IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)
What happens in the Northern Triangle countries … directly affects the security and economic interests of the United States and other countries in the region.
(Rex Tillerson, United States Secretary of State)
(Rex Tillerson, United States Secretary of State)
I
Between 50 and 60% of the inhabitants of the three countries of the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) live below the poverty line, and this structural and chronic poverty is compounded by alarming rates of delinquent violence (largely a product of this state of impoverishment).
In past decades, the entire region has witnessed bloody armed conflicts (Guatemala with 245,000 victims, El Salvador with 75,000 and Honduras serving as the base of operations for the Nicaraguan Contras), which has strengthened a culture of violence that has become “normal” to a very large extent, given that the respective States have not adequately dealt with the after-effects of war.
This explosive combination of poverty and violence, coupled with historic corruption and impunity by governments, make daily life so difficult that countless inhabitants of the region are taking the road to the United States in search of better conditions for survival.
Regardless of whether this migration is an authentic ordeal (of every three people who try it, only one reaches destination – the American dream; another is sent back being refused entry to US territory; and another dies in the attempt), once and if they reach the United States, these precarious workers – without papers, always hiding from the authorities and denigrated by the prevailing racism – send remittances to their respective countries.
In Guatemala these represent 12% of GDP, while in Honduras and El Salvador they represent 15%. Even knowing the martyrdom that constitutes the fact of being a “wetback”, governments try to ignore the problem, because that foreign exchange helps mitigate the precariousness of local family budgets to some extent.
There is no end to this migration, despite the bogging down of the US economy that has been dragging since the severe crisis of 2008.
In 2014, it erupted in a major crisis of unaccompanied migrant girls and boys, with more than 40,000 detained in their attempt to enter the United States. By the end of the following year, 21,469 people were being detained at the southern border of the United States.
In the face of all this, during the presidency of Barack Obama, Washington came up with the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle of Central America initiative as a purported solution to the migratory explosion.
II
These three countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – as dependent nations and located in an area especially important for the geopolitical strategy of the US imperial power – are part of what Washington considers its natural “backyard”. The southern border of the empire today passes through the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America; that is why US hegemony reigns in everything in that region.
It is for that reason, therefore, that a major – perhaps the main – actor in the national politics of the area is the US embassy. So much so, that recent Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla was able to say without embarrassment: “ … it is the United States which decides things in Central America … ”.
The United States, as a primordial world capitalist power, is not in the same position of absolute leadership as when the Second World War ended in 1945, when it alone accounted for 52% of gross world product, with an unquestionable currency and military supremacy over the rest of the planet, being the only country to possess the atomic weapon at that time.
However, even though today its economy is showing no clear sign of being on the rise, it is far from being an empire in decline. It is true that in the international arena it is now competing with other poles, mainly in the economic sphere, such as the European Union or Japan; but even more so, with the rising economies – and with the enormous political and military influence – of China and Russia.
These struggles mean that in this area, considered by the United States as its “private property”, it will protect its interests to the end. Hence, the Chinese and Russian appearance in the region is sounding alarms. In fact, the People’s Republic of China is present in Nicaragua through construction of the inter-oceanic canal being carried out by the Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, and the Russian Federation is expanding through its mining investments. In addition, both countries are showing a growing commercial and cultural presence.
Although the US economy is not the same locomotive as it was six or seven decades ago, Washington’s hegemony continues to prevail in the world, and even more so in the Latin American region, in Central America.
Its military power is enormous, with half of the military spending of the entire planet concentrated in its hands. Its economy is largely based on the war industry: 5% of its GDP comes from the military-industrial complex, which leads to wars all over the world (inventories must be renewed, naturally).
Despite some slowdown, it remains, in any case, a leader in science and technology, although now competing on equal terms with these new players. The cutting-edge industries, such as communications and everything that has to do with digital technologies, are controlled to a very large extent by the empire.
It is true that the dollar is gradually ceasing to be the international currency par excellence, but even the globalised financial system depends in good measure on the US economy. And even though its global hegemony is today qualified/threatened by the Chinese and Russian presence, Latin America continues to act as its reinsurance.
The continent south of the Rio Bravo continues to be its area of dominion, which is why it places special emphasis on maintaining it under its hegemony. For this reason, it has more than 70 military bases with state-of-the-art military technology that control the territory (land, water, air and cyberspace).
It is from this region that it obtains a very good part of resources for its economy, which is considered a strategic reserve for its project of global hegemony in the current century. Here it finds oil, fresh water, strategic minerals and tropical forest biodiversity. Unluckily for them, the countries of the Central American Northern Triangle possess many of these resources.
Although Central America does not represent a large market for the US economy (barely 1% of its foreign trade), it has a strategic value both as a reserve of resources and in political-military terms. That is why it is not neglected.
This may explain, for example, the way in which it sought at all costs to block presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón in Guatemala in the last elections, because although Baldizón was a wealthy businessman and clearly from the right in ideological-political terms, he opened the door to Russian mining investments.
It also explains how it supported the recent virtual coup d’état in Honduras, helping to establish a monumental electoral fraud to block an opposition social-democratic candidate like Salvador Nasralla, and backing neoliberal Juan Orlando Hernández – a character who ensures the continuity of pro-Washington policies, even supporting open repression – for the presidency.
The zeal of the empire is enormous, and its presence continues to be a determining factor in the political dynamics of these three countries.
III
Historical interference by the United States in the region, making these small countries virtual protectorates, has also been expressed in the advising, financing and even leadership of counterinsurgent and genocidal strategies during the wars fought decades ago – the effects of which are still present – in the framework of the Cold War, making the area one of the hottest areas on the planet.
The presence of imperialism in that Northern Triangle is openly manifested in its interventionist policy, demonstrated by the military occupation it maintains (with four bases in Honduras, one of them in Palmerola, with high technology capable of facilitating attacks on Cuba and Venezuela, and with the continued presence of advisors and military missions), trade and treaty impositions (such as CAFTA), and the overdetermination of economic policies established by organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank, all related to the geopolitical strategy of Washington. Or in the imposition of initiatives such as the recent Plan of the Alliance for the Prosperity in the Northern Triangle.
This Plan, at least theoretically, constitutes an effort by the US government to improve the internal conditions of the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America, in order to avoid the flood of migrant population, which represents a social and political problem at home.
On paper – although the reality is something else – it basically focuses on addressing the structural factors that drive the continued exodus of the Central American population, ceasing to focus on containment and security initiatives, which have historically had a more punitive character and have had less to do with promoting development.
From this point of view, it could even be thought that this Plan represents a significant advance insofar as it could help alleviate the chronic poverty of the Central American region somewhat.
