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ISSN 1089-1560
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Volume 14, Number 1
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January 8, 2009
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Copyright 2009, Latin America Data Base (LADB)
Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico
http://ladb.unm.edu
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Editor: Mike Leffert
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Staff Writers:
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Patricia Hynds, Carlos Navarro
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In This Issue:
CHANGING US CUBA POLICY; HOPES AND ISSUES
*Returning to limitations of presidential power
DEPORTATIONS WREAKING ECONOMIC HAVOC IN GUATEMALA AND IN THE US
*Saddled with additional debt
*Raids wreck local economies
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CUBA
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CHANGING US CUBA POLICY; HOPES AND ISSUES
As Cuba celebrates the 50th anniversary of the revolution and the US
prepares to celebrate the inauguration of its first African-American
president, observers on both sides of the Florida Straits have begun to
expect new developments in the historically moribund relationship between the
two. The hope is in part generational. Fifty years is longer than
President-elect Barack Obama has been alive. He was not even born when Cuban
dictator Gen. Fulgencio Batista fled the island with the victorious Fidel
Castro and his guerrilla troops at his heels.
Also as yet unborn were the younger generations of Cuban Americans in
Miami and elsewhere who have taken a much more moderate view of the
relationship than had their elders, who left the island to become the
powerful electoral constituency that has made rage against the revolution a
constant in US policy.
Being black aside, Obama is also the first president-elect not to be
beholden to this constituency. He won Florida and its crucial stack of
electoral votes without them, with just 35% of the Cuban-American vote.
"US Cuba policy has not been a foreign policy," said Shannon O'Neil of
the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "It's been a domestic policy based
on the Cuban vote in Florida."
Nonetheless, recent polling found 55% of South Florida's Cubans favor an
end to the embargo, 65% favor restoration of diplomatic relations, and even
more favor an end to travel restrictions.
That means, said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the
Inter-American Dialogue, "that he didn't need the Cuban vote to win Florida,
and he did not need the Florida vote to win the presidential election." But,
while Obama has carved out some space for himself to realign the priorities,
he has spoken equivocally about what he would do about Cuba.
Running in Illinois for the US Senate, he called the embargo a tactic
that had "utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro," said that he
wanted "to end the embargo with Cuba," and specifically called for
"normalization of relations with Cuba."
But in his presidential campaign, Obama spoke differently. "Throughout
my entire life, there has been injustice in Cuba. Never, in my lifetime,
have the people of Cuba known freedom. Never, in the lives of two
generations of Cubans, have the people of Cuba known democracy. This is the
terrible and tragic status quo that we have known for half a century--of
elections that are anything but free and fair; of dissidents locked away in
dark prison cells for the crime of speaking the truth. I won't stand for
this injustice, you won't stand for this injustice, and together we will
stand up for freedom in Cuba," he said in a speech to the Cuban-American
National Foundation (CANF). And he also said, "I'm going to maintain the
embargo (see NotiCen, 2008-05-29).
Returning to limitations of presidential power
It is also the case that Obama cannot lift the blockade on his own.
Both the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 require
that Congress approve either a lifting of the blockade or the normalization
of relations, at least while a Castro is in power (see NotiCen, 1997-04-17).
Allowing Helms-Burton to prevail required the action of President Bill
Clinton, who was no less in the pocket of the Miami Cubans than was Bush.
There are some things he has said he would do, however, that could ease
the difficult economic conditions for Cubans. US President George W. Bush,
who owed the Cuban hard-liners for their support in both his election bids,
imposed very strict new limits on Cuban Americans, including reducing the
right to visit relatives on the island to a single visit every three years
and limiting remittances to family members to US$300 per year. Travel to
Cuba for non-Cubans has also been reduced to near zero, but, said Erikson,
"There is pretty broad support for lifting the travel ban for all Americans."
The requirement of congressional approval is not necessarily a stopper.
Many legislators in both houses would like to see restrictions eased to
facilitate trade with the island for their states. This is particularly true
in the Midwest, where farmers would like to sell their grain and also see
Cuba eligible for normal financing. At present, Cuba, when it is allowed to
buy from the US at all, must pay cash. Even with the restrictions, the US
has been Cuba's largest supplier of agricultural products since 2002. The
island is among the top-ten export markets for soybean oil, dry peas,
lentils, dry beans, rice, powdered milk, and poultry. It is also a major
market for corn, wheat, and soybeans. Buying more than 25% of its food from
its adversary, Cuba paid US suppliers more than US$437 million in 2008.
Congressional support comes from both sides of the aisle. Chair of the
House appropriations subcommittee on agriculture Rosa De Lauro (DÂ.CT) said,
"I believe that lifting all of the agriculture trade restrictions would help
American agriculture, farm-equipment businesses, and help with public health
in Cuba."
On the Republican side, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS) has written Obama urging
policy reform. Moran's district is the largest wheat producer in the nation.
Organizations of food producers including the American Farm Bureau
Federation (AFBF) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have also
urged normalization. Farm Bureau trade specialist Chris Garza noted,
"PresidentÂ.elect Obama has said that he's very open to at least talking to
the Cubans about the embargo, which is much more than we've seen in the last
50 years from any of our presidents."
