We Are Spectators: Impressions from a visit to the Darién Gap
Elket Rodríguez is the Immigration Advocacy Specialist for Fellowship Southwest and the Global Migration Advocate for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. On behalf of both these roles, he participates in a network of faith leaders who serve migrants across Latin America, Como Nacido entre Nosotros (CNEN).
CNEN invited Elket and others in the network to visit the Darién Gap. They spent a week this November in Colombia and Panama meeting with migrants and volunteers who minister to them.
The Darién is an infamously dangerous place along the Latin American migration route, and we know you’ll want to read Elket’s impressions from his time there.
By Elket Rodríguez
Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life
Where cross the crowded ways of life,
Where sound the cries of race and clan…In haunts of wretchedness and need,
On shadowed thresholds dark with fears,
From paths where hide the lures of greed…
Above the noise of selfish strife,
We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man.Frank Mason North
The Darien Gap has become a symbol for the magnitude and complexity of the global migration crisis. The 10,000 square miles of rainforest connecting Central and South America is a natural labyrinth where migrants face the immensity of nature and the constant danger of getting lost. Steep mountains, vast swamps, rushing rivers, wild and deadly wildlife, extreme weather and disease are the order of the day on this stretch that has become one of the most dangerous migratory routes in the world.
Every day, the footprints of thousands of migrant women and children are superimposed on the banks of Panama's Chucunaque River, on the northern edge of the Darien jungle that divides Panama in Central America from Colombia in South America. The migrants journey through this vast rainforest, that has cost the lives of hundreds of migrants, to make their way north, mostly to the United States.
Before their journey begins, families gather in Necoclí, Colombia, at the southern end of the Darien, where they are visited by friendly faces like Lupe the Clown, who is a Colombian woman named Teresita. Her mission is simply to bring smiles to children in the refugee camps before they embark on the perilous journey. She knows it might be their last entertainment.
One would think that, to risk a hellish journey like this, something promising awaits. However, the hope for a better future for these migrants is chimerical. While the President-elect declares the American dream dead, migrants still see the U.S. as a better alternative than the persecution and extreme poverty they experience. Paradoxically, those experiences have been created by more than a century of U.S. foreign policy.
Migrants from Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, Colombia, Afghanistan, Benin, Bangladesh, China and Congo, among others, meet in Panama –a port of passage not just for Central and South America but for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Panama Canal. That land, where trillions of dollars in goods cross annually and where hundreds of ethnicities, nations and cultures come together, is also the setting of one of the most tortuous routes of human trafficking. A land of hope and death. A portal to the future or an end of the destination.
Everyone asks me for my impressions and takeaways. This trip cemented in my mind that migration is a business. We are just spectators, and even as immigration advocates, we are not saviors in this situation. We are spectators of a human trafficking story that profits cartels, governments, indigenous people, arms manufacturers, defense contractors and private prisons, from Venezuela to Canada. (The crossing of migrants generates thousands of dollars for local carriers who charge $60 per person to transport them from the Darien to the northern border with Costa Rica.)
I also learned that crossing the Darien is an encounter with death. I heard stories of entire families who perished when they fell on the cliff of death, or from bites from “spider 24” (because it kills you in 24 hours). I was told of bodies (adults and children) floating in the river because the river had swelled during the journey, due to the passage of tropical storm Rafael on November 4. If a drone had flown over the camp set up by the Panamanian authorities and international organizations on the banks of the Chucunaque in Panama which we visited, it would have captured a panorama of death around the camp.
But the death that the Darien inflicts is not only physical, it is of the soul, especially the death of innocence for children and the sexual integrity of women. I struggle to reconcile the persistent silence in the face of overwhelming testimonies of sexual abuse among women who crossed the Darien with the tacit understanding that sexual violence by cartels, armed groups, indigenous people, fellow migrants, and even government authorities is almost inevitable.
I cannot comprehend this reign of impunity. Sexual abuse is the silent theme of migration and is so common that it is not even questioned. It's as if it must factor in to the decision to migrate, which is something I cannot fathom.
What struck me most about the Darien was the perception of women and children as merchandise: as the main currency of migration. At a crucial moment when it is questioned what it is to be a man in this century, I, who am the father of two boys, refuse to validate with my silence behaviors that do not represent a man. I am a father, husband, son, brother, cousin, nephew and uncle of women. I'm honest... I don't understand.
But I also carry a lot with me from my visit: the vulnerability of migrant parents, the innocence of children, the humanity of volunteers. For example, some young Panamanians wake up at 2:00 AM on a Saturday to donate their day off to the service of migrants. I take with me the Christian fellowship from different traditions who do not see immigration as a matter of exploitation or dollars and cents.
We can choose how we see migrants. We can choose to see them for the dollars in their lives, to see exploitation in their strength, to see sexual pleasure in their weak bodies, to see the scapegoat for our sins, to see them as criminals who want to invade us or demons who want to destroy us. Or, we can choose to see Jesus in the face of every migrant, or to see them as angels we get to host.
But I repeat, the choice is yours and mine. It is in the eye of the beholder; it is inside you and me.
I wonder, if blasphemy against the Spirit is calling God’s work Satan’s and Satan’s work God’s, could it also be blasphemy to see Satan where Jesus tells us to see Him? Is it blasphemous to see invaders where, in the Word, we are invited to harbor angels?
Many other impressions will stay with me. Like the little girl whose back was covered in mosquito bites. The tears of mothers with one-year-old children begging for money to take a bus to take them to Costa Rica. The helpless faces of fathers who did not know how to protect and provide for their families.
I carry with me the ministry of Teresita in Colombia, Lupe the Clown. During our trip to Panama, Teresita encountered children who had already crossed the jungle, children she had once cheered up in Necoclí. She saw the changes in them due to the suffering they endured on that journey. Yet she still finds the strength to bring joy and light to their lives and many others.
I take with me the different faces of Jesus. The lost face of the children, the face of distrust of the women, the indifference and the compensation of forces of the authorities and the face of desperation of the men to provide.
For a week I wondered how to walk after the Darien. What footprints can I leave? How can I be more than a spectator? It's a process I'm still discerning.
But what is clear to me is that there are always Christians who "above noise and selfishness" see Jesus in their neighbors. Most of all, I take with me what I brought, the conviction of God's presence in the volunteers who serve in the Darien.
