Commentary: We fed migrant crisis

Perhaps we should look at the influx of undocumented people across our southern border from a different perspective. Some of you are old enough to remember the School of the Americas? Among other things it trained military personnel from Central and South American countries how to kidnap, torture and murder political opponents. This was mainly in the ’60s-’80s, but it impacts us today. Here is what it and the CIA did:

Argentina: overthrew the democratically elected Isabel Peron government and placed dictator Jorge Videla.

Bolivia: Gen. Hugo Banzer toppled President Juan Torres via a U.S.-supported campaign of repression and state-sponsored terrorism as part of Operation Condor, which supported South American right-wing dictators.

Brazil: U.S.-backed coup against social democrat Joao Goulart and replaced with a military dictatorship.

Chile: Democratically elected Salvador Allende was pressured by a U.S. economic war that caused a coup with CIA involvement resulting in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Cuba: U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista was in power until the Cuban Revolution. Several assassination attempts were made on Fidel Castro.

Dominican Republic: The CIA supplied weapons to murder dictator Rafael Trujillo and supported Juan Bosch, who lost in elections to Joaquin Balaguer.

Ecuador: CIA tried to overthrow Jose Ibarra via a coup because he maintained relations with Cuba. He was replaced by Carlos Monroy. The CIA then destabilized his government, which was overthrown by another coup by the Ecuadoran junta.

El Salvador: For decades the U.S. trained, advised, funded and supported a military dictatorship with approximately 5,500-8,000 people “disappeared” and 75,000 dead.

Guatemala: Its government, supported by the American United Fruit Co., was revolted against by workers. It led to the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz, who was then overthrown by a U.S.-supported coup. (Many of these actions were to support U.S. business interests.)

Haiti: There is a long history of U.S. involvement to support economic investment with military occupation that included torture and executions.

Nicaragua: Again there is a long history of U.S. involvement to protect business interests.

Panama: Manuel Noriega dictatorship was overthrown via a U.S. invasion that resulted in democratization.

Venezuela: Another long history of involvement with U.S.-favored Juan Guaido over Nicolas Maduro, but no coup attempt with the use of sanctions, which only hurt the general population.

So, you can see that much of the turmoil in the south is directly related to what we have done and you reap what you sow, with continued turmoil in many of these countries resulting in millions of refugees fleeing their countries for a chance at a better life.

By the way — it isn’t that mother with a kid on her back crossing the Rio Grande who is bringing drugs into the U.S. We know that happens mostly at the official crossings or via the cartels. But then, why do they come at all? Because of the market. If Americans didn’t buy the drugs, there would be no smuggling. We are the problem.

Gerard Pahl lives in Edinburg.

The post Commentary: We fed migrant crisis appeared first on MyRGV.com.