A Different Perspective

As I am sure every American knows at this point there is a child immigration crisis of children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala flooding into the USA by the thousands. I can obviously only garner how this crisis is presented to the American people from news clips, articles and talking to people stateside. It seems like there is a lot of yelling, spinning in circles, blame gaming and no real solutions provided. It seems like everyone wants to find the culprit, but are unwilling to look in the mirror.

The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about this crisis is how war torn and dangerous El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have become in the last several decades. For a mother to choose to let her child go to another country on her own is a sign of serious social instability. The only reason my mother would have let me another country by myself when I was 14, without it being a well planned out and chaperoned trip, would be because she thought it would be safer than where I was. Because she feared I would die if I stayed. These are mothers willing to send their kids off to detention centers because living in a US detention center in Texas is better than living at home. Because the probability that you will die on the streets or in a gang is so high that the thought of US jail is a relief. Because at least when you are in a detention center you have a temporary respite from the rampant violence plaguing the streets.

Living in Peru has given me an interesting perspective on things such as drug trafficking, American drug consumption and social disruption. International policy and wars have always fascinated me. I have a secret desire to go to the Central African Republic, but I know that would be just a terrible idea, so clearly I won’t. Learning how places handle different controversial situations has always interested me, because often it is the same goal and yet so handled so differently.

Growing up in the US I feel like I never heard a productive argument on how to handle the drug trafficking problem. There is a lot of grand standing about a war on drugs that never seems to be won. A lot of blaming the “other” and using our military might to resolve it. We were the conquering heroes here to solve the world’s problems. With the recent legalization of weed in Colorado and Washington the conversation has started to change. But when I think back to my childhood the words that come to mind when thinking of anything drug related are crack baby, Crips vs. Bloods and evil. Obviously I had an extensive knowledge on the subject.

In recent history the conversation has changed. There is no longer the Reagan hero complex war on drugs. But now there are immigrant children flooding the streets and states are considering legalization so the paradigm has shifted. The conversation is different. I think the US should take a different role in the conversation than it has in the past.

Currently, Peru is the world’s largest producers of cocaine. If you thought about that under the US paradigm you would think the streets would be littered with disorder and gangs. You would probably assume there are paramilitary groups such as Columbia’s FARC reigning disorder and the obvious solution would be to rain parasites from the sky to kill the coca leaf. Such as what happened with Plan Columbia, a US backed program to end coca production. This program unfortunately, actually ended up hurting the poor farmers and pushing the production back to Peru and Bolivia than ending production all together. The US and Columbia efforts to kill coca production has caused a balloon effect. The production has decreased in Columbia but it has become concentrated in Peru and Bolivia as a result, because it is still a billion dollar industry and someone will do it. You would think since the production was kicked into Peru it didn’t come running into every town with a vengeance.

In fact, in most parts of Peru it’s the opposite. Drug trafficking is an understood part of life, but unless you go out of your way to go to the places where they actually produce the cocaine you cant see drug trafficking violence in the streets. Sure there are bus lines and casinos that are suspected of existing to help clean drug money. Parts of most major cities that are too dangerous to walk through. And you hear stories about airports that only have private flights from 2am to 4am or peoples whose stated job does not match their annual income, but most of the streets are not running red with blood from drug wars.

If you went into the Peruvian red zones looking for the coca producing towns you might feel differently. I have head the legends about areas where they shoot to kill if an outside comes in, or doctors get given chickens as a gift for stitching someone up. These are the places that are dangerous and you might run into some serious trouble. But to go into these areas by yourself would also be reckless. Your not going to wander around PG Country or South Side Chicago at 2 am on a Saturday, so why would you meander into the cocaine producing parts of the jungle?

Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that Peru is some safe utopian. There is a presence of violence. I myself have been robbed at gunpoint, wrong place wrong time. There are several volunteers I know who have been held up with weapons, pickpocketed, and nearly every girl has a semi-constant fear of sexual assault, especially in taxis or when going out at night. Even though it seems like you have to have your guard up in the cities or chaotic coast, for the most part if you keep your wits about you and are street smart you can reduce your chance of being a victim by a big percentage.

