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Today's
Stories
December
15, 2004
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
December 15, 2004
To Die a Little
Migration
and Coffee in Mexico and Central America
By
LUIS HERNANDEZ NAVARRO
Reyno Bartolo Hernández died
of heatstroke in the Arizona desert near Yuma on May 22, 2001.
He wasn't the only Mexican farmer who lost his life that day
trying to cross the border. Thirteen of his countrymen and -women
perished along with him in one more of the migratory tragedies
of modern history.
Reyno and his companions were
small coffee growers from the township of Atzalan, Veracruz.
Atzalan is a formerly rich region but in recent years it has
been impoverished by senseless policies. Until just a few years
ago, few of its residents migrated to the United States. Then
the price of coffee fell, and so did the price of citrus fruits
and cattle. To make matters worse, bananas were attacked by fruit
flies and the coffee crop was overcome by a devastating plant
disease.
So little by little, the inhabitants
of Atzalan set out along the route blazoned by small farmers
from the states of Michoacan, Zacatecas, and Jalisco decades
earlier. The coffee farmers began to look for a way to cross
the 3,107-kilometer border that separated them from the United
States, hoping to get to "the other side." In desperation,
they hooked up with the infamous polleros, the smugglers who
led them to their deaths.
Thomas Navarrete, long-time
adviser to the cooperative that many Atzalan growers belong to,
notes that the crisis in the region is dramatic and tragic. In
many communities, around 70% of the residents have left, most
to the United States. Navarrete points out that before people
didn't need to leave their communities, at least not like now.
"Even Celso Rodríguez, the president of the cooperative,
left to work in Arizona," he says.
The border has become a magnet
for these coffee growers. If they get over--and many do--they
earn $4-5 an hour, compared to the less than $4 a day they earn
at home, if they're lucky. In the coffee communities, the success
stories from the other side are impressive. Migrants come back
and remodel their houses; they pour a new roof, replace wooden
planks with concrete blocks. Everyone can see and envy the changes.
In regions where out-migration
was practically unheard of, the flow is now massive. The risks,
the bad treatment, the isolation that migrants suffer don't seem
to matter much. There's a reward for those who make it.
According to University of
Veracruz researcher Mario Pérez Monterosas, Veracruz and
Chiapas (Mexico's largest coffee-growing state) form part of
the latest migratory region. Between 1995 and 2000, some 800,000
people left Veracruz. Pérez Monterosas reports that Veracruz
has been steadily climbing the ladder in the list of the states
that contribute to the migrant population in the United States.
In 1992 Veracruz was in 30th place, by 1997 it had risen to 27th,
in 2000 it held 14th, and by 2002 it had become the fourth-largest
sending state in the nation.1
Before this wave started, emigration
from Veracruz's coffee zones to the United States was so scarce
that a 1994 survey registered only one township--Misantla--with
cases of migration to the north, and there were only twelve.2
The small farmers found dead
in Yuma are another figure in the macabre statistics of migration
and an indicator of the hardships born of the coffee crisis.
Like the 17 bodies that appeared on May 14, 2003 inside and surrounding
a trailer truck in Victoria, Texas, and the six drowned trying
to swim across the Rio Bravo. Since 1994, when Operation Gatekeeper
began, more than 3,000 migrants have died or disappeared, most
of them Mexican farmers. That's an average of one a day. Sometimes,
relatives of the dead never even find out what happened.
A declaration issued jointly
by the Mexican and U.S. governments confirmed the tragedy of
Reyno Bartolo and his companions, saying: " Mexico and the
United States express their profound sadness and consternation
for the death of 14 migrants in the Arizona desert."
A report from the International
Coffee Organization on the coffee crisis is a little more explicit
about the disaster: "Coffee producers from Mexico have died
trying to get into the United States illegally after abandoning
their farms In general, the situation stimulates emigration to
the cities and to industrialized countries."3 A motion on
the coffee crisis presented in the U.S. House of Representatives
on Nov. 13, 2002 mentioned the death of the 14 coffee growers
from Veracruz.
But beyond the laments, these
declarations say nothing about the reasons that led to their
journey, and they avoid pointing the finger at the real culprit:
the coffee crisis was caused by the decision of industrialized
countries and large companies to end the system of quotas that
maintained a balance between supply and demand and kept producer
income at a decent level.
The indigenous Chatinos of
Oaxaca believe that to migrate is to die a little. The experience
of Reyno Bartolo and scores of others shows that frequently they
die more than a little. Their deaths bespeak the tragedy of small
coffee growers in Mexico and Central America. Their stories form
part of the story of coffee production in the region, and that
is a story of government policies that turn farmers into surplus
humanity.
Hell and Paradise
Migration and coffee have been
associated throughout much of the history of Mexico and Central
America. Historically, the coffee harvest has required hiring
day laborers from different regions and countries, sometimes
far from the coffee plantations themselves.
Between October and March,
depending on the altitude and the region of the plants, the crop
ripens. Thousands of workers are mobilized for harvest. Large
plantations hire pickers. So do small growers. Usually, every
member of the farm family works during the coffee harvest to
ensure that the crop won't rot on the ground.
Pickers must be experienced.
