“Why Do They Leave To Begin With?” On Latin American Hypocrisy At Trump Deportations

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — Colombia’s socialist President Gustavo Petro is so upset that Colombians have to travel in handcuffs when they are deported from the U.S. that he’s making them take the same trip three times. But why are Latin American presidents not upset by the mistreatment that makes people leave their countries in the first place? It’s only the mistreatment when they are sent back that we hear them complain.

Our continent has long become accustomed to sending its nationals out to seek a better life in the United States or Europe. And we are not ashamed to admit that we even live off what our brothers and sisters earn while working in lonely exile. We say the word remittances, but we never think of the bitter reality that produces them: Our only concern is the exchange rate.

Petro and other presidents sound big and generous when they say deportees are welcome “back home,” that we’ll greet them with flowers and a hug, and that they have a homeland. But we know it’s a farce. There is no work here, not even enough for those who have stayed; the conditions that made people leave are intact. It is not just the worst off who leave, but also university graduates whose future depends on being able to travel.

Missed opportunities

The third culprit (in reverse order) in the continent’s migrant crisis is all the governments that never made an effort to build productive and modern economies and a vigorous Latin American common market. We see how China attained an astounding level of wealth and technology over 40 years. But it never occurred to anyone that Latin America could be even richer and become one of the globe’s top-level economic players.

South America is twice as big as China, with half the population. We have 10 times China’s water reserves, more biodiversity than anywhere else, and a truly continental culture of creativity that is barely exploited.

The only one who understood in his day that the continent could be a beacon for the world was Simón Bolívar, the 19th century Liberator. But he could never get around the tin-pot generals conspiring against him over the meanest of interests, as they keep doing today. In Bolívar’s days (before the Louisiana Purchase), Gran Colombia, comprising today’s Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, outsized the United States.

American exploitation

The second culprit of the migratory crisis is the United States, which has exploited its neighbors from the very start and used its power, advantages and luck to gradually exert control over the continent. It forged agreements in line with its interests and followed the methods of its own former European masters, to divide and rule.

Making other countries subordinate turned out to be an excellent deal. Instead of concerning themselves with domestic markets and working to enhance their own citizens, those countries began producing what the big neighbor needed, which gave birth to banana republics or oil, livestock, sugar, coffee, gold, timber or coca republics, as the case may be.

In Colombia’s Chocó region, mining compounds emerged beside sleepy settlements and others elsewhere belonging to Texas Petroleum or the United Fruit Company, always separated by barbed wire, as oil, gold, silver, copper, tobacco, bark, coffee, bananas, sugar, flowers and migrants began flowing toward an avid, greedy north.

Heaven forbid we should ever have thought about organizing our economy around our people’s basic needs.

Big interests ensured Latin American countries never diversified production and became entrenched suppliers of raw materials. They were discouraged from embarking on industrialization and efforts to advance in technology and science or to modernize ideas and customs.

Because the First World would take care of industry, science and progress, and our governments simply complied. They were dazzled by the northern star and more than happy to receive its scraps. Every country had its servile ruler. Colombia had César Gaviria, although he wasn’t the only one who set about dismantling what was left of a productive economy.

They needed gold: We extracted gold. They needed oil: We dug for oil. They needed bananas: We cut them bananas. They needed meat: We devoted entire territories to raising livestock. If coffee was all they wanted, we’d produce nothing but coffee. Heaven forbid we should ever have thought of producing what the First World was producing, and organizing our economy around our people’s basic needs. Why were we surprised then to see our peasantry forcibly producing coca when there was massive demand for cocaine up north and our governments had done nothing to foment healthy economies but bowed to “imperial” authority and market demands?

Tolerating inequality at home

This has led to the craziness of today’s continent, where there is no work and millions get by as paupers, sifting through trash or earning a dime any way they can. Naturally, people began fleeing — first in trickles, then in waves — to seek work, decent wages and a feasible life, always far from their loved ones and barely comforted by fading memories.

It is astounding today to see U.S. President Donald Trump pretending to be saddened by Gaza’s destruction, before suggesting as a “final solution” — shamelessly, alongside the man who destroyed the Strip — the entire population’s displacement to other countries. The same man said his country was being invaded by violent hordes that must be thrown out. They destroy little countries then complain when people arrive in desperation.

Let us not be hypocrites in protesting about their returning handcuffed like criminals.

For our own dignity, we cannot allow millions of our citizens to keep risking their lives and those of their children, crossing jungles and the desert — and all for world that no longer wants them. Let us not be hypocrites in protesting about their returning handcuffed like criminals. The United States was hospitable and humane with immigrants for decades, and we have no right to expect it to treat them better than their home countries have.

Certainly our governments bear a share of the blame, as does the United States, which paid for their servile attitude. But the first culprits in this migration crisis are the people of Latin America: We elect and tolerate governments that sell themselves and despise us. And we prefer to admire another country’s greatness before building our own.

We tolerate every inequality in our countries but demand rights in someone else’s country. We complain about our fellow citizens being handcuffed and thrown out. But really, we’re the ones living with our hands and feet tied, every day and in our home.