Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

After reaching a deal with Mexico, the US will by 6 December start returning asylum seekers from other Latin American countries to Mexico, where they will be obliged to wait while their case is assessed. Mexico said US officials met its concerns over funding for migrant shelters, protection for vulnerable groups and access to medical checkups and Covid-19 vaccines. It also promised to take “local safety conditions” into account before accepting asylum seekers – a pledge that provoked disquiet among migrant advocates. But advocates argue that the main shortcomings of the programme are unchanged. “The violence faced by migrants in Mexico is going to outweigh any sort of promise made by the Mexican government to try to make this better,” said Linda Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas. “There aren’t enough shelters. People are continuing to be kidnapped – sometimes in their own shelter … Mexico can try [to protect migrants] but the reality is Mexico doesn’t have the means of doing it.”

On November 28, the Honduran people cast their vote in overwhelming numbers for a future in which Hondurans aren’t forced to flee their own country, forcefully repudiating the corrupt administration of current President Juan Orlando Hernández, a man who wrought unimaginable destruction on his people for eight years. Now the big question is how the United States will respond to the policies of the new president. Xiomara Castro, a democratic socialist, unseated a right-wing machinery that has been backed by Washington since the 2009 coup that deposed her husband, Manuel Zelaya....Castro’s control over Honduras’s democratic institutions could be threatened by its terrifying military and police forces. They’re loyal to Hernández, tight with drug traffickers, long practiced at repressing dissent and capable of anything. Hondurans are rightly worried about a new coup or more complex disruption and violence involving provocateurs, paramilitaries, drug traffickers and gangs. Despite all of this, the United States has continued to fund, train and share intelligence with the Honduran military and police, in the face of powerful congressional opposition. What message is President Biden sending to the Honduran military and police now?