The beans must be selected one by one, to distinguish the ripe
ones from the green, without damaging the branches or hurting
the new shoots. Coffee plants often grow on steep hillsides where
it is difficult to work. [The harvested beans, collected in large
baskets, must then be carried off on their backs for sorting
and drying.] Coffee picking is an ability acquired with years
of hard work and tradition.
According to Jan Rus, in the
mid-1920s some 20,000 indigenous workers from the Chiapas highlands
migrated annually to the lower Soconusco region and other coffee-growing
lands to work the harvest.4 Between 1953 and 1960, some 12 to
18 thousand people seasonally migrated each year. According to
Henry Favre, communities in the highlands exported annually about
a fifth of the economically active male indigenous population
to work in the coffee harvest.5 To get to the plantations, they
had to organize long expeditions, buy food, pay to stay in crowded
rooms, and pay tolls to use the roads along the way.
Years later, the Chiapan work
force was replaced with Guatemalans. Officially some 90,000 day
laborers made the trip from their villages in Guatemala to the
Soconusco to work on the plantations.
But the relationship between
coffee and migration has undergone a fundamental change since
the crisis in international coffee prices in 1989. Today there
is a new coffee migration. This time it isn't related to the
productive cycle of the plant. The new migration is fleeing the
coffee fields and the enforced poverty of low prices. This migration
heads north, to the United States, and stays there.
In 1989 the economic clause
setting country export quotas of the International Coffee Organization
was abandoned with the strong support of the Mexican government.
Immediately, the price fell through the floor. Prices have gone
up and down since the quota system ended, but since 1997 they
have mostly gone down.
The only ones who win in this
situation are the large companies and speculators on the commodities
markets of New York and London. Coffee-growing communities, already
poor, have grown poorer. As a response, thousands of farmers
and laborers who cultivate and harvest the crop have decided
to leave their homes permanently.
The old migration of laborers
to harvest was marked by hardship. They went to the large plantations
because they had to, not by choice. There they suffered abuse,
hunger, and sickness. The journey was hell.
Indigenous peoples of the highlands
remember the suffering: "We'd get an advance from the plantation
so when we got there we already had a debt to pay off. Then the
debt just gets bigger because the plantation doesn't give you
anything, you have to pay for everything, even food In addition
to the hard work, we suffered from other things on the plantation.
The boss doesn't care about the workers--if they're sick, it's
not his concern. So they don't give us good food and we're always
hungry Before, the foremen mistreated workers a lot, they whipped
them, beat them with branches, with belts, with the flat blade
of the machete, kicked them. You got punished for anything we
were afraid of the plantation but we put up with it because we
were poor."6
The new immigration, although
subject to many adversities, is a trip to a new world, full of
hope. In their dreams, the migrants believe that the hardships
and dangers they face as travelers will be compensated by the
benefits of a new life in a new country. They leave behind a
precarious existence that in recent years has become unendurable.
They know the risks of the road, but they still set out. The
color of the promised land is dollar-green.
Hugo Cantarero, a small coffee
grower from Honduras, was detained and assaulted by Mexican police
in Celaya , Guanajuato on his last trip. He is trying again.
He explains his dream, as he waits for his chance to cross into
Mexico in the Migrant House in Tecun Uman on the Guatemala-Mexico
border:
"I have to make an effort
to get there. I have a family. You take the risks of what awaits
you. It's not safe, you can make it or you can die. Only God
knows. In Honduras, you can't make it on a week's wages. A sack
of fertilizer that used to cost 150 lempiras costs 380 now. You
have to start cutting back on everything. For us, there's no
medicine, no clothes, no education, no nothing. In Honduras,
nobody has their own house, nobody has their own car. If you're
poor you're used to living by God's mercy. But when you get to
the United States it's such a beautiful world, so different.
With a hundred dollars you can eat 15 days, you can buy a car
for a hundred dollars.
"We have a fifty percent
chance of making it to the United States and a fifty percent
chance of dying along the way. " We leave home and maybe
never come back. So many Hondurans have died. But in the United
States, you have benefits you can't even dream of in Honduras.7
The two exoduses differ in
many ways but especially in one fundamental aspect: while the
migration to harvest forms part of agricultural labor, the march
to the United States is not tied to any work identity. When you
cross the border, it doesn't matter if you are a coffee-grower
or not. You are simply another undocumented laborer in search
of a new world.
Small farmers--and coffee growers
as part of this group--have been condemned to extinction, declared
superfluous and unnecessary. Their communities have been converted
into huge warehouses of available work force.
For those who work in coffee,
the temporary migration at harvest time can be a hell, but it's
reversible. In contrast, those who flee coffee farming seek a
modern paradise. As Hans Magnus Enzensberger affirms "nobody
emigrates without the hope of promise to be fulfilled."8
And the United States is still, for them, the land of dreams.
The Emergency
For the past seven years, coffee
plants throughout Mexico and Central America are full of beans
with no hands to pick them.9 Red carpets of ripe coffee beans
rot on the hillsides.
The small coffee grower has
to make an enormous effort to pay hired hands. Many receive payment
for the crop only when the harvest is over. They have to obtain
credit from their organization, if they are organized, or fall
into the hands of usurers. It is very difficult to receive financing.
Although there are some laborers who work in exchange for food
for the day, others receive almost as much for their work as
what the raw coffee receives on the market.
