'As deadly as armed conflict? Gang violence and forced displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America'

AutorDavid James Cantor
CargoDirector, Refugee Law Initiative. School of Advanced Study, University of London
Páginas77-97
Agenda Internacional
Año XXIII N° 34, 2016, pp. 77-97
ISSN 1027-6750
* Director, Refugee Law Initiative. School of Advanced Study, University of London. Correo electrónico: david.
cantor@sas.ac.uk
As deadly as armed conf‌lict? Gang violence and forced
displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America’
David James Cantor*
A
e urry of interest around the European refugee crisis, whilst plainly justied, should not
have the eect of distracting international attention from equally pressing humanitarian and
refugee crises in other parts of the world. As such, this article highlights the extreme nature and
scale of gang violence in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, which has resulted
in substantial forced displacement of aected populations. e article argues that, despite cer-
tain commonalities with situations of internal armed conict (such as Syria), the scenario in
the Northern Triangle poses a distinct set of additional challenges for ensuring the protection
of refugees and displaced persons from these countries. e urgent need to address these chal-
lenges in the Americas is no less than for those presented by the current refugee crisis in Europe.
Keywords: Europe, Central America, Northern Triangle, violence, gangs, refugees, displacement.
¿Tan mortal como un conf‌licto armado? La violencia por pandillas y el desplazamiento
forzoso en el Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica
R
La fascinación que rodea la presente crisis de refugiados en Europa, aunque justicada, no debe
desviar la atención internacional de las crisis humanitarias y de refugiados igualmente graves
que existen en otras regiones del mundo. Como tal, este artículo destaca la extrema naturaleza
y escala de la violencia por pandillas en los países del Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica, la
cual resulta en el desplazamiento forzoso de las poblaciones afectadas. El articulo propone
que, a pesar de ciertas paralelas con las situaciones de conicto armado interno (como Siria),
el escenario en el Triángulo Norte plantee uno conjunto distinto de retos adicionales en la
búsqueda de protección para los refugiados y desplazados de estos países. La urgencia de
responder a estos retos en las Américas no es menos que para los desafíos presentados por la
actual crisis de refugiados en Europa.
Palabras clave: Europa, Centroamérica, Triángulo Norte, violencia, pandillas, refugiados,
desplazamiento.
78 David Cantor
Agenda Internacional, XXIII (34) 2016
Global attention seems xed on the mass movement of persons from Syria and
other conict-ridden countries into Europe and the mixed quality of the response
by European governments. Yet, despite the political rhetoric from some quarters, the
numbers of irregular entries by migrants to the European Union (EU) from 2014
onwards – whilst high in comparison with previous years – represent only a minute
fraction of the overall annual total of migratory entries.1 Nor is this inux the rst
time that Europe has encountered a mass refugee movement on its territory.2 Even
so, the mass character of this movement and their form of arrival - by land and sea -
does generate challenges for certain countries in the region and the EU as a bloc has
found itself unable to respond eectively.
Undeniably, the current refugee situation in Europe generates certain interesting
political and legal questions about the response by European governments and the
EU as a whole. Nonetheless, there is also a risk that an ongoing blinkered focus on
Europe risks distracting attention from the real roots of this ‘crisis’. ese are to be
found in the brutal armed conict and associated extensive forced displacement in
Syria, as well as the extremely challenging situation of many Syrian refugees else-
where in the Middle East. As a case in point, the most recent global statistics show
that Lebanon, a poor country of some four million inhabitants, was hosting 1.15
million Syrian refugees by the end of 2014, more than all of the 28 relatively-pros-
perous countries of the EU put together.3
However, a disproportionate focus on refugees and migrants in Europe not only
risks shifting attention away from the serious crises of violence and displacement
in the Middle East but also those currently playing out in other parts of the world,
where dierent but no less pressing diculties in the protection of displaced persons
are presently emerging. Indeed, it is no secret that the vast majority of the world’s
refugees are actually hosted in countries in the Global South.4 As such, we must
ensure that our attempts to better understand and respond to the mass migration of
persons into Europe do not simultaneously diminish our eorts to understand and
1 According to the latest gures, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the
External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (FRONTEX) apparently detected 170,000 irregular
entries in the EU in 2014, but out of a total of 194,716,566 entries in the EU for that year. M. Garlick, ‘Solidarity or
self-interest? e EU’s common asylum policy - between politics and desperation’, presentation delivered to the 6th
Annual RLI Seminar Series on International Refugee Law, at Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, London,
United Kingdom, 4 February 2016.
2 e last occasion when this occurred was during the Kosovo war of the late 1990s and the ensuing mass displace-
ment of aected persons throughout Europe.
3 UNHCR, UNHCR Global Trends 2014: World at War, 18 June 2015, http://www.refworld.org/docid/558292924.
html, 12
4 At the end of 2014, 86 per cent of the world’s refugees were located in developing regions. See ibid., 2.

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