Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Mexico’s Foreign Minister assured that 12 leaders are coming to the summit convened by AMLO in Palenque on migration, “and with us we are 13”. However, the list ends up being a list of friends: Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala. Perhaps there will be more representatives of lower rank in attendance representing other countries.
According to statements from the Foreign Ministry, the summit has two main objectives. First, to investigate the “causes” of migration and possible solutions. Second, to propose methods to ensure their free and safe passage through transit zones.
To meet these objectives effectively, it is to be expected, as would be the case in any international summit convened for very specific purposes, that teams from all the attending countries will have been preparing studies and proposals on the subject. Thus, upon the arrival of the leaders, the public event will consist of flowery speeches and the signing and protocols of the previously agreed agreements.
So far, no document with the studies or proposals to be agreed upon has been made public. It should be remembered that the first purpose is to recognize the migratory phenomenon, its causes, and possible solutions. The objective is broad. It requires, therefore, the production of good documents prepared by experts from the participating countries.
It would be very interesting, for example, to know what Cuban experts have to say about migration when the official position of its government is that it does not recognize any problem. “Who would want to leave the socialist paradise?” Cuban authorities ask themselves.
Or the position of Venezuela’s Maduro, when he affirms that Venezuelans who leave their country are “scum and traitors to the Homeland”. “Good thing they left!”.
With such official approaches to migration, it will be difficult to find “solutions” to the phenomenon. At least real social solutions do not imply jail, torture, or shooting of the “offenders”.
In addition to these official denials, there is another ingredient. Due to the acute internal economic crisis in most of their countries, the rulers actually encouraged, albeit veiled, the massive migration abroad of their nationals. The explanation is simple: it relieves them of the pressure of having so many mouths to feed. In their inner circles, they celebrate “Let the gringos, promoters of neoliberalism, take care of it”.
Seen in this light, there is nothing serious to discuss. Any solution option offered will be accepted with a sardonic and sarcastic smile. “What else do you propose, my dear learned men and women in the field?” they will say.
As for the second purpose of the summit, security for migrants, well, that is an internal Mexican problem and an internal political conflict for the U.S. government on its southern border. The expelling countries, with the notorious exception of Mexico, view the problem out of the corner of their eye and with absolute alienation. That migrants are recruited or hired by organized crime and kidnapped for the sale of organs or human trafficking is Mexico’s problem. What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico.
What, then, is the real purpose of the summit in Palenque? It seems that everything will be formally discussed only to come to nothing. Of course, there will be a final declaration (the Palenque Declaration?) with historic and moving phrases of unfulfillable commitments and tasks that will not be carried out in the future. It was a summit that offered to solve everything and solved nothing.
Lopez Obrador leaves the Presidency in eleven months. It seems that the summit will be remembered as the Farewell Summit with My Friends. That’s all.
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