In coffee communities there
is widespread hunger, malnutrition, sickness, and death; there
is also grief and worry. The price on the international market
has fallen below $50 for 100 pounds. For many years, the average
price oscillated between $120 and $140. Except for record levels
between 1995 and 1996, the coffee price has been low since 1989
when the economic clauses designed to stabilize prices were abandoned
by the International Coffee Organization (ICO).
The coffee-producing countries
of the region have been hard hit by the price crisis, especially
the families who live off coffee production and harvest. Traditionally
a source of income and wealth for the nations that cultivate
it, in the past several years coffee has lost the dynamism and
importance it once had.
Behind each cup of coffee consumed
lies an explosive situation. During the past seven years, thousands
of hungry small coffee growers and agricultural workers have
blocked the highways and public offices of several Central American
countries. In regions that rely on coffee production, out-migration,
robbery, violence, and drug cultivation have all increased exponentially.
Many growers have succumbed to the temptation to take the machete
to the coffee plants and be done with it.
If the trend continues, the
economic and social disasters will soon be followed by an environmental
disaster. Coffee grows on hillsides and takes four years to begin
to produce. Planting corn or converting coffee groves to pasture
land to feed cattle results in severe soil erosion and deforested
wooded zones.
The situation is urgent and
dramatic. Coffee growers have sent out an anguished SOS to their
governments, agribusiness companies, and consumers in developed
countries. Most seem not to hear.
Coffee in the
Region
Coffee came to the shores of
the American continent at the end of the eighteenth century.
A hundred yeas later it had become a key crop in Mexico and the
countries that now constitute Central America . Fundamental aspects
of the economic, social, environmental, and cultural life of
these nations turn around the coffee bean.
Contrary to products like bananas,
whose production is in the hands of foreigners, coffee cultivation
is carried out mostly by national citizens. Not so with large-scale
marketing. These links in the productive chain, by far the most
lucrative, are controlled mostly and increasingly by transnational
companies--either directly or through subsidiaries--that dominate
the world market. In Honduras , five exporters control 52% of
the market and two are owned by multinationals Newman and Volcafe.
Five large foreign companies with subsidiaries in Mexico (AMSA,
Jacobs, Expogranos, Becafisa-Volcafe, and Nestle) dominate the
marketing chain there.10
Coffee cultivation is vital
to the economy of the region. Between 1990 and 2000 the region
obtained annual income from coffee of around $1.7 billion--11%
of the resources obtained from all exports. During the past two
decades, coffee cultivation was the most important economic activity
in Honduras, above bananas and lumber. It contributed 5-8% of
the GDP. In El Salvador, sales of coffee abroad reached 7.7%
of GDP in 1985 and had fallen to 1.9% by 2001. In Nicaragua,
coffee represented 25% of all exports between 1995and 2000.
In Mexico, coffee was one of
the main agricultural exports and brought in some $600 million
a year on average over the past decade. Nearly 6% of the economically
active population of that country depended on coffee for their
livelihoods.
In exporting nations, the coffee
business provides critical income to the rural workforce. Approximately
1.6 million people derive at least part of their income from
coffee in Central America --about 28% of the economically active
population. In some nations it's much higher--in Nicaragua it
rises to 42% and in Guatemala to 31%.
It is estimated that for each
producer there are eight farm workers dedicated to coffee. During
the past decade in El Salvador, this economic activity generated
155,000 permanent jobs as agricultural workers. These workers
earned an average of $7.60 a day in Costa Rica , $3.60 in El
Salvador, $3.20 in Guatemala, $3.00 in Honduras, and $2.30 in
Nicaragua.11
Although in some countries
a significant part of the production is concentrated by large
growers that form part of the authoritarian oligarchies, there
are also many small producers that participate in this economic
sector. Agrarian reforms in countries like Mexico, Nicaragua,
and El Salvador substantially affected large landholders, in
some cases radically changing the social composition of the producers
of the sector.
In this region, there are 300,000
direct producers, of which 200,000 are small producers. In Guatemala
there are 62,649 producers but they employ 2.25 million workers
through the productive chain. In Honduras there are 112,000 producers.
In Mexico, the last census showed the figure at 480,000 producers
and more than 3 million laborers.
The Disaster
Berta Cáceres is a well-off
coffee grower in El Salvador. Or was. "Beginning about five
years ago," she recounted to a reporter of El Diario de
Hoy, "we stopped earning enough to pay costs. I've had to
sell thirty head of cattle each year. We've sold our irrigation
equipment and suspended the electricity everything nice we had
on the property. One of the last head of cattle we had left,
this year we had to sell off fifty more. Coffee just doesn't
pay."
Although there was a slight
increase in price in the last harvest, the international price
has fallen to an historic low and there are no expectations that
it will improve significantly in the short term. The crisis of
overproduction and speculation on the commodities trading floor
seems to be permanent.
In Central America, moreover,
the economic crisis coincided with an array of natural disasters.
In 1998 Hurricane Mitch devastated infrastructure and crops,
especially in Honduras. Two earthquakes shook San Salvador in
January and February of 2001.At the end of 2001, tropical storm
Michelle damaged Honduras and Nicaragua. Since the spring of
2002 the region has suffered a severe and prolonged drought that
led to farm losses of more than 80% in several regions of Guatemala
and El Salvador. InterAction, a U.S. nongovernmental organization,
calculated in April of 2002 that close to a million people in
the region suffered problems of food security.
