$4b aid offer from Biden ‘not enough to halt marches’
Thousands of migrants were massing in Honduras yesterday intent on marching to the US, despite a US$4 billion (NZ$5.5b) aid offer from the Biden administration to encourage them to stay put.
At least 3000 people were expected to meet in San Pedro Sula, from where another migrant ‘‘caravan’’ departed ten days ago before being broken up by the police in neighbouring Guatemala. A third caravan, from El Salvador, is planned for February 14.
To try to halt the marches – a politically charged issue, especially under the Trump government – President Joe Biden has set aside US$4 billion to boost development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala over four years. Honduras is expected to receive the bulk of the funds, intended to reduce violence, corruption and poverty and to establish centres for people to pursue refugee resettlement in the US or elsewhere.
About 8000 people, mostly Honduran, began walking to the US in large groups on January 15, breaking past a human barricade formed by the Guatemalan police along a highway in Chiquimula before being halted. Most were sent back across the border by bus.
Many of the marchers say that they are fleeing violence and enforced recruitment by Honduran drug cartels; others that they are escaping poverty made worse by coronavirus lockdowns and two hurricanes in November that destroyed crops and homes. They are undeterred by warnings from the Biden administration that the marches, mid-pandemic, pose a public health risk.
Biden’s pledge to send aid and to ease the asylum rules of the Trump administration have been welcomed by President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras but he faces problems of his own in the US. New York prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez, 52, a right-wing populist who took office in 2014, accepted bribes from drug dealers and used the army to protect cocaine laboratories and deliveries from Honduras to the US.
In court documents submitted on January 8 Hernandez is quoted as saying that he wanted to ‘‘shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’’, referring to Americans.
Honduras, a trans-shipment point for US-bound cocaine, plays a crucial role in the international drug trade. In more recent years the country also appears to have become an important cocaine producer.
r Hernandez, who has not been charged and has presidential immunity until his term ends in 2022, has repeatedly denied the claims, saying that traffickers are falsely accusing him as revenge for him clamping down on their illegal businesses.
His brother, Tony Hernandez, was convicted of drug conspiracy in 2019 in a New York court after being accused of smuggling ‘‘multi-ton loads’’ of drugs by speedboat, plane and submarine between 2004 and 2016. He is a former congressman in Honduras and allegedly developed his own brand of cocaine to flood American streets. Sentencing has been delayed but he could face life in prison.
Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, said that the US$4 billion offer from Biden was ‘‘an upgrade’’ compared with the Trump and Obama administrations, but over the course of four years would not be enough to tackle the underlying problems. ‘‘It is only going to be effective if it’s sustainable over decades,’’ he said. ‘‘It can’t be just four years.’’
The problem could not be resolved by the US alone, he added. ‘‘What will make it more successful is if Mexico and the US are speaking with the same voice about investment in the region.’’
About US$500 million in US aid was allocated to Central America last year.