Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 7 September 2019
Mexico declares success in slowing migrant flow

By MARIA VERZA out violating human rights.
CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN We are ensuring there isn’t
Associated Press anarchy, disorder.”
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Un- Migrant-rights activists say
der threat of crippling U.S. López Obrador is simply
tariffs, Mexico said Friday dressing up the fact that he
it had reduced the flow yielded to Trump’s pressure
of migrants arriving at its tactics.
northern border by 56% in “Mexico is just trying to
three months. comply with the U.S. (de-
Foreign Secretary Marcelo mands) and cut down on
Ebrard said he believes migration, but it is improvis-
Mexico’s strategy of crack- ing and violating the law,”
ing down on illegal migra- said Javier Martínez, a
tion with a National Guard lawyer for the Casa del Mi-
deployment, investment in grante shelter in the north-
Central America and al- ern city of Saltillo. “We are
lowing the U.S. to make seeing things we never saw
more asylum seekers wait in before.”
Mexico is enough to avert Mexico has raided freight
President Donald Trump’s trains that migrants ride
threat to impose tariffs on north, and pulled thou-
all Mexican imports. In this June 5, 2019 file photo, Mexican authorities stop a migrant caravan that had earlier crossed sands off buses and out of
Ebrard is scheduled to the Mexico - Guatemala border, near Metapa, Chiapas state, Mexico. the freight compartments
meet with U.S. officials Tues- Associated Press of trucks. The government
day at the White House to north, deploying 21,600 po- portunities for youth. no longer hands out. has warned bus and taxi
review the progress. lice and troops across the Some 4,300 Central Ameri- “We will not budge,” he drivers they could lose their
“We’re showing that the nation. Ebrard said there can migrants are working said after the Africans pro- permits if they transport mi-
strategy that Mexico put had been seven formal in Mexico’s version of that tested, “because the re- grants.
forward has been success- complaints of human rights program in the south, Eb- cent events in Tapachula Activists say that has forced
ful,” Ebrard said. “I don’t violations involving the Na- rard said. aim to make Mexico yield migrants to hike through
expect a tariff threat Tues- tional Guard, a relatively Mexican President Andres and oblige us to give out unpopulated areas to
day because it wouldn’t low number which he saw Manuel López Obrador, a certificates so migrants can avoid checkpoints, expos-
make sense.” as another sign of success. leftist who took office Dec. get into the United States. ing them to greater risk
Using U.S. Customs and The enforcement has been 1 promising better treat- We cannot do that. It isn’t from thieves, muggers and
Border Protection data, Eb- paired with an incipient ment of migrants, instead our job.” rapists who lie in wait.
rard said the number of mi- economic development has embraced the fight He said migrant caravans Ebrard said Friday that au-
grants apprehended at the plan. Mexico has agreed against migrant smuggling. once tolerated by Mexico thorities had found 2,186
U.S.-Mexico border in Au- with Honduras and El Salva- In recent weeks, he has were the work of human migrants inside 35 tractor
gust was 63,989, down from dor to expand a tree plant- seldom mentioned the U.S. traffickers, and effectively trailers and said that nearly
144,266 in May. Ebrard’s ing program that aims to pressure and depicts the ended them. 40% were minors. Ebrard
numbers include those who keep farmers on their land crackdown on migrants as “All of these people who said 357 people had been
presented themselves at through direct payments a struggle to defend Mexi- traffic with migrants’ needs charged in migrant-smug-
U.S. ports of entry and were and provide them with in- can laws. His administra- for jobs, safety and wel- gling cases.
deemed inadmissible. come-generating fruit and tion has taken a tough line fare, they are committing a The Rev. Alejandro So-
Mexico has reinforced se- timber trees. against hundreds of Afri- crime and they will be pun- lalinde, who runs a migrant
curity on its porous southern Mexico has committed $60 can migrants waiting in the ished,” López Obrador said shelter in the southern state
border and set up check- million to that program and southern city of Tapachula last week. “We are already of Oaxaca, said Mexico es-
points on highways leading another to create job op- for transit visas that Mexico doing this in Mexico, with- sentially had no choice. q

South America leaders gather to discuss protection of Amazon

By MANUEL RUEDA ment of the world’s larg- ing of a treaty by eight
Associated Press est absorber of carbon Amazon nations. All of
LETICIA, Colombia (AP) — emissions. While Ecuador’s them were represented at
Leaders of several South President Lenin Moreno, the summit with the excep-
American nations that who was born in the Ama- tion of socialist-run Ven-
share the Amazon gath- zon, offered an emotional, ezuela, whose exclusion
ered Friday in Colombia song-filed homage to the was criticized by Bolivian
to boost protection of the diverse plant and animal President Evo Morales, a
world’s largest rainforest. life with which he was close ally of the embattled
But the one-day summit in raised, his Brazilian coun- Venezuelan leader Nico-
Leticia — a town on the terpart, Jair Bolsonaro, lás Maduro. But coopera-
Amazon River where the launched into an attack tion among the countries
borders of Colombia, Peru on first world leaders for al- has stalled even as threats
Representatives of the Huitoto and Ticuna indigenous and Brazil meet — ended legedly conspiring against from climate change, un-
communities sit outside the room where leaders of several with little concrete action the nations’ sovereignty checked development as
South American nations that share the Amazon are meeting, and exposed deep ideo- over the region. Efforts to well as illegal mining and
in Leticia, on Colombia’s Amazon river border with Brazil and logical and political rifts jointly protect the Amazon drug trafficking have in-
Peru, Friday, Sept. 6, 2019.
Associated Press over sustainable develop- began with the 1978 sign- creased in the region. q