Children of the Monroe Doctrine: The Militarized Roots of America's Border Calamity

by Arturo J. Viscarra and Michael Prentice

- The border crisis can't be solved without the U.S. coming to terms with its role in creating the awful conditions refugees are fleeing.

"[I]n the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States . . . to the exercise of an international police power.” --Theodore Roosevelt, 1904.

photo credit: Matthew Cole/Shutterstock.com

It’s impossible to understand the root causes of the current wave of Central Americans arriving in the United States, and therefore the appropriate U.S. response, without acknowledging the historical relationship between the U.S. and Central America. Unfortunately, the debate in Congress and in the mainstream media has not considered altering our foreign policy as it focuses on whether or not the U.S. has new obligations under international law or a moral duty to treat non-citizen children with compassion. Vice President Biden recently referred to them as “our kids”, stressing the importance of due process for the children's asylum claims, but he simultaneously called for a reiteration of the failed, militarized "Plan Colombia" in Central America. Before rushing into more Drug War militarization, the U.S. needs to accept its share of the responsibility in creating the current political, social, and economic conditions refugees are fleeing.

The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which declared the U.S. the sole power in the Western Hemisphere, set the stage for continuing U.S. control in Central America through military interventions or the financing, arming, and training of pro-U.S. local elites and their armed forces.  By the 1880s, many Central American and Caribbean republics were reduced to “protectorates or in effect client states” of the U.S., according to historian John Coatsworth. During the Banana Wars, the U.S. military intervened in Honduras seven times in twelve years. The 1954 CIA-orchestrated Guatemalan coup sparked a civil war that lasted until 1996. In the 1980s, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala were inundated with U.S. military aid and advisers, resulting in mass carnage and mass migration to the U.S. The “Banana Republic” of Honduras became a staging ground for U.S.-trained armed forces fighting leftists in the three countries it borders, earning the nickname “U.S.S. Honduras.”

The School of the Americas (SOA), established in 1946, embodies the U.S.’ traditional policy towards Central America: applying military solutions to social and economic problems. Graduates of the SOA include the most notorious Central American human rights violators: members of the Battalion 316 in Honduras; the murderers of Archbishop Oscar Romero, four U.S. churchwomen, and over 900 civilians in El Salvador; and former and current Presidents of Guatemala connected to genocidal military campaigns. Despite the Pentagon’s claims of change and transparency, it has refused to release the names of SOA graduates for the last 10 years. Be it Cold War or Drug War, the SOA continues to enable U.S. allies to commit human rights violations in the name of democracy.

June 28, 2015 marked the sixth anniversary of the SOA graduate-led military coup that ousted democratically-elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Thousands of coup opponents have been threatened, beaten, tortured, disappeared, or killed.  Meanwhile, the U.S. worked diligently to guarantee that the coup regime remained in power, and quickly recognized the results of the two tainted elections that put Porfirio Lobo and Juan Orlando Hernandez in power. Post-coup Honduran security forces have received increased U.S. military aid and training despite their well-known record of human rights violations and infiltration by the drug cartels they ostensibly combat. The Pentagon has built at least three new U.S. military installations in Honduras since the coup, revealing a U.S. motive in its illogical actions: its attachment to the “U.S.S. Honduras.”

It should be no surprise that Honduras, accounting for 29% of unaccompanied minors who surrendered to Border Patrol in 2014, has for the first time become the number one source of Central American migration when the U.S.-backed Honduran regimes have exacerbated lawlessness, violence, and economic alienation over the last five years. In all of its dealings in Central America, the U.S. collaborates militarily with local oligarchies to enforce unequal political and economic status quos. The current wave of children and adults fleeing Central America is at least partly due to the continuation of the supremacy of Pentagon whim over the basic needs of the poor majority of Central America.

photo credit: Getty Images

It is imperative to consider why Nicaraguans are not migrating en masse despite facing similar historical, economic, and imperialist obstacles as other Central American countries. After decades of brutal U.S.-backed governments, the current Nicaraguan government has been able to escape a large degree of U.S. control and form its own security policies.  The results are Nicaragua’s far lower levels of violence and forced migration than its neighbors, despite similar levels of poverty. The U.S. can learn from Nicaragua’s success in areas such as policing, to help solve the child migrant crisis, but only with a fundamental change from the U.S.-promoted culture of the security forces in neighboring countries.

Since 2008, the U.S. has spent over $800 million in security aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador through the “Central American Regional Security Initiative” (CARSI) as well as millions more in bilateral military and police aid to each country where it fights the Drug War. But when that money goes to the likes of Honduras’s cartel-infiltrated politicians and brutal state security forces, is it surprising that the rule of law further deteriorates? Central American adults are risking their lives and those of their children to escape the historical and current system of violence that the U.S. refuses to recognize its role in creating. Who is more irresponsible, the parents or the Pentagon? Who is more rational, the parents or the U.S. Congress?

In 2013, after nearly 200 years, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the era of the Monroe Doctrine over. Still, it appears that business as usual continues for the Pentagon and its corrupt allies in Honduras and Guatemala. As record numbers of Central American refugees are detained at the border, the media and policy-makers need to admit that these children are the progeny of armed conflicts funded by U.S. taxpayers. Honest, bold, and research-based reevaluations of foreign policy towards the region must be conducted and implemented for conditions in Central America to improve any time soon.

Arturo J. Viscarra migrated to the U.S. from El Salvador during the civil war. He is an immigration attorney and the Advocacy Coordinator for School of the Americas Watch.

