfare that cause death and suffering that are illegal under the charter of the United Nations stop imposing trade agreements on other countries that weaken environmental and labor protections and hurt small farmers respect the will of the people in other countries by not meddling in their elections finally take responsibility for solving the climate the climate crisis it is time for the US to move to zero carbon emissions we are here for mitigation and damages in poor countries they have contributed very little to global climate emissions Terry as many of you have suggested already in the chat we call on our audience to pressure congress and the biden administration to support the people of El Salvador on Doris and Nicaragua with the following acknowledge the dangerous move totalitarianism in El Salvador and challenge the Bukele administration to respect the rule of law and the 1992 peace accords demand the return of the members of the Garifana community in Honduras who have been kidnapped by forces tied to Honduran military and police and withdraw support from the narco dictatorship of Juan Orlando Hernandez lift the NICA act and all other sanctions on Nicaragua and stop financing NGOs through the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID to bring about regime change finally, you can donate to support the work of the following organizations share foundation for El Salvador Ofrone for Honduras and friends of the ATC for Nicaragua American exceptionalism the belief that the United States knows what is best for other countries is a phrase that is colonialist and racist it is time for the United States government to pursue relations of respect and cooperation with other countries thank you so much everyone thank you so much compañeras this was a wonderful short list of all the things that we can do but we definitely need to pay attention to that I am trying to look for a list that we have here for our endorsers actually and now let me change my chip to Spanish because I realize I'm supposed to be speaking Spanish allow me to share with you now the list of all of the organizations that have supported this event and here you can see the list I am not going to read them of course because it's a long list but we do want to show you that we do have a lot of endorsers and we are all coming together to continue to organize for change that are forcing entire communities to escape and now I also am going to share some information that I posted in the chat so that you can make donations to the organizations mentioned here they need all the support that you can give to bring about changes in the situations that women are living through in these three countries and you will also find this in the Facebook chat like good Latin Americans we've gone past a lot of time but we want to see if we still have Lilo with us are you still there Lilo Gonzales could you please share a couple of songs with us to wrap up this wonderful event that we have had with so many people from this world of struggling for social causes you have the floor Lilo thank you very much and congratulations to all of the women here it is such a pleasure to see so many of you who have been in this fight for years and continue to fight for our people to make my songs very short I think you will know some of these songs and we can sing together and it's also a tribute to sister Diana Ortiz we often sang together at when she held protests before the White House so I know this is going to be very short that everybody's tired you may know some of these songs the first song is from my album and it's about mothers who leave their children in the early hours of the morning to migrate and then they find themselves up in the United States so this is a true story a hand in the chest the other side of the bathroom and the bathroom without thinking about it Manuelito wakes up and tells me mom when you come back the answer is not easy the strategy is broken the truth is lost I didn't cross the border my friend the border cross my land this land is yours and mine my son this land is yours and mine I spent years celebrating birthday in the skin of the mansion and at the end of the scene I didn't have friends or if I had children the missing those who dream with him those who come from below and who cares a lot if they don't know how to read they are my brothers the pure and healthy those who cut coffee I didn't cross the border my friend the border cross my land my friend this land is yours and mine my son this land is yours and mine in the desert of La Higuanas mountains inside the Segovia I am a stranger like an aurora in the middle of the night the maizales lit up what would break extreme plates I saw the turmoil that there was in Chichigalpa two Christ was born in Palá Cahuina of a Chepe Pabón of a Tarmarilla she was going to fight the clothes that women wear the dirty clothes the ones who stop you to look at it they got together in a molote the Indian who brought him in a molote my son and my daughter they gave him a super gun the turmoil Christ was born in Palá Cahuina of a Chepe Pabón of a Tarmarilla she was going to fight the clothes that women wear the dirty clothes the ones who stop you to look at it they got together in a molote the clothes that women wear the turmoil the ones who stop you to look at it but the husband thinks tomorrow I want to be a rich two Christ was born in Palá Cahuina of a Chepe Pabón of a Tarmarilla she was going to fight the dirty clothes Mucha gracias, verdad, y feliz día de la mujer. Muchadora. Bravo, bravo, bravo. Hermoso, gracias. Gracias a todas y todos los que nos han acompañado. Los esperamos una próxima vez. Hasta pronto. Gracias.