This situation has worsened
in the region due to the implementation of structural adjustment
and stabilization programs that have severely affected the agricultural
sector. In Guatemala, for example, the office that provided extension
services to farmers was closed down. The functions of regulation
and redistribution that in some countries were carried out by
governmental institutions and state-owned enterprises have been
cut.
In Nicaragua a succession of
administrations used coffee revenues as a discretionary fund.
Resources obtained thanks to the export of the coffee bean have
been used as petty cash box to meet the financial needs resulting
from earthquakes, eruptions, wars, droughts, and floods. Despite
the fact that a price stabilization fund was created in the 1980s
through growers' contributions, Nicaraguan coffee farmers did
not receive price support in key times.
The crisis in coffee activity
has caused severe economic, social, and environmental problems.
In economic terms, there has been a clear drop in profits, mainly
for small and medium growers and their cooperatives. This has
led to a reduction in investment, which in turn leads to a greater
drop in employment and income. Agricultural export earnings have
plummeted. The increase in unemployment has deepened poverty
for rural families and forced emigration. Many growers have destroyed
their coffee to plant basic grains and corn, reducing the environmental
benefits that coffee production provides.
Export income in Central America
fell from $938 million in 2000/2001 to $700 million in 2001/2002.
The drop in exports hurt the balance of payments and affected
economic activity as a whole, causing financial disaster for
some governments.
In addition to the drastic
fall in income, the growers of the region suffered from the absence
of credit and high interest rates, as well as the high cost of
inputs, transportation, and labor. Bankruptcy has led to the
loss of plantations and farms, the capacity to obtain new credit,
and also the collapse of financial institutions. More and more,
this function of providing credit is being taken over by loan
sharks.
A survey carried out by the
World Bank in Nicaragua and El Salvador in 2001 indicates that
small growers have deepening problems keeping their farms. In
many cases they have quit caring for the plants. This has meant
that plagues have seriously affected productivity. Many growers
do not fertilize and do not weed. Yields have dropped by 50%.
Compared to the previous three
years, labor demand fell in 2001 by 30% in Guatemala, Honduras,
and Nicaragua; 20% in El Salvador; and 12% in Costa Rica. In
total, 42 million work days have been lost, or 170,000 fulltime
jobs. Income has fallen by $140 million. Day laborers are out
of work and out of luck--they don't even benefit from the scarce
governmental support that growers previously received in some
countries.
Simultaneously, the international
coffee market generates hefty profits for the large intermediaries,
especially the roasters and branders. Transnational corporations
have significantly increased their presence in national markets,
as buyers, processors, or retailers.
Gilberto Recinos, a small grower
from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, describes the situation: "The
small producers depend directly on coffee. If it doesn't pay
well, their standard of living goes down; they don't have resources
for food, housing, or plant cultivation. They lack everything;
they have no way to live. The majority is suffering or barely
holding on.
"Before many people benefited
directly or indirectly from coffee: the workers, the truckers,
all had a source of income. Today anyone can see the consequences.
Jobs vanished, wages went down, business dried up, and income
is no longer generated. It affects education, health, and migration
to Mexico or the United States or the capital--for those who
have money. And those who don't? We're fried!"
Small Coffins
February 2003. In a hospital
located in western El Salvador, Adán Domínguez
struggles to stay alive. He suffers from severe malnutrition.12
Adán shares a room with
another 32 babies who, like him, are on the edge of death. Infants,
all of them, sons and daughters of small coffee growers or laborers
who work the coffee harvests. Hungry, sick from poverty and want.
All are victims of the crisis that brought down the coffee price.
According to reports from El
Salvador's Ministry of Health, during 2002 there were 52 children
of coffee producers under five who died of malnutrition and 4,000
more became seriously ill.
The doctors in charge of the
tending to the tragedy explained: "Many people who depend
on coffee are now unemployed. It gets harder and harder for the
families to provide for their children."
Divina Belmonte, spokesperson
for UNICEF, agrees with this diagnosis. "An increase in
infant malnutrition has been reported in various coffee-producing
zones of El Salvador," she stated. "Food is scarcer
and scarcer, particularly in the provinces of Achuapan, Sonsonete,
Santa Ana, and La Libertad, where nearly 30,000 families suffer
hunger as a result of the near 50% decline in coffee prices during
the last three years.13
Figures from the Basic System
of Integral health (SIBASE) show that during 2003 12 children
died of malnutrition and related causes. One year later, in the
township of Tacuba, Ahuachapán a total of 40 minors died
for the same reason.14 The severity of the situation led the
World Food Program to distribute corn, rice, and fortified foodstuffs
to over 10, 0000 families in 2003 in the Salvadoran provinces
where 30% of coffee production occurs.
Hunger also plagues Guatemala.
In 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
stated that the country was experiencing "an acute crisis
in generalized infant malnutrition, caused by the accumulated
effects of drought and much reduced employment in the coffee
sector. The most recent census information indicates that more
than 30,000 children in 91 townships suffer acute malnutrition.
