 Okay. 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. In partnership with friends of Latin America and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. On Monday, June 7th, on her first foreign visit as vice president, Kamala Harris met with Guatemalan president Alejandra Giamate and made the following comment in a post-meeting press conference. I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home. At the same time, I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border, do not come. Do not come, she said. On June 8th, Harris visited with Mexico's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in which she sought to bolster cooperation on border security, Central American migration, and COVID-19 vaccine sharing. Harris said she had very direct and candid conversations about her aim to tackle the underlying causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Andres, and Guatemala. Yesterday, a week after Harris's visit, U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, Administrator Samantha Power, traveled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras to assess USAID humanitarian assistance activities and programs that promote economic growth, security, and good governance in the country. To talk with us about the Biden administration's economic and political vision for Central America, we are joined by Marco Castile, who is co-executive director for Global Exchange. Global Exchange is a San Francisco-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic, and environmental justice since 1988. Welcome, Marco. I'm so happy you accepted the invitation to join us. I am so happy to be here. Thank you very much, Sarah. So let's talk about this past week's Week Plus events with the Biden administration. Our vice president, the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, was in Guatemala and Mexico specifically, followed by Samantha Power's visit to Honduras yesterday. They came to the region. I say came to the region. I want to say came here. I'm sitting in Mexico City talking with you, just so our audience knows. It was a really jarring thing to hear. I have to say, regardless of politics, it was pretty jarring to hear the vice president's comments do not come, do not come when the Statue of Liberty is sitting off the shores of your city in New York. Pretty callous thing for all of us to hear. So let's talk about what these visits mean, as far as the Biden administration's vision for the region. Central America specifically, the Northern Triangle, but pretty much the region of the hemisphere of the Americas. Yes. Let me just say that we must not forget that the Biden Harris administration comes into office after four devastating years when we have seen unprecedented violence on immigrant communities. And the reason why Biden was elected, an important reason for that, for sure, was the separation of families. Many, many, many U.S. voters saw the images of families being torn apart and being separated. And that was a big, big, big driver for organizing and pushing for change. And so when the Biden Harris administration, when Joe Biden takes office, everybody was hoping and thinking that we were moving into a better place and a bunch of promises were made. And so on immigration, one of the first things that he did was quote unquote ending family separation. But after a few weeks, we started to see that that will still remain not entirely and not entirely true. And now we can say without a doubt that the Biden administration saw in their desk sitting what the Trump administration had accomplished in four years, which is criminalizing migration, putting a wall, putting two walls in the southern border with Mexico and then in the border between Mexico and the U.S. You know, a perfect system of criminalization, of separation. And it's obvious that the analysis that the White House was that might as well keeping in place this system. And that's when they start to keep silence on the many, many different policies that the Trump administration had established. And now they decided to change the public discourse by saying that now that we're going to change by focusing on the root causes of migration. Well, that's another problematic history. That's another history where as you probably know, the U.S. has a long history of military intervention in Honduras, complicit with, you know, corruptive governments throughout Central America. And I mean, today we have still a president 2009, 2009 coup in Honduras. Yes, exactly. Today we still have Juan Orlando Hernandez in office in Honduras, while his brother here in the U.S. has been sentenced for links with drug trafficking and with criminal organizations. And not to mention the amount of guns that the U.S. exports to Mexico and Central America. The U.S. is not very good at keeping track of how many guns is letting go to Central America, but just Mexico traces approximately 500 U.S. guns per day, which is approximately 200,000 guns a year, 70% of all guns in Mexico, 70% of all firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico and 42 in Guatemala were first sourced in the U.S. So if Kamala Harris and the Biden administration in general wants to speak about the root causes, we necessarily have to talk about the role of the U.S. Are they going back to the previous role? Are they changing the role? So that's why when Kamala Harris showed up in Guatemala and Mexico, we had all these questions. Are they going back to the hormonal? Are they changing? Are we seeing a future and a possibility of a stronger collaboration of civil society, indigenous communities, and what this funding while this cooperation was going to go? And again, same. After a few hours of press conference saying we are collaborating with the federal governments of these countries and we ask you not to come, you will be stopped. You will be deported. And so that's, you know, a huge disappointment. That's not what the U.S. population voted for. That is not what America was expecting from a democratic neighbor in the region. And it's sad to see that far from moving away from the Trump administration, they are again, resigning