The world congratulates you and the US citizens for exercising their democratic right to decide peacefully a change of path in US direction. We want to see a glim of hope and a ray of light after a very obscure episode in that country’s history.
As a Guatemalan citizen, I’d like to share some thoughts and hopes with you as the new architects of policies of the most powerful country in the world.
The Northern Central American Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) faces many structural and historical challenges, which in turn produce ongoing crises that keep consolidating states that, according to many, are on the verge of becoming failed ones. Guatemala is not the exception: despite its relative stable economy, World Bank data evidences that 6 out of 10 people live below the national poverty line, making it the 5th poorest economy in Latin America. One out of two children are chronically undernourished, and the number increases to 8 out of 10 among indigenous children.
Human rights violations are neglected by governments, and, in terms of violence against women, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are in the top 5 of countries with the highest femicide rates in Latin America.
Guatemala is among the 15 countries in the world with the highest income inequality, and Honduras is in the top 10. Some months ago, the DEA captured a presidential candidate who confessed that he was working with narco-groups conspiring to kill the former Attorney General and presidential candidate Thelma Aldana. The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, that in 2015 unveiled former President Perez Molina and Vice President Baldetti’s corruption, was expelled by the past (and corrupt) President Jimmy Morales. Trump’s administration coerced the former government to sign a safe third country agreement to receive foreign claimants of asylum in Guatemala, with the threats of taxing remittances and apply tariffs to our exports. Femicide, lynching, social cleansing and land conflicts are still present in the country in the absence of strong institutions to govern security and justice.
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On the same token, the Northern Triangle is in the top 10 most threatened biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Emigration is a consequence of these structural problems. Gang-related violence is an important factor prompting people, including unaccompanied children and young adults, to leave the country. States and institutions that remain captured by mafias (either related with drugs, arms and human trafficking, and part of many illegal parallel groups) favor small elites who concentrate power and hinder individual freedom and the rule of law. All that undermines the hope of future generations. They see islands of wealth and privileges in an ocean of poverty, exclusion and lack of opportunities to reach upward social mobility and shape their future.
That frustration and desperation leads to violence, unsustainable practices, and leaves a big portion of the population vulnerable to join unorthodox and unethical economic activities: mercenaries, drug dealing, illegal trafficking, poaching and/or joining illegal parallel groups overall. Rather than pursuing the American Dream, many decide to risk everything to escape from the Northern Triangle’s Nightmare. Rather than building walls, the task is to solve once and for all the structural problems.
Beyond the ethical realm, political fragility, social vulnerability, massive emigration and pressure over biodiversity in the South affect the US society.
The ongoing challenges of racism, exclusion, corruption, climate vulnerability, poverty and inequality affect and will keep affecting you and your society as long as they are not addressed structurally and with the support of the international community, including the US.
This is to express our worries to your administration and invite your citizens to learn and understand beyond the populist discourse that the past administration repeated inflaming hate, simplifying the reality and denying the fact that we are all part of a global social, environmental and cultural ecosystem. If something fails in the South, eventually it will fail in the North too.
May God bless America, but, more than that, may God touch the hearts and brains of Americans and provide you both with wisdom and the understanding that, as long as well-being, power and privileges keep concentrating in a few, all possible blessings won’t last long.
Most respectfully,
A Guatemalan citizen.
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