Although there is violence and you should be aware of your surroundings and things, volunteers in Peru can walk around the streets of the nicer parts of Lima. The worse parts, of course not, and unless you were working there you would really have no reason to walk through those areas. We can travel to most parts of Peru, except for red zones, but the vast majority of the country is not a red zone. While traveling I have generally felt safe, as long as I keep a good eye on my things. Thankfully, generally when we do travel, we don’t have to go through areas that have some of the highest murder rates in the world.

Volunteers who lived in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, did not have that luxury. They could not walk on the streets of the capital. Nearly the entire country had incredibly high murder rates. And a couple of years ago they had to suspend the programs because a volunteer got shot in the leg on a bus. In talking to volunteers who served there it seemed nearly impossible to avoid the drug related violence.

Peru on the other hand has gang related violence that riddles the streets of parts of Lima, Ica, Tumbes and other major cities but unlike Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the roots are not in drug trafficking. The growth of gangs in Peru can be traced back to the social disruptions in the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1980s and 1990s there was social disruption is Peru caused by the populist terrorist groups Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Army and the Shining Path. Much like gangs in nearly every part of the world they were born from social disruption. But unlike parts of Central America it was not drug related social disruption it was a populist movement.

During this time the terrorists and police terrorized various regions of the country, particularly concentrated in the department of Ayacucho, and the surrounding departments. Entire communities were massacred and disorder and disruption reigned. Nearly 200,000 people were displaced from their homes during this time. Mothers from terrorist controlled areas sent their children on buses down to Lima to find a relative that lived there because they thought they would be safer in Lima than in their hometown. Because similar to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, it seemed better to send a child off searching for family by themselves than staying where they were.

Imagine showing up to Cleveland and only knowing you had an uncle Raul that lived there but had no real way of figuring out how to find them. It would be a daunting task and nauseatingly overwhelming. Inevitably there was a growing group of lost boys, of children impacted by the violence, fleeing, and looking for a way to survive. These were the children that got sucked into street gangs, drugs and violence. A vulnerable population ripe for the taking.

In Huancavelica I lived in a town impacted by terrorism, and the residual effects could be felt in the population. Although it had been a stable and tranquil population for at least a decade, the trauma still lived on in their hearts and minds. My host mother admitted that she wouldn’t let me live with her at first because she thought I would kill her and she didn’t know my intentions. As many times as her daughter tried to remind her that the terrorist were Peruvian and not gringos, she refused to believe it. For the first few months she would barely talk to me. When she would invite me to eat she would put the food on the table and promptly leave the room. She was terrified of outsiders, because the last time that outsiders came through town it ended terribly. Thankfully after several months she learned to love me, but at the beginning I defiantly felt the wayward glances coming my way.

The social disruption, lost children and general chaos left the perfect opening for gangs. Now keep in mind, I am not an expert on Peruvian political or social history by any means. I am gathering this information from stories I’ve heard, conversations I have had, personal experience and articles I have read. This is my opinion and mine alone based on my experience and opinions. The social disruption of the 1980s and 1990s served as the perfect strengthening ground for gangs. They could strengthen in numbers because civil society was struggling with violence.

The Shining Path has shriveled to around 500 members, and they have become tied to the economics of narcotrafficking. After the movements were decimated many of those could or would not reenter civil society or had evaded the law moved into the jungle to join with the narcotrafficking forces. When the Shining Path was in their heyday Peru was producing coca leaves, but the mass production was located in Columbia. The movement was started for proletarian rights not for control of drug trafficking routes. It was the strongest in mountainous zones where you cannot even produce the coca leaf. They moved towards drug trafficking as a way to economically prosper after the movement was quelled.

Today gangs in Peru are tied to drugs, much as gangs in the United States are, but they are a residual effect of the terrorist movements, not a growth out of drug trafficking. They grew out of social disruption instead of growing out of the economics of drugs. I am sure the gangs have some conspicuous dealings in drugs, but I cannot personally speak on the manner. As a general rule of thumb I avoid gangs and their economic activities. Just seems smarter that way.

