What I Saw in the Darién Gap
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking their lives in the Darién Gap to reach the U.S., facing violence, disease, and death, with over 800,000 expected to cross in 2024.
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In the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle route between Colombia and Panama, hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking their lives to reach the United States. Once deemed impassable, the area has become a dangerous corridor for those fleeing dire conditions in their home countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, and Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that over 800,000 migrants may traverse this route in 2024, a significant increase from previous years. The journey is fraught with peril, including violence from criminal organizations like the Gulf Clan, which now controls the area and profits from the migration. Migrants face extreme conditions, including hunger, disease, and the risk of death, as they navigate the jungle's challenging terrain. Many families, like that of Venezuelan father Bergkan Rhuly Ale Vidal, embark on this journey in search of a better future, often with little more than hope and determination. Despite the dangers, the U.S. government's attempts to deter migration have only redirected it through more perilous routes, benefiting criminal networks. The situation highlights the complex interplay between migration policies and the realities faced by those seeking safety and opportunity.
- The Darién Gap is a dangerous route for migrants heading to the U.S., with over 800,000 expected to cross in 2024.
- Criminal organizations, particularly the Gulf Clan, control the area and profit from migrant passage.
- Migrants face extreme risks, including violence, disease, and death, as they navigate the jungle.
- U.S. policies aimed at deterring migration have inadvertently increased the dangers faced by migrants.
- Families like Bergkan's undertake the journey in search of a better future amid dire conditions in their home countries.
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9 commentsRemember that these are people just like you and I. They, like all humans, are seeking safety and stability for theirselves and families. The difference is that they were born, or ended up in, situations so dire they felt they had better odds trekking through the dangerous jungle(!) on foot for hundreds of miles (followed by thousands of more miles) rather than stay in their current situation.
It’s easy to get lost in the thousand foot view and giving opinions while sipping coffee & working on a laptop commenting on hacker news. Not to say any of our opinions aren’t valid - but rather just think about the people before jumping to any conclusions
Edit: This is not an argument for or against anything or any policy. Rather just a reminder that whichever side you are on, or whatever you are advocating for, just to remember we are talking about humans. That’s the only point I’m making.
The Darien Gap is still "wild" because not a lot of migrants crossed it historically. Most US migrants came from Mexico.
However, migration from Mexico has greatly decreased in recent decades. The net flow is around zero. [1] That's because Mexico is no longer an undeveloped country. Its nominal per-capita GDP is above Russia's and China's. [2] NAFTA was an important component of its success.
Mexico offers a blueprint for what needs to happen in Central and South America before we no longer face the temptation of putting children in cages at the border.
There are only a few countries left that fit the bill, such as Guatemala and El Salvador. Brazil and Venezuela have been recent additions (hence the Gap crossings.) Parenthetically, we have Putin to thank for a few of these, especially Venezuela.
I think we should reconsider the "hands off" attitude that (with a few exceptions) has prevailed since the end of the Cold War. Political deference, while culturally sensitive and insisted upon by some US-weary groups, has not turned out so great.
Direct US participation should be at least as much as in Europe and Asia, particularly financially. The IMF and World Bank don't have enough teeth, and it certainly beats spending money on cages.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-co...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
So for a decade we got to see the impact of those sanctions and also get to look back at the aftermath. A report came out claiming that half a million children had died as a result of those sanctions. On 60 Minutes in 1996, then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State responded to this question [1]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
Did the sanctions topple the regime? No. They almost never do. Arguably they played a role in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa but other than that, economic sanctions are simply used as a tool to punish our enemies without using a single soldier.
Roughly 8 million Venezuelans have fled in the last decade as the country has descended into chaos. It's a big part of why there's been a more than tenfold increase in people crossing the Darien Gap. Also responsible is US bribing countries in Central America to deny visas to likely refugees, forcing them to make this dangerous journey.
The sanctions on Venezuela have crushed the economy [2]. They have created the very refugee crisis that is now a domestic political issue. And it's not the leaders of Venezuela who suffer. It's people like this who risk death to try and have a better life.
You might say "Maduro is a bad guy". I'll put that up agains tth elong list of "bad guys" the US is entirely happy to support and work with: Augusto Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Ferdjinand Marcos, Pol Pot, Mohammed bin Salman, Benjamin Netanyahu.
This isn't a partisan issue either. Both politicla parties are pretty much united when it comes to US foreign policy. Sanctions on Venezuela have a history through the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations.
So if you read a story like this and have empathy for refugees fleeing chaos and violence or maybe you simply see the (completely made up) "border crisis" and don't understand what's going on, I would hope that you can see the direct connection between these migrants and the US policy that destabilized or destroyed the countries they're mostly coming from.
[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
[2]: https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggrava...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-g...
Also, see the work of journalist Michael Yon.
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