Latin American leaders blame the migration crisis on the sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), met this Sunday in Palenque with his counterparts from Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, from Colombia, Gustavo Petro, from Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, from Haiti, Paul Henry, and from Honduras, Xiomara Castro, to try to offer a joint response to the migration crisis that the region is going through, with more than three million undocumented immigrants registered at the US border during the 2023 fiscal period, which closed on September 30. The meeting was attended by representatives from up to 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, but excluded the United States and Canada, the main recipients of this flow, in an attempt to find a solution to the origin of the problem.

“We cannot wait for substantive initiatives to be taken by the United States Government.”. We have to act, and we can do it, we can help each other,” López Obrador explained shortly after participating, along with his counterparts, in a guided tour of the Mayan ruins of Palenque.. After the tour, the leaders held a two and a half hour work meeting in which a document of 'regional commitments' was signed.. Among other points, the 'Palenque Agreement' includes the promotion of interregional trade, the elimination of tariffs, the fight against transnational organized crime and human trafficking, strengthening the protection of women and children on the route, expanding regular migration routes and the creation of a Latin American medicines agency.

The signatories have also aligned themselves with Nicolás Maduro and Miguel Díaz Canel, demanding that the US end the economic sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela since, in their opinion, “they are contrary to international law and have serious repercussions beyond the target countries.”. Likewise, they have called on Joe Biden's government to sit down with the Castro authorities to “hold a comprehensive dialogue on their bilateral relations in the shortest possible time.”. In statements to the media, the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, has denounced that the economic blockade “is expressly aimed at depressing income, generating poverty, hunger, and trying to generate political change, and naturally that causes a stimulus to immigration”.

For his part, the Venezuelan president has thanked his Latin American counterparts for the support received to end “more than 930 illegal sanctions, misnamed sanctions, coercive, extortionist, torturous and unilateral measures” and has committed that, if they are lifted, “permanently, totally and completely, without extortion, without blackmail (…) in less than a year all the causes and this situation are being reversed”. More than 334,000 undocumented Venezuelans arrived in the United States during fiscal year 2023, according to figures from the Customs and Border Protection Office, being the largest nationality of all.. Between August and September alone, more than 60,000 were registered, a figure that doubles that documented in June and July.

The 'countersummit' of migrants in Tapachula

Coinciding with the meeting that Latin American leaders were holding in Palenque, a group of around 200 migrants participated this Sunday in a symbolic summit in the Bicentenario park in the Mexican city of Tapachula, next to the border with Guatemala, where they explained the causes that They took them to leave their countries, they criticized the actions of their rulers and burned piñatas with the faces of Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel and Daniel Ortega.. A Venezuelan migrant who was traveling with his wife and four children lamented that “we are human beings, but Maduro does not see that, that does not matter to him, he only cares about greed and money, I am looking for a better future for my children, a security that I cannot find in my country”.

Tapachula is one of the best thermometers to measure the pulse of the flow in the region, since all migrants who enter through southern Mexico, after crossing the Suchiate River (natural border with Guatemala), must pass through this point to formalize their transit and asylum permits, in a process that can take several months. The saturation of the shelters in the border city has forced hundreds of migrants to spend the night outdoors, in parks and public squares, where they are exposed to high temperatures, recurring rains, hunger and thirst, and harassment from authorities. corrupt companies and criminal groups that profit from their transit.

Irineo Mújica, spokesperson for the NGO 'Pueblos Sin Fronteras', describes the 'Palenque Summit' as “the most hypocritical and corrupt I have seen”, and regrets that the attendees “are the ones who are creating migration and we should not reward them with money as López Obrador intends”. This activist is one of the most recognized voices in Mexico on immigration matters, as he usually travels through the main points of the route documenting the vulnerability of migrants and calling for acts of protest and mobilizations to draw the attention of the authorities.. The saturation of the shelters in Tapachula has pushed Mújica to call for the departure of a 'migrant caravan' for next October 30 and, as he explains to EL MUNDO, “it has all the ingredients to be one of the largest and most difficult. The situation here is terrible and it is necessary to make the problem visible and protect the migrant community.”.