Migration outlier: How Nicaragua escaped neighbors' deadly spiral

[Judi Lynn]

Migration outlier: How Nicaragua escaped neighbors' deadly spiral
By Ivan Castro
MANAGUA Thu Aug 28, 2014 1:50am EDT


(Reuters) - Victor Toruno was just 12 when he ran away from an abusive father to join a local street gang in Nicaragua, graduating from thief to drug dealer.
After stints in jail and treatment and therapy for drug addiction, he took part in a rehabilitation and training program run by a charity group and now runs a small bakery in Managua where he employs other youths who have escaped gang life.

It is a far cry from the fate of 17-year-old Jorge who lives just 150 miles (240 km) away in neighboring Honduras, surrounded by gang members in a neighborhood where nine people were murdered in three months, including a 22-year-old relative.
Jorge rarely ventures out into the streets and dreams of riding a migration wave north to the United States.

For relative neighbors, they live worlds apart.

~snip~
Crushing poverty and extreme violence - fueled by drug trafficking and police corruption - are behind a mass migration of Central American children to the United States in recent months that has overwhelmed U.S. border resources and driven illegal immigration to the fore in U.S. congressional elections.

But Nicaragua is an odd man out in the region. It is even poorer than Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador -- which account for the vast majority of child migrants -- but it has largely fended off the drug gangs terrorizing those countries and it sends few migrants north.

Nearly 16,000 unaccompanied Honduran minors have been caught trying to sneak into the United States since October, versus just 194 Nicaraguans.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/us-usa-immigration-nicaragua-idUSKBN0GS0AM20140828?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[Peace Patriot]

1. Is Rotters trying to redeem itself for all the lies it has promulgated about...

...the Latin American Left? We'll see if this reporter--Ivan Castro--gets anywhere in that heretofore rotten corporate propaganda machine (Reuters*).

Here is the political meat of the article (go down the page), in all its rather startling truthfulness:

The left-wing Sandinista rebels who overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator in 1979 went on to build more efficient and less corrupt security forces and they have avoided the tough crackdowns seen elsewhere, instead focusing more attention on social programs that help get youths out of gangs.

(SNIP)

"What really made the difference is what the Nicaraguan police have not done. They have been much less repressive in dealing with gangs," said Jose Luis Rocha, an expert on Central American youth gangs and migration.

Although President Daniel Ortega is accused by opponents of being an autocrat*, the United Nations has praised Nicaragua's security model, which includes social services to help youths in gangs find jobs as well as sport programs like little-league baseball teams. Such opportunities are scarce in Central America.

Cheap oil shipments from socialist ally Venezuela allow Ortega to finance anti-poverty programs, such as replacing thatched roofs with metal or trucking subsidized red beans, the national staple, into poor neighborhoods across the country.

(SNIP)

Iveth Espino, a coordinator of community projects at the Center for the Prevention of Violence who helped Toruno turn his life around, says Nicaraguan gangs are less hierarchical and organized than their peers in Honduras and El Salvador.

"The gangs weren't allowed to evolve," she said. "One way or another, via different programs, we put a halt to the situation and involved the whole community, schools, police, community leaders, so that youths see that they are not alone."

(from the OP, my emphasis in boldface)

It's amazing--isn't it?--what SOCIALIST thoughtfulness, kindness and communal togetherness will do to create a wholesome environment for the young and to prevent lost, alienated youth turning to gangs for their identity!


-------------------------

*(I don't call them "Rotters" for nothing. They have been terrible on the vast and positive Leftist political revolution in Latin America over the past decade. Notice the TYPICAL Rotters dig at Ortega, above: "Although President Daniel Ortega is accused by opponents of being an autocrat...". What crap. Nothing to do with the article. No quote. No name. Attributed to "opponents" (read: Rotters editors got a fax from the CIA). This is what they do. They've done it time and again, to Leftist leaders. They can't stand Leftist successes! They ALWAYS throw in these off-base, often irrelevant, RIGHTWING "talking points." But rarely--as in this article--do they even acknowledge the successes of Leftist leaders in Latin America, and there have been many, many successful policies, especially with regard to poverty. I've always believed that humans can redeem themselves--even the worst of us. So MAYBE that's what is happening here. We can only hope so.)

[Judi Lynn]

2. It's always a double-take when a more honest article on Nicaragua gets published.

No doubt whatsoever the editor was side-tracked, preoccupied, didn't finish his job on this one.

Usually the corporate media ignores Nicaragua altogether as if it has never existed.

(In countries with leftist Presidents in the Americas, "the opponents" and "the critics" the media claims to consult are simple sociopaths, social perverts, AKA right-wingers, pro-1%'ers.)