Of these, more than 7,000 are in a state of moderate to grave
consumption."15
The situation was so serious
this year that a Guatemalan doctor stated, "What is happening
is a catastrophe. There has always been poverty and temporary
unemployment, but I have never seen hunger as real as now. People
literally have nothing to eat except tortillas."16
In Nicaragua conditions are
no better. José Manuel Rodríguez, five years old
and a resident of Rancho Grande, lost his life to hunger. The
same happened to Daniela Díaz and Alexander Díaz,
both just two years old. Between June of 2002 and February 2003
21 children died of malnutrition and related sicknesses. The
following months were as bad or worse. One after another, their
deaths became the cold statistics of the coffee crisis.
"I had four children but
one that was 15 months old died on Thursday of malnutrition,
lack of food and medicine. I have another three sick but I need
help because my house is made of plastic and I don't have anywhere
to go when it rains." said Yessenia Martínez, one
of the thousands of hungry farm workers in northern Nicaragua,
in September of 2002.17
In August 2003 coffee workers
marched from their mountain homes to the provincial capital of
Matagalpa to protest the conditions that caused 14 community
members to die of hunger, including two children. Marlyn, a 22-year-old
mother and her 16-month-old son both participated in the march.
She sobbed: "We haven't had anything to eat and we can't
stand it any more. This is terrible. There is no work and the
children are dying of hunger because now there is nothing in
the countryside."18
Coffee regions infested with
mosquitos, malaria, and dengue are spreading. "The women
and children are the most affected," affirmed doctor Juan
Carlos Sánchez, director of SILAIS in Matagalpa.
The $66 million donated by
the WFP as emergency aid to the region and the $60 million sent
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture fell far short of providing
what was needed to combat the malnutrition related to the coffee
crisis.
The situation is so terrifying
that the report of the mayor of Matagalpa points out that between
January and August 2002, there were 120 coffins donated to the
rural sector, all of them distributed to families and many of
them child-sized. The year before only 50 coffins had been given
out.19
The Other Border
Guatemalan workers have been
migrating to harvest coffee in the Soconusco region of Chiapas
for years. Daniela Spencer noted that for many Guatemalan Indians
work on the coffee plantations became a form of refuge from mistreatment
in their own country.20 For many years there was a tradition
between Mexico and Guatemala of free transit and trade, so much
so that it wasn't until 1917 that an immigration office was established
in Chiapas. Migratory flows from Central America to Mexico have
a long history, although the heaviest traffic began in 1965.
The Soconusco is a natural
corridor that connects the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico with
Central America. The region grew wealthy from coffee cultivation
during the period when Porfirio Díaz governed pre-revolutionary
Mexico. Díaz established a new pattern of settlement based
on the agro-export economy. Coffee was exported to Europe through
what is now Puerto Madero. In 1908 the first train route was
built and in 1965 the Pan-American Highway. Today not only merchandise
but also labor moves along these routes on its way to the northern
border.
Every year 200,000 Guatemalans
come to Mexico to work on the coffee plantations. But they are
not the only ones to cross the border. Soconusco has become a
transit region--so much so that in the south an undocumented
worker is arrested every two minutes. In 2003, 187,000 people
without papers were detained. Nearly 40% of those were in Chiapas
. This year, according to data from the Mexico 's National Institute
of Migration, the figure will likely double. Ninety percent come
from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
The southern border has become
a no-man's land for Central American immigrants. In crossing,
they are run over by trains, stabbed by bands of delinquents,
robbed by police and Army personnel. Many women are raped and
killed. Families are split up.21 Some 100 bands of smugglers
operate in the Mexico-Guatemala border zone, charging migrants
for getting them a little closer to their destination of the
United States.
The Migrant's
Story
Even before arriving at the
Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman on their way to Tapachula,
Central American migrants are oftentimes victims of extortion.
The road from El Salvador already seems long, and you've really
just started. You left your family, your property your coffee
farm. You're in debt up to your eyeballs. You know you shouldn't
go out on the streets after six. It's too dangerous. This city
is a free-for-all of drug-runners and black-market arms dealers.
Territory of human smugglers. City of hortelanos, tricicleteros,
loan sharks, and restaurant owners who live off people like you,
people just passing through.
It was already risky getting
this far. It's not like it used to be. The U.S. Border Patrol
trains the Guatamalan special army forces called kaibiles. It
provides them with technology. Now you don't have to wait to
get to the Unitedf States to suffer. The hard line begins in
your own country. Then it gets harder in Mexico. Mexico has become
Washington's southern gatekeeper, guarding the backyard entrance.
The government's Southern Plan sealed the border. Santiago Creel,
Mexico's Minister of the Interior said as much: "The Mexican
government is prepared to cut off the growing flow of foreigners
that use the country as a transit point in their efforts to reach
the United States."
The house where you wait to
cross is not big enough for everyone who's waiting. You're piled
on top of each other. In the night they lock you up with chains
and armed guards. They tell you that you'll be part of a crew
going to work in the fields of the Soconusco using false papers.
You should carry a machete and a gunny sack. You won't cross
the Sucihiate River in a tire boat, or swim like others do. But
you have to learn to talk like a Mexican, know about that country
even if you're just passing through. They sold you a booklet
for ten bucks. There you read about Mexico's "Child Heroes,"
what the president's wife's name is, the colors of the flag.
Others even obtain a voter card to given them a new identity.