Michael Prentice is a student at Vassar College interning for SOA Watch. 

Join Michael, Arturo, and thousands of others for the 25th anniversary of the SOA Vigil this November: http://soaw.org/november.

Privilege and Peace

By Chelsey Dyer, WfP SE Regional Board Member

Margaret Mead, a once famous anthropologist, theorized that warfare is an invention created by humankind. She staunchly rejected the notion that war is a biological or sociological inevitably and argued that should a “method more congruent with the institutions and feelings of the period be invented” war would become obsolete and a new invention would supersede its role. I have often wondered over the veracity of this theory. Over time, citizens have turned to their governments and governments to transnational bodies to prevent citizen abuse during conflicts, end wars, and prevent them from starting. But violence has always remained an option.

Until now.

Until a small community in Colombia created another possibility, a new hope for peace. Despite a perpetuated cycle of violence and economic deterioration that erodes community bonds and the luxury of creativity, a group of dedicated Colombians has continued to persist in their recognition of the defects of war. And so some have created a new invention, a space in which violent actors are evicted and peace is groomed with non-violence and community bonds.

It is the humanitarian space of Puente Nayero.

Situated against the backdrop of Buenaventura, the people of the beachfront neighborhood of Puente Nayero established a humanitarian space with the aid and accompaniment of the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz or the Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace. Today, their success is echoed in the warmth that filters through the coconut trees and casts its glow on the children at play below, children who are already guaranteed a healthier future. Peace is growing, despite the obstacles the city of Buenaventura provides. With an 80% poverty rate, Buenaventura has been called “ground-zero” for the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Enacted in 2012, the FTA immediately eliminated 80% of tariffs on U.S. exports to Colombia, allowing a surge of cheap US goods to enter Colombia. Buenaventura is the primary hub through which 70% of Colombia’s imports and exports pass. As such, this city has been targeted for intensified multinational development and aesthetic improvements to accommodate the heightened presence of business professionals. However, this development has been accompanied by displacement, more turf wars between neoparamilitaries over drug routes and territory, and increasing levels of violence and economic distress.


While the Colombian government attempts to combat rising levels of disappearances, dismemberments, and murders in Buenaventura by increasing its military presence, local community members report the collusion of armed forces with multinational corporations and neo-paramilitaries. Accounts of abuse feed a pervasive mistrust of armed officials and erodes already fragile community bonds. Many citizens in Buenaventura are left with no other options but to shut themselves in their homes after dark for protection; be displaced to the cement compound of San Antonio with few economic, educational, or health opportunities; or join a neo-paramilitary group.

This is what makes the community of Puente Nayero so remarkable. Faced with the aforementioned options, the community created another choice. Peace. In April 2014 the community began to evict all violent actors from their land, reclaimed “chop-up” houses previously used for torture, and began the long journey of rebuilding a supportive a social community.


The clothes drying on the wash line and the neighbors meandering calmly throughout the streets mask the extraordinary nature of Puente Nayero in a veil of banality. Yet, amidst the dirt paved streets and wooden homes the movement for peace continues. In November 2014, paramilitary groups made incursions onto the adjacent street of Piedras Cantan, threatened community leaders and announced their intentions to infiltrate the space. This occured in spite of the community's repeated demands for police presence in the space and protections for leaders. The community was granted collective protective measures (medidas cautelares) by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in September. This ruling grants official recognition to the humanitarian space as an area under threat and acknowledges the community's heightened risk level due to the lack of government action. With this recognition the IACHR has said the Colombian government must comply with the community's requests for protection. However, history has shown that lack of political will in Colombia can cause well-intended policies to fail. In order for the community’s needs to be fulfilled the Colombian government and National Protections Unit (a division of the Ministry of the Interior tasked with protecting human rights defenders and other citizens under threat) have to comply. As such, this community’s battle for security and peace is far from over:

WHAT ARE THEIR NEEDS?

• · A school bus for children
• · Security cameras and better lighting in the space (for safety)
• · Cell phones and bulletproof vests for leaders
• · Secure transportation and body guards for leaders
• · Police presence five key points in the community which would require local and national government support 
• · Prior consultation with multi-nationals who wish to use their land

It is not easy to fight for peace-to take up arms and blatantly put your body on the front lines. But it is more challenging to live for peace; to forgo weapons, to rely only on your government and your faith in humanity to protect you from those who strive to fight. I am privileged because I have never had to make that choice, violence or non-violence. I was born into peace. And now I want to use my privilege to help the peace in Puente Nayero grow and expand throughout Buenaventura. I want the children in Puente Nayero to dream uninhibited by worries about safety and economic security. I want to believe in Margaret Mead’s idea that warfare can be replaced with a better invention. And this is why I work with Witness for Peace, because they turn my dreams into beliefs and my beliefs into realities. I believe in peace because of communities like Puente Nayero. I believe in peace because even when confronted with decades of war, poverty, and government disdain, people still have hope, people still have alternative solutions for the future. I believe because I know of our victories in the past, and I am ready to win again. Let’s start with Puente Nayero.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

• Write a letter of support to the Puente Nayero community. Send it to WfP SE  and we will translate it (if needed) and forward it on to the community.
• Take a photo of yourself holding a sign of support. Make sure you put where you’re from! Post it to Facebook or Twitter and email it to us.
• Write officials at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Express your support for the community and your wish that their needs be fulfilled.