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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/21/internment-camps-for-child-migrants/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/21/internment-camps-for-child-migrants/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Internment Camps for Child Migrants</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/rs-ahthion/"
rel="nofollow">RS Ahthion</a> - June 21, 2018</span></div>
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<blockquote id="138c">
<p>“These images are eerily reminiscent of the
internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of
Japanese descent during World War II, now considered
to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S.
history.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p id="df33"><em>-Laura Bush, Wife of George W Bush who
pursued a campaign of extreme violence in Iraq which
has led to the death of over a million Iraqis and
the rise of ISIS, kidnapping and rendition to
blacksite CIA prisons and rehabilitated torture as
an international norm.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p id="25a0">As the US descends further down the rabbit
hole of nationalist politics the conservatives in the
United States are showing their love for family values
by ripping away children as young as 4 from their
mothers and fathers.</p>
<blockquote id="035a">
<p>“What the US is doing now, there is no equivalent,”
said Michael Flynn, executive director of the
Geneva-based Global Detention Project, a non-profit
group focused on the rights of detained immigrants.
“There’s nothing like this anywhere”.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>— <a
href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44503514">BBC</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p id="aa31">The United States has long considered Latin
America it’s “backyard”. It has run military coups,
supported the most retrograde elements of society and
assassinated leaders so the US could keep the world safe
for it’s process of capital appropriation and capital
accumulation.</p>
<p id="e9d8">In 2014 the <a
href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/refugee-crisis-border_n_5596125">Huffington
Post</a> ran an article detailing the history of Latin
America and why 57,000 children had arrived at the
borders of the United States that year.</p>
<blockquote id="bb0f">
<p>“In 2009, the Honduran military, with the backing of
the Supreme Court, illegally overthrew the elected
government of President Manuel Zelaya, a populist
reformer. In contrast to the governments of Latin
America — many of whose histories are marred by
U.S.-backed coups — the American government balked at
using the term “coup” in this case, and made little
effort to get Zelaya returned to power, instead
pressuring Honduras’ neighbors to recognize the new
government.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="2f22">
<p>The de facto government in Honduras used the military
to quell protests and re-establish order in the
capital. Drug cartels stepped in along the
Honduras-Guatemala border, exploiting the power
vacuum, according to a report published in June by the
International Crisis Group.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="3092">
<p>“Local law enforcement, always weak, fell into
disarray,” the report says. “The U.S., concerned about
providing assistance to an unaccountable and
illegitimate regime, suspended non-humanitarian aid,
including counter-narcotics assistance. The result was
a ‘cocaine gold rush,’ as traffickers hurried to
secure routes through the region.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="159c">
<p>They succeeded. A 2012 State Department report
estimated that as much as 90 percent of the 700 metric
tons of cocaine shipped from Colombia to the U.S.
every year passes through Central America.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="47c1">
<p>A sharp escalation of violence accompanied the 2009
coup and the expansion of cartel operations. The
Honduran homicide rate spiked from an already high 61
per 100,000 in 2008 to 90 per 100,000 in 2012 — the
world’s highest murder rate, according to the U.N.
Office on Drugs and Crime.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="1a25">What they miss (but later released by
Wikileaks) is the <a
href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hillary-clinton-honduras-coup-memoirs_us_56e34161e4b0b25c91820a08">support
by Hillary Clinton’s State Department</a> for this
coup.</p>
<blockquote id="a2f6">
<p>“Grandin, who <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"
data-href="http://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/">wrote
about Clinton’s response</a> to the 2009 coup in The
Nation last week, told HuffPost that her work on
Honduras should be a campaign issue and that the
assassination of Cáceres should force a “reckoning
with history.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="fdcd">
<p>“They legitimated this coup regime,” Grandin said.
“The U.S. could have adopted a real multilateral
position and joined with Brazil, for instance, in
demanding the restoration of Zelaya.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="ab12">
<p>Instead, the U.S. opted to sideline Zelaya and back
elections that brought in a conservative government.