You wish you could travel in
a banana trailer. It has air conditioning so you wouldn't be
asphyxiated. But you don't have enough money. Not even for a
chicken truck. You have to go by train. You're young and strong.
You can stand the days. You won't go by boat. You know what happens
to those who take a shark boat to Salina Cruz and then a smaller
boat to Acapulco . How they suffer on the rogue seas. What happened
on August 16th when two boats sank, one with 20 people on board,
the other with 30. Not one person made it to shore. No, this
business of "kill or be killed" isn't for you.
You don't know the numbers
but it's a lot. Travelers like you who die at sea, in the rivers,
on the bridges, on the train tracks, in the trailers. The Center
for Central American Resources in El Salvador says that between
1997 and 2000 almost 25,000 Central Americans disappeared seeking
the American dream. Ten thousand were Salvadoran. Many of the
families still don't know what has happened and may never know.
You're on the Mexican side.
You wait for the train, the beast, as it's called here. The train
stations stink. You wait hours. There are others like you. Biding
their time in graveyards, vacant lots, underneath bridges. As
you go on your way, the vigilance will get worse. Soldiers guard
the rails. Your itinerary is not made up by a travel agency.
The routes, the operatives of the Migra, your own fatigue, and
pure luck will determine your course.
The beast arrives. When the
wheels of the convoy begin to move you run as fast as you can,
grab hold and hang on. If you get run over, it's the end. How
many like you have lost arms and legs? Every month seven or eight
train amputees arrive at the regional hospital in Tapachula.
Bad luck. This train doesn't
carry grain or sand. But at least it's not raining. Better not
to go inside the wagons--if they close you can get asphyxiated.
Better to hang on like a monkey, taking care to duck the high
tension wires. In the tunnels you move onto the side and tie
your arms on with wire. You cannot sleep. If you doze off you
fall. You protect yourself from the cold with a windbreaker.
You wrap up your hands. In tunnels and on cold days the steel
of the train freezes.
This time there aren't any
gangs. Often they jump on to steal. To them, 50 pesos can cost
your life. The Maras. They chase you, catch you, and beat you
up. Hit you in the face and body. Throw you off the train. Abuse
the women.
When the immigration agents
get on you run to the back and jump. It doesn't matter if the
train is moving. They can't catch you. You wait until another
train comes by, start to run, then get off in Huamantla. It's
near Apizaco, at the end of the longest tunnel, there's a checkpoint.
When you see a red antenna that announces the arrival in Lechería
and you do it again. That's where most of the cargo trains heading
north end up. It's the halfway border, and they'll get you for
sure there. If it's not the thieves, it's the police. So you
go around the station and wait for the next train. From there
the freight trains head out for the north.
You already have a different
gaze. Same with everyone else traveling with you. You've become
tougher--from the hardships, the fear, the waiting, and the horrors.
You smell different. Not just for the sweat and dirt. Little
by little, the smell of death gets under your skin. That's what
the refuges that help migrants along the route smell like.
You head out to Coahuila, another
stop for the freight trains. You cross at Piedras Negras or Ciudad
Acuña. You think the vigilance will be less there. But
private guards watch the trains. They're even more violent. In
less than a year three migrants were assassinated in Coahuila.
Elmer Alexander Batrahona was shot. Ismael Jesus Martinez was
stoned to death in November 2002. All by the employees of a company
called Canine Protection Systems, hired to guard the trains.
Its president is Miguel Nassar Daw, son of one of the main men
responsible for Mexico's dirty war.
In Saltillo the police stop
you. They hit you and take your money. It's like Gabriela Rodriguez
Pizarro, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants for
the UN says: "In Mexico there is a generalized climate of
hostility and many take advantage of the migrant's vulnerability."
It doesn't matter that in El Salvador in September of 2000 Vicente
Fox offered major efforts to respect the human rights of migrants.
Pure rhetoric. Nothing personal.
You arrive in Laredo . Finally
the border. Salvadorans like you work outside the municipal building.
They wash the pick-ups of the law enforcement officers. From
here you can't get to the other side. Operation Hold the Line,
or Rio Grande on the Mexican side, leaves no holes. So you go
to Las Antenas, 14 kilometers away. On the edge of the river
there are some small beaches. You pay the patero--that's what
they call polleros or smugglers here--to use the rafts and hide
in the bushes. They, in turn have to pay a quota for "use
rights" to the "Z," the thugs of Osiel Cárdenas,
head of the Gulf Cartel.
You shove off into the river
and the current takes you. When you reach the other side you
start to look for a safe house. There you wait until they put
you in a truck with 60 other people. That's how your compatriots
died in Victoria, Texas. But it's not your time yet. You're off
to Georgia. Your cousin is working the harvest there. It all
starts again.
The Exodus
Coffee growers and laborers
are the latest link in the historic migration to the United States.
They arrive when the border is closed, the cost of the journey,
and support networks hardly exist. These new migrants have little
or no knowledge of the geography, physical and social, they will
face.
To emigrate, coffee growers
have to go into debt. They mortgage their land and houses and
are charged interest rates of at least 20% a month. Every day
that passes is more money they owe. It's urgent that they arrive
at their destination quickly. That's why so many die in desperation
in the desert.