[Sources: Reuters, 12/30/08; Washington Independent, 12/31/08; Palm Beach
Post, 01/03/09; High Plains Journal, 01/05/09.]
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GUATEMALA
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DEPORTATIONS WREAKING ECONOMIC HAVOC IN GUATEMALA AND IN THE US
US deportations of Guatemalans reached record levels in 2008, adding to
the growing economic problems in both countries. The US ejected 27,929 last
year, compared with a still-remarkable 23,062 in 2007. The most recent
number is a fourfold increase in the last four years. The number of
Guatemalans thrown out of Mexico during the year, however, had declined
somewhat, said Guatemala's Direccion General de Migracion (DGM). But even
with the decline, the numbers far surpassed those for the US. Mexico booted
49,450 back across its southern frontier in 2007, but this past year the
number declined to 36,364.
Analysts cite a number of reasons for the decline of returnees from
Mexico. The government of President Alvaro Colom is committed to better
relations with its neighbor, and that has resulted in nearly a dozen meetings
between Colom and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon. Together, they have
implemented coordinated joint action against organized crime, particularly in
the border regions. With the bilateral focus on border security, it may be
that fewer Guatemalans are making the crossing as easily as in previous
years.
Guatemala's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Ibarra stressed that relations
with Mexico have never been better because of Colom's focus on them since
taking office last January. "As a consequence of the latest accomplishments
in the area, border security is being reinforced after coordinating with
Mexican authorities with whom permanent communication has been established,"
said Ibarra.
But no such gains have been racked up with the US and the now-outgoing
administration of President George W. Bush. Widely reputed to have neglected
the region and contributed to hemispheric political shifts against it, this
administration returned these Guatemalans as part of a policy that sent more
than 80,000 home to Central America last year, also a record. The figures
include 29,307 Hondurans, 20,516 Salvadorans, and 2,281 Nicaraguans.
Saddled with additional debt
Many, if not most, of the returnees in recent months have been treated
to methods and procedures of questionable legality, both constitutionally and
internationally. Central Americans and others seem to be aware of the harsh
handling they will get if caught, but the same severe economic conditions
that impel the US to sweep out foreign workers also motivate these citizens
of the region to keep trying, usually at great expense.
Hilda Ramirez, captured in the Arizona desert in December, explained to
an Agence France-Presse reporter, "I'm a mother of two children and worked in
a maquila, but it closed leaving me without work. I decided to leave and
paid a coyote [people smuggler] nearly US$2,000 and ended up with a debt of
almost US$3,300."
That debt will continue to rain hardship on the heads of Ramirez and her
family. She gave the coyote the deed to her house as collateral. Now back
in Guatemala as a member of the final group of deportees for 2008, she has no
way to support herself, and the coyote is certain to exercise his property
rights. Ramirez said she will not venture forth again, not so much because
of debt or the prospect of being sent back again, but because of the physical
and psychological mistreatment she said she suffered at the hands of
immigration authorities.
Recent reports indicate that, with the economic downturn in the US, many
more are giving up the practice of heading back north at first opportunity.
This loss of migrant-labor opportunity is disrupting lives, businesses, and
communities on both sides of the border.
A case in point is Xicalcal in the northern highlands. The little
village gave up nearly all its able workers to migration, leaving behind only
those unable to work to live well on remittances and oversee the building of
new houses that the money permitted. But after a 2007 raid on a New Bedford,
Massachusetts, clothing factory and subsequent ones at the same company, much
of the population is back. With their earnings dissipated, they are going
broke and becoming desperate, with little work available other than finishing
the elaborate houses begun in better times.
Victor Garcia, for instance, a father of four who is now lucky to make
US$6 a day doing field labor, used to send home US$500 a month. Guadalupe
Toj's husband fared better than Garcia; he is still in the US, still working,
and still sending money home. But for Toj a countdown has begun. Her
husband could turn out to be the next figure ambling down the dusty road to
Xicalcal. "There are so many people coming back," she worries. "Who is
going to employ so many people? What will they eat?"
Raids wreck local economies
If times are tough in Xicalcal, they are moving that way in New Bedford
too. When the ICE raid sent the Guatemalans home, it also decimated the
company that employed them. The Michael Bianco Inc. textile factory relied
on the 361 people who were arrested, the substandard wages they paid them,
and the wages they illegally withheld from them, for its survival. Now the
company's founder faces prison and the company has been sold. The 2007 raid
was by government intention a high-profile one, well-publicized, that has
frightened employers across the US.
In New Bedford, Anthony Sapienza, owner of another clothing factory,
anguishes, "It isn't easy for an employer, despite all the rules and
regulations. The fact is, you can buy pretty sophisticated documents on the
streets, and you can get hoodwinked." His concern is that the US government
is making him responsible for its own failure to stop illegal immigration and
that he, too, could find himself facing charges despite efforts to comply
with verification regulations for his workers.