“That’s fairly clear between her emails and her own
concession in <em>Hard Choices</em>. She took credit
for that. Before she was called on it, she was holding
it up as a signature achievement,” he said.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="3d9a">As the US ratchets up it’s economic war on
Venezuela to <a
href="https://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chiles_9_11"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"
data-href="https://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chiles_9_11">“make
the economy scream”</a> it is important to remember
just how many governments the US has overthrown,
destabilised and thrown into turmoil to make Latin
America safe for global capital. And these companies go
in and force people off the land and take huge swaths of
land which used to grow beans and rice and feed the
people.</p>
<p id="6a22">But now grow Soy/palm oil, sugarcane and beef
for export markets.</p>
<p id="597a">So what you see in these countries <span
data-creator-ids="a79582bfb810">is the GDP grow<em><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/02/almost-four-environmental-defenders-a-week-killed-in-2017?CMP=share_btn_tw">
but the people are starving</a>.</em></span></p>
<blockquote id="f203">
<p>“Agribusiness was the biggest driver of violence as
supermarket demand for soy, palm oil, sugarcane and
beef provided a financial incentive for plantations
and ranches to push deeper into indigenous territory
and other communal land.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="2a73">The United States has overseen an empire that
extracts from Latin America and whenever the Latin
Americans have seen to redress this by democratically
electing a leader that goes against United States wishes
the US has overthrown that democracy.</p>
<p id="50b4">From:</p>
<blockquote id="dd3a">
<p>1. President Arbenz in Guatemala (1954) A
CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically
elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz.
The real reason for U.S. involvement came from
pressure from the United Fruit Company, whose land was
expropriated by Arbenz’s progressive land reforms.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="f051">
<p>2. To British Guiana (1953–1964) CIA and British
Intelligence funded anti-communist unions in order to
strengthen opposition to democratically elected Dr.
Cheddi Jagan. When this failed, the Churchill
government simply removed him from office due to his
socialist leanings. In 1957, Jagan was re-elected, and
in response the U.S. Information Service launched an
anti-communist (anti-Jagan) media campaign. Despite
this, Jagan was re-elected again in 1961, which moved
the British government to organize strikes in the
unions that they had previously funded. The British
government used these strikes as a sign of
incompetence on the part of Jagan and changed the
constitution to remove him from power.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="ee9d">
<p>3. To Cuba (1959 — present) After the Cuban
revolution in 1959, the U.S. did everything in its
power to prevent its government from succeeding. The
U.S. performed air raids and even mobilized Cuban
exiles to attack Cuba in the infamous CIA-orchestrated
Bay of Pigs. The U.S. also enacted trade and credit
embargos, sabotaged goods destined for Cuba, made
multiple assassination attempts on Castro, his brother
Raul, and Che Guevara.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="e47b">
<p>4. To Ecuador(1960–63) The CIA infiltrated the
Ecuadorian government, set up news agencies and radio
stations, bombed right-wing agencies and churches and
blamed the left, all to force democratically elected
Velasco Ibarra from office. When his replacement,
Carlos Arosemara, refused to break relations with
Cuba, the CIA-funded military took over the country,
outlawed communism, and cancelled the 1964 elections.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="d839">
<p>5. To (<strong>Brazil 1961–64): </strong>After
democratically elected Janio da Silva Quadros of the
Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) resigned, citing military
and U.S. pressure as the reasons, his successor, Joao
Goulart, was overthrown by a U.S.-supported military
coup in 1964. Critics argue that this is because
Goulart promoted social and economic reforms, limited
the profits of multinationals, nationalized a
subsidiary of U.S.-owned International Telephone and
Telegraph (ITT), and refused to break relations with
Cuba and other socialist countries. He was replaced by
two decades of a brutal military regime. There would
not be another Labor Party president until the
election of Lula da Silva in 2002.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="ff6d">
<p>6. <strong>Peru mid-1960’s:</strong> The CIA set up
military training camps and provided arms to the
Peruvian government to combat guerilla forces.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="2a43">
<p>7. <strong>Dominican Republic 1963–65:</strong> In
1963, Juan Bosch took office as the first
democratically elected president of the Dominican
Republic since 1924. He was a true liberal and called
for land reform, low-rent housing, modest
nationalization of business, and restrictions on
foreign investment. Seven months after being elected,
the U.S. allowed a right wing military coup to take
over the government. Nineteen months later, a popular
revolution broke out which attempted to reinstate
Bosch. The U.S. reacted by sending in troops to stop
the Bosch revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the CIA and U.S.