Often they fall into the hands
of abusive smugglers. When the "guides" are from the
same region they have a certain responsibility to the family
to take care of their "charge." But when they are strangers,
they have no commitment to anybody. Ignorance of the journey
means that the new migrants frequently fall in with smugglers
who sell them or abandon them. They are easy victims of assaults
and extortion. All along the way people lie in wait seeking to
exploit them.
The coffee farmer sets out
for the north ill-prepared. He or she arrives without boots,
or water, carrying money. Instead of making a deal in the village
or through someone they know in some city in the United States
, arrangements are made in bus depots and train stations. It's
no wonder that events happen like that of August 2002, when two
Chiapan youths were found floating dead in the All-American canal
in California --just yards from U.S. soil.22
Alan Bersin, one of the strategists
of Operation Gatekeeper, explains the complexity of crossing
for new migrants: "Now the ones who cross illegally have
to cross extremely difficult terrain, deep rocky canyons, full
of thorny bushes, practically without water and with peaks of
over 6,000 feet, or over peaks nearly 6,000 feet high, or through
desolate and dangerous deserts. Before they crossed in areas
with almost immediate access to highways, but today it's a hard
walk of two to three days out to the highway. The guides are
more necessary than ever and charge accordingly."23
Many new migrants do not speak
Spanish or it isn't their first language. It's common that in
the United States there are no translators in their language.
The fact is basic to receive medical attention or legal defense.
In the 80s the Trique Adolfo Ruiz Álvarez and Mixtec Santiago
Ventura Morales were jailed in Oregon for a misunderstanding
that derived from not knowing English or Spanish. Álvarez
was locked up in a mental institution and sedated for over two
years, while Ventura was unjustly held prisoner for four years.
The new migratory flows are
directed toward places where migrants didn't go before. The destinations
are states located in the east coast such as Georgia, Alabama,
Tennessee, or the Carolinas. The conditions there are more difficult.
On arrival they must live in bridges, caves, and open fields,
where they suffer discrimination--often from their own compatriots
established there. "Superfluous people are cheap,"
wrote Enzesberger. "Clandestine immigration lowers the price
of the labor force."24
The conditions of the journey,
the crossing, and the changes in diet weaken defenses and expose
migrants to many illnesses. Several cases of tuberculosis have
been reported in cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa
Ana. It is easy to catch something when travelers are locked
up together in the trunk of a car for hours. In 2004, 30 cases
of Central Americans with malaria were reported in Orizaba, Veracruz
and one died. And it's hard to get well. "There are people
who come back sick from the north," they say in the Chinantec
community of Santiago Yaitepec. "There they don't have curanderos,
because only young people go, and the old don't leave the village
and the young don't know how to cure. Just kids of 25 or less
are the ones who leave for the north, the old people don't want
to go."25
The United States isn't the
only destination. There is heavy migration of Nicaraguan workers
to Costa Rica since there they can earn double what they make
at home. This situation has become so critical for Nicaraguan
plantation owners owing to the lack of labor that president Enrique
Bolaños declared in late December of 2003 that the nation
could lose up to 200,000 quintals of coffee.
Researcher Edith Kauffer Michel
described migratory routes of Central Americans on Mexico's southern
border.26 According to her study, migrants now cross Mexico through
the states of Tabasco and Campeche and not only through Chiapas.
The routes are: the coast, by train from Tapachula to Arriaga;
the Sierra Madre, through Motozintla, La Angostura, and Comitán
in Chiapas; the border, which is the second most important; the
jungle, through Veracruz; the ocean route from Puerto Cahmperico
(Guatemala) to Huatulco, Oaxaca; the air route for those with
papers and money; and the plains route from Tabasco through the
Tenosique corridor.
Migration in Chiapas has been
explosive. The signal for the exodus came with the rains of 1998
when 400,000 hectares were damaged and 400 people killed. The
coffee crisis added to it. And the passage of Hondurans stimulated
it by showing the way. At least 30 municipalities in Chiapas
have formed part of the migration. Some 30,000 Chiapans leave
each year for the United States. By late 2004 some 300,000, over
65% farmers and indigenous peoples.27 In 1997 Chiapas occupied
27th place among states receiving remittances from abroad; in
2001 it rose to 15th; in 2003, 12th; and this year 11th. In 2003,
the state received $260 million. This year it received $227 million
in the first half and by the end of the year the figure is expect
to rise to $500 million.
According to researcher Jorge
Cruz Burguete, there are 136 travel agencies in Frontera Comalapa,
with buses that leave for Tijuana once a week. Posters, radio
commercials, and trucks with loud speakers announce departures
throughout the state. The business began, reports Alberto Najar,
with entrepreneurs like Rosalinda Quiroa of Carrillo Puerto,
half an hour from Tapachula. Doña Rosalinda used to organize
pilgrimages to the Villa in Mexico City. When she realized that
many youths were continuing on up to Tijuana or Ciudad Juárez,
she hired buses and began to offer service to the border. A year
later, she bought her own bus, and then another.
Migration is not limited to
the poorest. Even the sons of plantation owners have had to follow
the road north to the United States. They are charged with maintaining
the family pride; for years they lived a privileged life, wore
leather boots, drove big trucks, and looked down on the Indians.