the agreement with Mexico and seeking to continue the history of military collaboration and capacity building, arm exports of the past. Some more of the same. More of the same. Unfortunately, there's a couple of things that I wonder if we could expand on just for the audience. Regarding U.S. intervention in Guatemala, that started with a coup in 1954, the overthrow of the democratically elected president, after a brutal dictatorship, most of our viewers probably remember the Sandinista revolution and its success in 1979 in overthrowing the U.S. back Samosa regime in their country and on and on and on. The list goes on and on and not just in Central America but throughout the Americas. So there's a history here that it seems the Biden administration is completely tone deaf about. And also when, and this might help our audience a bit to understand what's happening today, when Biden was vice president, he introduced, and correct me if I'm wrong, a plan, I think it was something like the plan for new American prosperity for Central America was an economic plan. It was pretty much a neoliberal privatization plan, which seems to be exactly what Kamala Harris was in the region to discuss last week, only with new words and new faces. Correct. That's what it is. And I mean, whenever we see the details of the cooperation that was agreed between presidents of all the documents that we've seen in general, it's the same old formula of military collaboration, giving money to certain organizations pre-qualified by the U.S. embassies to provide some kind of aid, some kind of assistance and and nothing, nothing else from that. It was interesting to me that Kamala Harris's visit to Mexico was right two days after the elections on Sunday, June 6 in Mexico, which was elections for, well, there were legislative elections and statewide elections as well. The president's party lost Mexico City, but gained a number of governorships outside of the Capitol. And it was very curious her timing to come to Mexico on the 8th with the elections on the 6th. Do you think that was a coincidence or, well, of course, her trip had been planned long before the elections, knowing the elections were on the 6th? Yeah, we're all wondering the same. What we don't know, what we know for sure is that it's a great victory for the president of Mexico just in the sense that whatever the result of the election was, Kamala was going to come the next day to extend her hand to the president. And so I don't know if that day was decided by Mexico or the U.S., but definitely was a sign of extending a huge arm to the president of Mexico. I think that the U.S. in general has been very thankful with what the president of Mexico has done for the U.S. in terms of militarizing the southern border and containing the flow of immigrants from Central America to the U.S. The Mexican president has put in place anti-immigration policies that we've never seen before in our history. Mexico has been a country of solidarity, like with a long tradition of solidarity, with a side lease, with exiles, with Latin America particularly, but throughout the world. It's been known, it's been a leader, it's been a champion of welcoming political side lease and now unfortunately we're seeing the one of the darkest moments in Mexican history when it comes to welcoming. This president who ran under a progressive platform closed the borders and it's deporting more people than ever. I just want to share with the audience and you mentioned that Mexico having a history of being open to economic, political, asylum seekers in 1936. They were the only country in the world that accepted refugees from Spain during the Spanish Civil War. There's a very rich and significant history here in Mexico regarding that refugee demographic. So yes, what's happening today is pretty shocking. How would you qualify or classify the current Mexican president's policy? Why is he doing this? Is it climate change related? Is it transnational corporate related? Is it a forced labor, forced cheap labor situation? What is the philosophy behind him agreeing? What we've seen, it's that the president of Mexico, it's a very, very pragmatic leader, inspire, model and educated and left policies of the 60s and 70s where world leaders were strong, were strong under borders, very, very nationalist and so this president definitely doesn't go well with migration. It's something that it's beyond his understanding of politics and definitely he has chosen to sacrifice migrants, thousands of families fleeing environmental disaster and violence in Central America and sacrifice them at the extent of being able to win negotiations with the United States in many ways, whether it's like private investments or whether it's like special collaborations and specific projects. So yes, I mean human mobility, it's a movement that has been increasing in the past two decades in the region, particularly from Central America as things get worse in Central America and so this president definitely does not understand the reality that these families are coming from and he is living in the past. That's fascinating. I mean because when I mean I just know when he was elected it was such a there was such excitement throughout the Americas, well at least progressive America, that you know a new voice and a new energy theme and vision for Mexico and of course Mexico was so huge population-wise and geographically it had the potential to really set a tone for ensuing progressive governments and I hear this, you know the things you're sharing with us, I hear here living in Mexico City and Sunday the 6th we saw the capital lose seats, the Moreno Party lost seats in the capital, gain seats in the countryside or in the countryside and you know an outside the state of Mexico which is the capital so it's really, it's fascinating to and disappointing to see what's happening. The Mexico Guatemala border is one of the most dangerous borders in the world, most militarized for one of the most militarized borders in the world and the people that are fleeing Honduras and Salvador get stuck there. If they're lucky to get through they have a terrible