Information Agency (USIA) conducted an intensive
propaganda campaign against Bosch. U.S. troops stayed
in the Dominican Republic until September 1966, when,
thanks in part to the anti-Bosch media campaign, Juan
Bosch lost the election to Joaquin Balaguer.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="38c7">
<p>8. <strong>Uruguay 1964–1970:</strong> The CIA and
the Agency for International Development (AID) set up
the Office of Public Safety (OPS) mission in
Montevideo to train police in the art of torture in
order to suppress rebel activity. The torture and
killing was mainly directed at the Tupamaros,
guerrillas who embarrassed public officials and
exposed corporate <a
href="https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/tag/corruption/"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"
data-href="https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/tag/corruption/">corruption</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="91d7">
<p>9. <strong>Chile 1964–1973: </strong>After the CIA
unsucessfully prevented Salvador Allende from winning
the Chilean presidency by spreading propaganda and
funding the opposition, it concentrated its efforts on
getting Allende overthrown. The campaign, which
involved bribing officers and spreading
misinformation, was eventually successful and brutal
dictator General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende in
1973. Allende died during the overthrow and seventeen
years of repressive military rule followed.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="746a">
<p>10. <strong>Bolivia 1964–75: </strong>In 1952, an
armed popular revolt defeated the military, displaced
the oligarchy, nationalized the mines, instituted land
reform, set up a new government, and reduced the
military to an impotent force. Yet under the training
(School of Americas) and financial support of the CIA
and Pentagon, the military was built up again and
overthrew President Victor Paz in 1964 because of his
refusal to support Washington’s Cuba policies. (Note:
this was nothing new for Bolivia, which has
experienced the passing of governments more frequently
than the passing of years.)</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="0bb4">
<p>In January 2006, as Evo Morales was sworn in as
Bolivia’s first indigenous president, he predicted a
future of indigenous rule, saying, “We are here to say
enough of the 500 years of Indian resistance. From 500
years of resistance, we pass to another 500 years in
power.” Later that year, Morales sent Bolivian troops
to occupy 56 gas installations and demanded all
foreign energy-firms sign new contracts giving Bolivia
majority ownership and as much as 82% of revenues,
which they did.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="d3b2">
<p>11. <strong>Nicaragua 1978–1990: </strong>When the
Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979,
the U.S. was frightened by what they thought could be
another Cuba. President Jimmy Carter tried to sabotage
the revolution through economic and diplomatic forms,
and later Reagan used violence. For eight years,
Nicaragua faced military attacks by the U.S. funded
Contras (Reagan’s “freedom fighters). In 1990, the
U.S. interfered in national elections, and the
Sandinistas were defeated. According to Oxfam, the
international development organization, Nicaragua
under the Sandinistas was “exceptional in the strength
of that government’s commitment…to improving the
condition of the people and encouraging [an] active
development process.” Now, Nicaragua is one of the
poorest nations in the hemisphere, with widespread
illiteracy and malnutrition.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="aa6d">
<p>12. <strong>Honduras 1980’s: </strong>Honduras was
basically a colony of the U.S. during the Contra war
in Nicaragua. Thousands of U.S. troops were housed
there and it was used as a supply center and refuge
for the Contras. The U.S. funded the Contras by
covertly and illegally selling arms to Iran (known as
the Iran-Contra Affair).</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="1f69">
<p>13. <strong>Grenada 1979–1983: </strong>A 1979 coup
took control of this small island country and
attempted to install socialist reforms. The Reagan
administration used destabilization tactics and
eventually invaded in 1983, resulting in U.S. as well
as Grenadian and Cuban casualties.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="8364">
<p>14. <strong>El Salvador 1980–92: </strong>After the
U.S. helped fix an election to repress dissidents in
El Salvador, the rebels turned to violence and a civil
war ensued. Although the U.S. claimed to be only
involved on an advisory basis 20 U.S. soldiers were
killed in combat missions. The U.S. spent six billion
dollars repressing this popular revolution.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="d6b0">
<p>15. <strong>Haiti 1987–94:</strong> After supporting
the Duvalier family dictatorship for 30 years and
opposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the U.S. claimed to
support the elections that returned Aristide to power
after he was ousted by a 1991 military coup.