Now, those who haven't migrated north wear rubber boots and mended
clothes. The men use the dollars from the remittances to hire
seasonal workers. And, irony of life, the smugglers treat plantation
owners and day laborers the same.
To Die a Little
How does immigration affect
the indigenous coffee communities that have conserved their ethnic
community identity?
Over 10 years ago, writes researcher
Daniel Oliveras de Ita, emigration from San Juan Quiahije in
the Chatina region of Oaxaca began when the first tour migrants
arrived in the United States.28 Their main economic activity
was coffee growing, working as seasonal laborers or dependent
producers for the coffee plantations of the region.
Before going north, the travelers
went to the curanderos, or healers, of the village. The shamans
told them to place candles for the saints, for example to Santiago
Yaitepec, or the Virgin of Juquila, or Saint John Quiahije, depending
on which saints the curanderos said. They instruct them to purify
themselves and they have to abstain from having sex for 7 - 13
days. They also must not swear or fight during this time, they
should behave well, and walk straight and narrow so that favors
will be granted them.
Those who go north without
consulting the curanderos have problems, so they communicate
with their parents or elders and tell them about the situation.
The family represents them and consults with the curanderos who
tell them what to do to change the luck of their relative on
the other side. They are instructed to carry candles to the saints
and the dead in the cemetery.
Before going north the youth
go with the curanderos who eat the sacred mushroom (hui ya jo),
narrates Narciso García Urbano of Santa María Yolotepec.
When they eat the mushroom they see the destiny of the people
who will migrate for work. They can see if they will be able
to cross the border or if they will have problems along the sway,
if they will find work and if it will go well. They see if one
will fail in the north. They also go to the graveyard to ask
permission and health from the dead, their grandparents. They
ask for help from the tomb to care for them along the way, so
nothing happens to them and they find work and return well.
In Santiago Yaitepec the people
say that to migrate north is to die a little. When a family member
is absent, either dead or far way, the rest of the family still
performs healing and rituals for them, using photographs and
clothing. In the hills the people strike the clothing of the
dead and migrants with a staff, and light candles and ask that
wherever they are they do not suffer and repent for their sins.
The young people expect to
leave. Adolescents begin to migrate at 13. Most work for about
three years in the United States and return at 17 to take on
their first cargo as topil (a community post that forms part
of the traditional cargo system).
Catholic people with strong
family ties do not change so drastically in the United States
. They continue to carry out community service and perform cargos.
These are the ones trained in the Chatina customs.
For others, however, without
the preparation and belief in the traditions and customs, they
return with new ideas that they often seek to impose. They no
longer accept traditional authority and want to be bosses themselves.
They refuse to serve in low-level cargos because they come back
with money and they feel powerful. They do not obey the political
or religious hierarchies. When they return they want to be municipal
presidents.
Are the Chatinos of De Ita's
study typical of indigenous coffee migrants? We don't know. Migration
has transformed the logic of the community, its dreams and its
demons. It has had to reinvent itself.
In a recent book, Jonathan
Fox and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado note that in spite of the adverse
conditions that indigenous migrants face in the United States,
many have found ways to build a broad range of political, social,
and civic organizations to fight for strategic objectives.29
In these cases, the migratory mobility of the peoples instead
of weakening them has done the opposite. There they have created
and recreated identities. Oaxacalifornia, that imaginary community
that brings together the many Oaxacan villages where migrants
are born and the U.S. cities where they live now is the new space
of a transnational society.
The lack of papers and the
increased risks in crossing the borders after September 11 th
make it harder for migrants to return to their home countries.
With no real perspective of better coffee prices (the increase
in the last harvest is temporary and is still below the costs
of production), without possibilities of employment in their
places of origin, establishing oneself in the north is becoming
progressively more attractive for those who once produced coffee.
Responses to
the Crisis
In September 2002, 3,000 Nicaraguan
coffee day laborers and their families camped on the Pan-American
highway near Las Tunas, about 97 kilometers from the capital.
Their presence interrupted traffic. On Wednesday the 11 th, they
blocked Central America 's largest Pacific highway for ten hours.
The majority of the participants
have been out of work for months. "We want real jobs, they
can't hire us to 'work for food'. We want work with a wage, we
want stable jobs." One hundred hours after the protest started,
negotiations ended with some important agreements.
But Las Tunas is more the exception
than the rule in the coffee-producing world. Instead of leading
to open protests, the discontent and despair in the sector have
lead to emigration as an escape valve. Protests have broken out
in many places, but they do note even begin to reflect the dimensions
of the tragedy.
The crisis has struck cooperatives
of small producers and their struggles for self-administration.
Although the crisis has stimulated conversion to organic coffee,
fair trade and gourmet markets, it has also reduced membership
in grassroots organizations.
Certainly those market niches
have grown with the crisis, to the point where Guatemala has
become second-only to Colombia as a global exporter of specialty
coffee. The conversion toward these markets has been financed
by the World Bank. USAID has funded a $20 million support program
for marketing and technical assistance in the area for 2002-2006--just
as it did to increase coffee production in Costa Rica to rein
in "sandino-communism" in Nicaragua.30 But niche marketing
benefits a very small percentage of coffee producers and fails
to resolve the central issues.
Civil society in Mexico and
Latin America has shown a notable lack of interest in the migrants'
situation. Migrant services are provided by volu |