time migrating through Mexico and up to the Mexico California border, US border, Texas I'm from California, California Texas, California border. Let's talk about some of the things happening in El Salvador and Honduras that are causing people to flee as far as politics, economics, military, US interventionism and also climate change because one of the things that we rarely hear about and don't talk about often enough is the expansion of the dry, what is known as the dry quarter in Central America that is affecting aggregable land and pushing people off their farms and also causing water shortages and not just for farming but for existing periods. Yes, let me let me just say this if there was like an interest, a real interest from the US to really help Central America reaching the root causes of migration the United States number one should stop the flow of guns to Mexico, Central America what we live in Central America right now and in Mexico it's an unstoppable wave of US guns and I cannot stress this enough and we that it's causing the highest amount of homicides and history in Mexico and some of the largest amounts of killings in Central America so that's one thing the other thing is instead of on funding and strengthening the governments they should be funding the movements that for long have been demanding respect to their land to their governments to their human rights to their environment Central America has been the worst enemy of Central America have been historically their own governments and the US cannot continue betting on that and many occasions in many occasions we've heard people asking us asking me but what else is the US government going to do if they don't invest in governments that the you know Central America is going to collapse well I have my serious doubts about that I believe that what we have are that our governments funded and sustained by the US if that if you know if you stop funding them what's going to happen is that governments that come from the people will arise and will be sustained by the people so that's another thing what we're seeing in Central American general are the consequences of failed policies and US intervention the US needs to start working home by ensuring and stopping the flow of guns restricting military aid and stop funding corrupted governments and start collaborating with local groups and organizations and human rights organizations in the construction of the new new democracy that Central America deserves this is you know you've just touched on a theme that that is recurring in many episodes of our program is this this need of politics candidates governments coming from movements from community based organizing and and local local structures and it's a theme that can that we touch on almost every episode I'm so happy you brought it up because we you know we can see what happens well let's take Honduras and then we can talk about Samantha Powers visit there who she is and why she was in San Pedro Sula yesterday but there's this history of of the United States military intelligence services and then you know of course the business community partnering with these horribly repressive governments and in many cases they actually are drug cartels as in the case of Honduras and I would argue this has gone all the way back to you know the US involvement in Cambodia and Laos and partnering with the heroin cartels you know in that era so this is not anything new I mean it's it's disappointing to see you know each administration after another allow for that paradigm to exist but this is this is how Honduras has ended up with such a criminal government in Juan Orlando Hernandez they basically are being governed by you know a narco trafficking cartel and the United States has partnered with that government and continues to fund that government on many many levels principally military the largest air base is sitting in Honduras the largest US air base in Central America sits there and it's almost like once a country is given or accepts US military presence they get basically a pass and can pretty much do whatever they want yes correct in Honduras we witnessed it how the people elected a government that was then overthrown by a failed election and with the support of the United States and and since then we it's been a downward spiral of increasing violence and prosecution and killing of of human rights and environmental leaders like Bertha Cáceres and for long it's been proven documented there's there's like I believe that there's like one of the countries with more evidence of the amount of corruption and steal the US it's not moving one finger to change that reality what else do you want if the brother of the president it's being trial and sentence in the US for links with organized crime and drug trafficking and and not not do anything about a brother who was crucifying the lives of millions of people in Honduras and and how what's the moral authority of our vice president to show up in Guatemala and say do not come at the same time saying we're going to continue supporting Juan Orlando Hernandez we're going to continue sending guns we're going to continue criminalizing the drugs that we are forcing you to produce and and and so it's it's just putting you know lives families in a really really really bad place because families are going to continue to try to come through any means necessary to the US people are fleeing their countries not because they don't like their countries is because they many times have no other choice it's a matter of life and death international protection asylum has been part of the American identity and saying do not come is completely the opposite it's turning your back it's a smack in the face of a tradition run the US and in previous time has extended its hands to others and other countries it's very um you know the vice president as a child of immigrants and so I mean that makes it even more harsh it's it's almost unbelievable that she said that yes except it's but at the same time it's very very revealing as well what do you see the the vision for Central America what is the what does the US want with Central