Meanwhile, they warned Aristide that they would only
allow him to rule if he implemented free market
policies. Aristide did not remain in power for long,
however, and in a subsequent interview he attributed
his removal from power to his refusal to privatize
Haiti’s state-owned enterprises.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="bf25">
<p>The 2004 coup was orchestrated by the leaders of the
FRAPH, or Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress,
a CIA-backed organization that carried out state
terror against opponents of the military regime that
ruled the country from 1991 to 1994. Another leader in
the armed coup against Aristide was Guy Philippe, a
former member of the Haitian military who received
training from US Special Forces in Ecuador in the
1990s. After these forces pushed Aristide into exile,
the U.S. stepped in to restore stability in Haiti, now
under new rule. Since Aristide’s removal from power,
his supporters have been targeted by the UN forces now
tasked with “peace keeping,” killing many innocents
from Haiti’s poorest neighborhoods in the process.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="9733">
<p>16. <strong>Panama 1989: </strong>Just weeks after
the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. invaded Panama,
killing thousands and leaving many more wounded and
homeless in order to capture Manuel Noriega, a
previous ally of the U.S.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="437a">
<p>17. <strong>Mexico, Peru, and Colombia 1990’s to
present:</strong> Under the guise of the drug war,
the U.S. has given military aid to these countries
despite their poor <a
href="https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/tag/human-rights/"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"
data-href="https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/tag/human-rights/">human
rights</a> records. This aid is used to fight rebel
forces.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="09e9">
<p>18. <strong>Venezuela (Present):</strong> Recent
U.S. intervention in Venezuela manifests itself as
millions of dollars in contributions to political
opponents of leftist President Hugo Chavez. The
short-lived 2002 coup d’etat that kidnapped the
democratically elected president was orchestrated by
groups who had received funding from the U.S. National
Endowment for Democracy (NED). When the opposition
took power, they dissolved all of Venezuela’s
democratic institutions, including the National
Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, the
General Attorney, and the Public Defender’s office.
Meanwhile, their plan promised a return to free market
economic policies. The coup only lasted two days
before a popular resistance reinstated Chavez.</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="7e08">The world is smaller in these times and no
more can the US leave a continent of broken little
nations oppressed by US arms and money so the fortune
500 can grow ever richer.</p>
<p id="ae13">Those in Latin America are not going to stay
put under threats of extreme violence perpetuated by the
super power to the north that has gone to these lengths
of violence in the name of profit and capital
accumulation. They will instead go to the areas of the
world which are safe from imperialism. To add another
level or sordidness to American society is a <a
href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-immigration-children-audio-trump-border-patrol-separate-families-parents-detention-center-a8405501.html">border
agent mocking the children</a>.</p>
<blockquote id="13c7">
<p>“Mami!” one child can be heard crying in the
seven-minute audio.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="6b95">
<p>“Papá!” another screams.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote id="2b6e">
<p>“Well, we have an orchestra here,” says a man
identified as a Border Patrol agent. “What’s missing
is a conductor.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="8cb4">It is of course no surprise that the
Americans response, to a humanitarian crisis they
created, be the disgusting internment camps reminiscent
of World war 2.</p>
<p id="1575">The thousands of people turning up to the
borders of the United States are the refugees from
capitalism and a violent foreign policy led by the
leaders of the United States (democrats or republicans).</p>
<p id="18fc">Therefore that border is not worthy of
respect.</p>
<p><em><strong>R S Ahthion</strong> is a geopolitical
analyst living in the UK. The author’s work focuses on
questions of social and international justice whose
work has appeared in The Greanville Post. Never fails
to be disgusted by capitalism. Spends his free time
writing fiction, studying history, politics, ideology
and philosophy. </em></p>
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