Across the US in Postville, Iowa, another plant was raided, and a
corresponding town in Guatemala, San Jose Calderas, began to suffer decline
and despair. A May 2008 raid on a kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors,
deprived both the Iowa town and San Andres Itzapa municipality, where San
Jose is one of several villages, of its major source of livelihood. The raid
netted nearly 300 arrests, almost all undocumented Guatemalans, and most from
the region around San Jose Calderas.
A villager identified only as Marco Tulio, who was returned in shackles
along with 100 fellow workers and neighbors, took reporters on a tour of the
construction projects halted midway to becoming houses for the families of
those who had been sending remittances from Iowa. "This is what deportation
has done; it's a disaster for the village. It's gone down since the raid,"
he said. "All the houses people were building have stopped, so there are
these unfinished houses everywhere. How can you live like that?"
The tour included shops full of goods but empty of customers, and
children in the streets who could no longer afford to go to school. San
Andres Itzapa Mayor Marvin Avila concurred. "There already is so much
unemployment, and now the deportations generate more poverty," he said.
Now residents worry that those kids in the street, denied educational
opportunity, will add to a growing Guatemalan lumpen proletariat and
contribute to the country's staggering crime rate. Said Margarita Cate of
the Federacion Nacional de Mujeres Rurales de Guatemala (FEDENMURG), "What we
need is employment here, and not just for the 200 who were deported from
Postville. We need support from our government, and from organizations in
the United States, so we can do something to help these people and stabilize
their lives here."
As in Xicalcal, a large proportion of the working-age population had
migrated north in the last decade. The remittances allowed for a standard of
living unavailable by any other means.
"Before the raid, the village was progressing, developing economically,"
said Mayor Avila. "Now that has stopped. Before the raid, the dollars were
coming in, so if someone got sick, they could open their door, get in their
own vehicle, drive to a clinic, and pay for it. Now they've sold their car,
or, if they haven't, they can't afford to buy gas. They're worse off now
because they have debt."
Like the Xicalcal people, and migrants throughout the country, they
financed their passage to the US with loans secured by deeds and whatever
property they had. The coyotes holding the paper are unlikely to forego
collection. After three years sending money home from working in the Iowa
plant, Mardoqueo Valle still owes the coyote US$8,163 and has no prospect of
earning the money. He expects to lose the new house where he lives with his
growing family. "I don't know what will happen to us now," he says.
Maria Elena Siquinjay also owes the coyotes. Her husband had only been
working at Agriprocessors about six months when he was arrested, and he is
still in custody in the US. She was able to open a little store with the
money he'd been sending, but it is one of those little businesses that stand
idle these days because people cannot afford to shop. "We had big dreams of
building a house or sending the children to school. Now I don't know what's
going to happen to us," she said.
Postville is not doing well either. The raid shut the town's main
employer down. The company is bankrupt and its CEO is reportedly held
without bail on charges of child labor and fraud. The boost to local
Guatemalan economies came at the additional cost of deceptive practices that
included withholding earnings and other exploitative practices.
The Guatemalans were just one of several groups of workers, Somalis,
people from Palau, even homeless Texans had been duped and dumped before
them. Said Maryn Olson of the Postville Central Coordinating Committee,
"Postville is definitely still in the midst of a humanitarian and economic
crisis."
Not all the Guatemalans have been deported. Some remain awaiting the
disposition of diverse charges including identity theft and illegal entry.
Some wander Postville wearing monitoring bracelets awaiting hearings. They
cannot work and must appeal to the same charity agencies that are attempting
to aid the local citizens who are facing evictions, as they are unable to pay
their rent or other expenses.
Elsewhere in Iowa there is evidence of a lack of sympathy for the locals
or for the foreign workers. Wrote one Iowan to the Minneapolis St. Paul Star
Tribune, "The truth of the matter is that the company abused the workers, the
town turned a blind eye, and the state let it happen. While this was
happening the undocumented had many 'anchor babies' allowing the burden to
fall on the taxpayers, especially now that the plant is down. This was more
like a concentration camp and everyone involved should be ashamed, totally
ashamed." Postville lies just beyond the Minnesota state line.
The recriminations notwithstanding, if there are lessons to be drawn
from this experience, they have gone unlearned. Well-aware of what has
happened to their neighbors, some of the poor are still venturing north to
try their luck. Figures vary, but many experts put the number of Guatemalans
living illegally in the US at 500,000, and they say that figure represents an
increase of 74% since the turn of this century and that the rate of increase
continues to grow much more quickly than that of Mexico, which still
contributes larger numbers of undocumented workers because of its superior
size. But Mexicans, in terms of national averages, earn more than twice as
much as do Guatemalans.
Migrating Guatemalans are spurred as well by a soaring birthrate, food
prices as high or higher than in the US, failing institutions, including the
education, health, and justice systems, a state that has not met its
obligations to victims of the civil war that ended in December 1996, one of
the widest disparities of income in the world, and little trust that the
present government will improve any of this.
[Sources: Envio (Nicaragua), 06/2008; Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Service,
12/24/08; Fresno Bee, 12/31/08; Agence France-Presse, Spanish news service
EFE, 01/01/09; Notimex, Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune, The
Latinamericanist, 01/02/09; Associated Press, 12/29/08, 01/03/09.]
Latin American & Iberian Institute