America I mean I can I'll share with you and then maybe you can what I what I see what I've watched over the course of my my lifetime actually is the continued US interventionism as you have outlined in on many many levels in many different ways in the exportation of firearms being you know one of the most heinous military and civilian exportation of firearms there's well you know to me what I see happening right now is the US border basically goes you know from this this the southern US border all the way down to the southern border of Honduras kind of leaps over Nicaragua starts again Costa Rica Panama and right down into Colombia I mean is the vision to basically control all of Central America and ultimately more of the hemisphere well I'm sure that that's that's the intention when when Biden is in Europe and says America's back he means something different when Kamala shows up in Central American says do not come we're back we're back to control and supervise what you do in this country in this region so yes I'm sure that's their intention really I have I have my my my doubts in the sense that you know Central American Mexico it's not it's the situation is so dire and it's so difficult and and it's such crisis that I don't know if Central America can handle more more of this so that remains to be seen that probably the plan is it's yes to control it but as we've seen it with the large numbers of people seeking to reach US soil in the previous years from Honduras particularly it's clear that it's just a matter of time that there is an explosion a social explosion in that country and and so if the US is it's if the Biden administration is thinking that just by sending military aid and supporting Juan Orlando Hernandez they're going to keep things business as usual they are not they're not being well informed because the the people are fed with and and on the other hand organizations in the United States like holding the global exchange or have a clear agenda and the people in the United States may I let me just be very clear the people in the United States voted for a change because among other stuff what we saw happening with families being separated yes we know that Biden has signed an agreement where he's not separating families anymore but a title 42 still remains in place and this title 42 it's a provision signed by the Trump administration that used this the pandemic the the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to send back and the port in unprecedented amounts to African brothers and sisters and people from it and to continue asking Mexico to retain asylum seekers to the US and keep them in Mexico while they wait for the cases in the end we're still seeing the same situation the amount of risk and violence that we're exposing all those families to while they wait in Mexico it's it's us if we continue it under the Trump administration this is unadmissible this is unacceptable this is this is a fail promise if not if not a you know a lie it's you know the the media manipulation around this story of kids in cages and family separation is is really important to understand I think because when with the prior administration those stories and and photographs and you know all sorts of social media graphics were very very present you know it was really really clear this is what you know the Trump administration is doing these children doing these families with the new administration we don't see so much of that in the media I would argue certainly not you know to the extent we did with the prior president and it's like like you said we voted for a change and there's been a change in in narrative but not in policy absolutely you were asking me before about like how how can a president like the president of Mexico it's such a disappointment I'm in the same in the US I mean what I want to say is that I am completely sure that being President of the United States or being president of Mexico is not an easy task and and and I understand that there's so much interest and and there's so much power involved in those and those positions that I wouldn't even I can't even think what it what it means you know the the amount of of compromises and and and that kind of stuff but yet at the same time yet at the same time it is clear that it's a political class who's resisting to accept the change that a majority is demanding it's a problem of a generation that has proven in power that has proven to only be able to solve problems through the military through through this fail international aid programs and it's not uh reading with clarity and it's not it's not trusting that the people below has been you know it's clear and they're ready for a new future we're ready to be new good neighbors we're ready and and and we're organizing at the local level we have built and resisted in local communities from uh and uh all kinds of of uh interventions and and violence so yes it's complicated uh but at the same time it's a matter of trusting and siding with the people it is so obvious that the good that the good morals the good principles in the case of Honduras are in the people who have been resisted and suffered so much nobody needs to prove that and it's so obvious and it's documented and evidence that the immoral the the personification of the moral it's Juan Orlando Hernandez it's the obvious everyone there knows that I would argue regardless of political affiliation they and they're all suffering and except the very small percentage at the very top around him what was the purpose of the USAID visit yesterday and and I think for our audience it's really important to understand who is running USAID under the biden administration or or Samantha Powers from the our understanding there is that the USAID is going to be the arms through which one is going to be distributed to organizations not only in Central America and Mexico but in the US to go down to Central America and Mexico and help increase in capacity of civil society to educate and process asylum uh the request from the countries of origin and and creating this idea of of we're going to build an infrastructure that would allow uh uh