On a different note, when you look at the history of the coca leaf in Peru you have to trace it back to the Incas. The Incas believed the coca leaf to be a sacred crop and held it in high esteem. In todays society many Peruvians still use the coca leaf for its cultural and medicinal purposes. In most mountain towns people have daily contact with the coca leaf. Chewing it for energy while farming, drinking it as tea to help with headaches or altitude sickness, and integrating it into various cultural celebrations. Where I lived in Huancavelica they believed that coca leaves could help to fight the spirits of the mountains that could kill you. Whenever they married cows or vicuñas they laid coca leaves down near their head. Well that’s a sentence I never thought I would say. It is an integral part of many people’s lives for deeply cultural reasons.

Since it would be impossible to ever convince people to stop producing the coca leaf because of its cultural significance in Peru they would have to take other routes than those taken by Plan Columbia. I have heard that there is some effort to have the farms that produce it registered, so the government can track its production and consumption. Unfortunately, Peru does not have the world’s best record for government oversight. Not that I have ever tried to pay off a Peruvian government official, it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard. Especially given how many politicians and police offices are investigated for corruption annually.

In my opinion, if we ever want to actually take on the drug trafficking that is leading to an immigrant children crisis, every country involved has to look in the mirror. They have to think their own accountability in the situation and how they can change the future. For instance, I think if they could create a genetically modified coca leaf that had all the same medicinal effects when chewed or used in its leaf form but couldn’t be broken down to powder form and there was real government oversight, Peru could take steps towards stemming the production of cocaine. If there was a change in drug policy and consumption habits from some f the other countries involved there could be even more changes.

The United States has a long a spotty history with Latin American politics. Promoting various military coups, helping to exacerbate political instability and implementation drug wars that served to strengthen gangs and consolidate power instead of ending the drug game forever. Lets get serious they are never going to be able to end a multi-billion dollar industry through force. For decades they made sure that those in power helped to promote the US interests, often at the detriment of the Latin American populations.

The US led war on drugs did help to stem the Caribbean transit routes, but that only served to concentrate the power in Mexico. Now 90% of the cocaine that comes into the United States Enters through drug routes in Mexico.* There still is a drug flow but it has become concentrated in the land routes rather than the sea. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, are those ground routes serving as intermediaries between the Peruvian, Bolivian and Columbian production and its exportation. Although the US cut off one leg of transportation, consolidated the power in another and increased violence. The one thing that has not changed is the demand. As long as there is a demand there will always be those who supply.

American consumers largely fuel the demand for illicit substances and yet there has never been a war on American drug consumption. I have never seen a campaign directly target at white upper class party kids who are consuming cocaine in an effort to show the global impact of their consumption. It seems a little counter intuitive to use violence to try to squish a problem internationally instead of trying to take on the consumer demand internally. Why not take the frat houses or apartments notorious for cocaine use and convert them into housing for the children fleeing Central America? Or instead of putting someone in jail for posession, just send him or her to live Guatemalan drug lord? Obviously these ideas are ridiculous, but they get the point across.

In the US cocaine is an expensive drug, and as a result it tends to have wealthier, whiter consumers. Obviously the vast majority of cocaine consumers in the US had little to nothing to do with the politician coups of the past or the US involvement in Latin American history, but they can change the current conversation. There has never been a move to connect their drug consumption to the impact on the streets. The current conversation about the children fleeing their home countries doesn’t seem to mention that there are United States citizens helping to fuel demand.

As with most illicit activity it is illogical to think that you will get people to stop doing it all together. We all know how well Prohibition turned out. Generally when you tell someone not to do something it only makes him or her want to do it more. There will always be experimenters, party people and those who enjoy illicit activities. Even though you can’t get everyone to stop doing illicit drugs and kill the demand for it thus killing the drug routes and violence, the US can enter into the conversation. They can look at the historical and present role that they play in the matter and enter into the conversation honestly.

There are talks in Central America about changing drug policy to alleviate the violence, but until the US enters the conversation, it will be about as useful as the Kyoto Protocol. Things may change, they may get better from the policy changes, but the US involvement in the conversations will help to tip the scales since they are and have been such a major player in Latin American politics. They can help to turn over a new leaf, but the first step I think, it admitting their role in the past and present and be willing to enter into the conversation, with other ideas than militaristic might.

* http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/feb/03/us-war-on-drugs-impact-in-latin-american