The various multinational accords tried to restore peace and address some of the fundamental issues that had caused civil war. However, in 1990, Central America was worse off economically than prior to the civil wars.130 Democratization and social and economic reforms have come slowly and unevenly, and some have argued that the accords only served to restore US hegemony in Central America. In February 1990, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and her UNO coalition assumed the presidency of Nicaragua. The United States finally lifted its economic embargo and provided millions of dollars to help rebuild Nicaragua's war-shattered economy. But many of the social problems that produced war—intense poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy—have continued to plague Nicaragua into the next century. In El Salvador, the guerrillas and the government agreed to a negotiated settlement on December 31, 1991. The electoral process facilitated an FMLN presence in the Salvadoran legislature, but the right-wing ARENA party—the party of D'Aubuisson and other death-squad leaders—continued to dominate Salvadoran politics. In Guatemala, UN-led discussions between the URNG and the government failed until 1996, when a peace accord was finally signed. However, thousands continued to disappear or suffer political violence. In Guatemala there were 1,406 documented violations of human rights in 1996 alone: 112 unlawful executions, 785 assassinations, 302 threats, 179 attempted murders, and 6 cases of torture.131 Years after the peace accords were signed, people continued to be murdered or “disappeared,” among them Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi, who only two days before his death released the Catholic Church's official documentation of human rights abuses during the country's thirty-six-year civil war.132
In the Esquipulas II accords, the Central American presidents agreed to address the problems faced by refugees, repatriates, and displaced persons. In May 1989, representatives from the five Central American nations, Belize, and Mexico, as well as the UN general secretary, the UNHCR, and over sixty NGOs working in the region, convened the International Conference on Central American Refugees (CIREFCA), in Guatemala City, to discuss refugee rights, repatriation and integration, and assistance to the internally displaced.133 In preparation for the conference, each nation evaluated the assistance needed to either integrate or repatriate the refugees and illegal immigrants within its borders.134 CIREFCA then discussed specific development and assistance projects and ways to attract international funding for these projects.135 From 1989 to 1992, local and international NGOs channeled 238 million dollars in international funds to assist in the repatriation or reintegration of these populations.136
Although small numbers repatriated as early as 1983, full-scale repatriation to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala did not begin until each nation had negotiated a cease fire and guaranteed basic rights, including the right to live in safety and without retaliation and the right to participate in the political process. For example, the majority of Nicaraguan refugees who chose to repatriate from Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador did not do so until after the Sandinistas' electoral defeat in February 1990; 25,000 repatriated immediately following the elections, and 71,500 returned by 1993.137 In El Salvador, 30,000 refugees had returned within a year after the negotiated peace settlement.138 Similarly, while thousands of Guatemalan refugees had returned from Mexico by 1990, the vast majority returned after the peace accords in 1996.
2
DESIGNING A REFUGEE POLICY
Mexico as Country of First Asylum
People arrived in long lines, tired, sweaty, pale and sick, seeking Don Toño, to ask him for shelter and a little food. Some stayed in stables, others at the foot of the mountains with makeshift tents against the rain: a multicolored array of plastic sheeting was to be seen everywhere; bins containing corn and rice were quickly emptied; there was no longer anything to eat and everywhere there were hungry, underfed people, with malaria, tuberculosis and gastrointestinal disorders. They started to die.
FELIPE SÁNCHEZ MARTÍNEZ, COMAR
For this reason we want you to understand what we refugees have suffered, so that you will do us the favor and tell all that the murder of Guatemalan campesinos continues.
GUATEMALAN REFUGEE, January 1984
The presence of the Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas caused us Mexicans to turn our eyes deeper within Mexico, reminding us that we also have a southern border.
LUIS ORTIZ MONASTERIO, COMAR
Mexico takes pride in its long tradition of accommodating the persecuted and the displaced. In the twentieth century, over two hundred thousand people fleeing persecution sought refuge in Mexico. These included Irish, Turkish Jews, Spanish Republicans, Eastern Europeans, Lebanese, Cubans, Chileans, Argentines, Brazilians, Dominicans, Uruguayans, and Americans.1 Given this tradition, a long list of intellectuals and political leaders have exiled themselves to Mexico at some point in their careers: José Martí, Leon Trotsky, Pablo Neruda, Rómulo Gallegos, Gabriel García Márquez, Augusto Monterroso, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Fidel Castro, Héctor Campora, and Seki Sano. Even César Augusto Sandino and Farabundo Martí, who inspired the Central American revolutionary movements, lived for a period of time in Mexico.2
Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and to a lesser extent Nicaraguans and Hondurans, are the most recent groups to migrate to Mexico. Of these groups, Guatemalans have the longest tradition of migration, especially to the Soconusco region. There they have worked in the cultivation and harvest of coffee beans, sugarcane, bananas, and other fruits. Their labor has been particularly vital to the Mexican economy since the 1960s. As the young men and women of Chiapas have sought employment in higher-paying industries, the Guatemalans have provided the labor critical to the region's agricultural industry: an estimated twenty thousand to a hundred thousand seasonal workers in Mexico each year.3 Until the 1990s, illegal immigration was tolerated and even encouraged, to maintain an abundant pool of lowwage labor. The border was fluid, and trade, commerce, and family ties extended across national boundaries. Given these connections, Mexico was a logical destination for the thousands of Maya and ladino refugees fleeing Guatemala during the 1980s: it was culturally and geographically accessible, offered safety and economic opportunity, and was close enough to Guatemala to facilitate a quick return once conditions in the homeland improved. These were the same factors that made Mexico an appealing choice for Salvadorans and other Central Americans during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Central Americans were distinct from other twentieth-century immigrants to Mexico simply because of their greater numbers: over two hundred thousand Guatemalans and half a million Salvadorans were believed to be living in Mexico by 1990.With the exception of a few hundred Guatemalan intellectuals who received asylum following the 1954 coup, the majority of Guatemalans who migrated to Mexico were Maya campesinos. It was a young population—63 percent were under the age of twenty—and fewer than a quarter of them spoke Spanish.4 Because of the Guatemalan army's “scorched earth” policies, many arrived in Mexico malnourished, suffering from a variety of diseases and psychological trauma.5 They settled largely in southern Mexico, especially in the state of Chiapas. The Salvadorans, in turn, were disproportionately young, single males from large towns and cities, who preferred to look for wage-earning opportunities in Mexico's largest cities. Like the Guatemalans, they viewed themselves as temporary residents who hoped to return one day to their homelands, but because of Mexico's restrictive policies, the Salvadorans were more likely to seek refuge further north, in the United States or Canada.
The Central American migration provided Mexico with one of its greatest challenges. For the first time in its history, it was forced