families to apply from Honduras without having to move and and creating this illusion that they're listening and that their requests are being processed when in reality we know that the crisis and the situation in many of those countries not even let you to stay alive in Tegucigalpa even if you're from la Sierra you need to flee the country with anything you have in your hands in in hours in a matter of hours people need to flee it's not that people are looking for a process it's not that people don't know the process and and uh people people don't have other options so yes USAID it's going to create this illusion of upgrading an infrastructure that would help folks to apply for asylum but that most of them are going to get rejected as we know and uh and on the other hand they are setting the grounds for more military aid at the same time that this is happening USAID has always played that double double agent role it's just a vicious cycle I am just a really just uh and it is and I agree with you it's an old school it's a it's a post-world war two paradigm that the US is still really caught up in as far as economics foreign policy uh yeah it's it's exporting this business model by military force it's it's it's a very old paradigm that doesn't really have a place in in the way the world is has evolved and um with competing interests around the globe or that's kind of taking us I wouldn't know maybe not kind of it is taking the world whether the US likes it or not in a more multilateral direction and the US just seems they can really see it playing out here in Central America this this old school unilateral paradigm that is almost like if the US would almost rather and on some days I think the US would almost rather see the world just collapse or blow it up then then evolve into the to the new global paradigm yes it's very scary some days so marco in our in our remaining minutes what what can we do as activists and and as movement leaders and those you know as parents living in communities what can we do to um influence the US government and what can we do to help people in Central America well um I would say we need to speak up we need to demand from our political leaders both in the US and in Mexico uh we elected governments and and presidents that run on their progressive platform and we need to keep them accountable because what we're seeing with uh you know with the US plan it's not progressive at all it's conservative it's old it's criminalizing it it's a threat to the life and safety of many communities so we need to speak up we need to educate ourselves learn the reasons why families are fleeing people people won't be able to follow mrs. Harris advice of don't come why people are going to continue that why would someone leave their home and expose themselves to a dangerous journey as camila harris always tries to describe it as a deathly journey well why would people do that if if i mean it's it's obvious that it's something that it's not only circumstances it's a crisis that is caused by the system under which uh you know uh many of these governments have been ruled under and it's not it's it's it's been called democracy but we all know it's not the people have elected different different leaders and they've been overthrown by the US in the past we know that that's not a democracy and and so uh we we we need to continue speaking up I I believe there's hope I believe that there's good in the Biden administration and in the amla administration I believe that it is possible and and and I just I just think that they they need to be pressured they need to be they need to be pressured because we saw we saw a horrific Trump administration and if Biden does not leave up to his promises what can come to the US is is it's worse for everyone for us in the US and for people in central yeah yeah I I I think you're right and I'm I'm so thankful for your time and for your comments and conversation I want our audience to know that um marco works with global exchange and you at global exchange do fabulous educational webinars on all of these subjects that we've touched on this evening and so for our audience please go to global exchange.org and check out their their various webinar series they're they're very very good in depth educational and um and with excellent speakers and you also marco you you mentioned good neighbor and I have to say thank you for that because at Code Pink um our Latin America team um is based our work is all based on our on the good neighbor policy that we have drafted in hopes of using this policy to influence the Biden administration from an activist position and um you can find that at code pink.org slash good neighbor policy and is there anything else before I let you go is there anything else that we should touch on no thank you just thank you for the work that Code Pink does for the the work that all the team is doing and yes of course that our policies that are proposals written and and proposals that are that are listening and touching like that come from what is happening in reality in Central America in South America in Mexico human centered policies that are possible that just need uh the political will to move forward and become a reality and this is not just about demanding a change but also you know writing and drafting and Code Pink has done it they have a proposal written and so just just demanding for political leaders to continue and then I'm sorry to listen to it yeah so well thank you marco what a pleasure to talk with you this evening so thankful for your time and you're so knowledgeable I really want you to come back and talk with us some more as this administration uh continues over the year thank you very much city thank you I want to remind our audience that uh what the f is going on in Latin America broadcasts every Wednesday 4 30 p.m pacific 7 30 p.m eastern on code pink youtube and also don't forget to catch code pink radio thursday mornings 11 a.m eastern 8 p.m pacific on wba i new york and w pf w washington dc that's a simulcast program on thursday mornings so thanks again everyone thank you marco and I look forward to you joining us again