October 29, 2024 • 32 mins
In the second part of his series on the Darién Gap, James looks at the impacts of migration on the indigenous Panamanian Emberá community.
Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DAaDkSwh1Jk/?igsh=bmgyanBteW10czd5
https://www.themanual.com/outdoors/darien-gap-feature/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/18/panama-darien-gap-jose-raul-mulino
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/27/the-darien-gap-a-deadly-extension-of-the-us-border
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/jmhs.pdf
https://www.strausscenter.org/publications/asylum-processing-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-august-2024/
https://www.msf.org/lack-action-sees-sharp-rise-sexual-violence-people-transiting-darien-gap-panama
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Zone media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everyone, it's me James, and before we listen to
this episode today, I just did want to make you
aware that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish,
mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what
you're hearing is a translated interview that's being edited for
brevity and content. I hope you enjoy the episode. Every
(00:25):
day for the past two years, the population of Bajo
Chiquito has more than tripled. At six in the morning,
piraguas come from other Embera villages along the river, dozens
of them, all filled with orange life jackets. Migrants form
a line so long that it stretches from the beach
north of town all the way through the village and
at the other side, and in groups of fifteen, they
(00:48):
hand over their twenty five dollars each and get onto
the piraguas. Each one puts on their bright orange life jacket,
sits with their legs around the person in front, and
they take off for the first official migrant receipt center
in last blancats As. The last boat leaves. Those who
can't afford the trip begin a walk, which could take
eight hours. I couldn't walk with them. But I hand
(01:10):
to de group my water filter in one of those
over bright energy bars that are basically trail mix in
a rectangular format, and wish them the best of luck
as they force their tired legs and sore feet to
walk again. The population of Barjuqito dropped back to five
hundred or so indigenous people who live here, and the
usual background noise of chattering dozens of languages gave way
to crowing chickens and barking dogs. By the next morning,
(01:33):
as migrants came walking in from the south, it would
grow again to fifteen hundred. For the last ten years
or so, fewer than two thousand people crossed in a year,
but numbers have been steadily increasing, and now the residents
of Bajo Juquito see the numbers that they saw in
a year. In a single weekend, while you listen to
this series, thousands of people will take their lives into
(01:54):
their hands as they leap into mudcolored rivers, ascend towering
mountains in the pouring rain, and desperately fight the urge
to drink from a river polluted with human waste, decaying corpses.
All of those who survive will walk out of that
jungle up the river bank along a muddy path and
into Bajo Jugito. Well, they'll buy themselves a cold drink
(02:14):
and enjoyed the hospitality of the locals for a night
before leaving to head north. At first, the locals told
me didn't charge people at all. They were shocked to
see the migrants and wanted to help them, But as
numbers grew, they had to start asking for money as
they couldn't afford to feed and house all the migrants arriving.
Over time, they said, the costs rose, and now a
(02:35):
bed costs about five dollars for a night, and a
meal is about the same. As they pointed out, that's
less than half what I paid a meta tea the
nearest town a Metaitia doesn't have to haul its supplies
up the river in a canoe using seven dollars per
gallon fuel. In Bajo Juguito, I sat down with a
order man whose front room I just had luncheon. I
wanted to get a sense of the change he'd seen
over his lifetime in his community and how he felt
(02:57):
about it.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
We saw how they arrived injured, sick with vomiting diarrhea.
Then there was no health care here. What did we do?
We had to speak for the government. It wasn't easy.
It was not easy. We told them that we needed
a doctor. And finally, now, thank god, we have doctors here.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The community, which has long been socially and economically marginalized
and acutely underprovided with government services, had built a house
themselves for the doctors, another house for migration officials. It
was the only way to help migrants access services, which
in turn allowed them to move on with their journeys quicker,
he said. However, like almost every other our person I
(03:49):
spoke with, he felt that the government should be doing
more here. Even after all these years serving as the
first Panamanian village, many thousands of people enter every year.
They still don't have electricity or a road that's successible
year round, both of which would make their lives and
the transit of the migrants much safer. But that doesn't
mean the state's totally absent here. It used to be
(04:10):
possible for migrants to take a paragua from come Galina
a little further south up river and avoid some of
the most dangerous river crossings. Bonio told me that authorities
in the comarca, which is like a state in the
USA have prohibited this. I wanted to see more of
what was going on further south and what made it
so dangerous, but I wasn't permitted to join a center
front patrol going out that way despite my request. I
(04:32):
asked Bonnio what made things more dangerous than that part
of the river. First, he explained that the wide and
low lying beaches often seemed like good points for migrants
to sleep, but that any rain in the mountains above
would result in the rapid increase of the water level,
turning those beaches into rapids in minutes, he told me,
looking down at the table. But not so long ago,
a storm had washed away sleeping migrants, drowning them in
(04:54):
their sleep and washing their remains towards his village. But
terrible as it is, that isn't the only risk.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
What they said, you know very well that there's not
a single country that does not have criminals. In every country,
there are criminals. Yeah, So what happens at that point
in the river, as I was saying, at that point,
and clearly it is not everyone, but there are some
certain young men who engage in robbery and even rape.
(05:24):
So that's why in this community in this village, in
coordination with the community and the leaders, we well. The
leader spoke to the national government to ask for a
chance to transport people from came Gaina so that nothing
would happen to them. The government talked and talked, and
for a while it was possible, and it was safe,
(05:45):
and nobody died and nobody robbed. It was all going well.
But what happened. We have a leader at Kasik. I
don't know if you've heard about it, but the regional
leader he put a barrier, he stopped it. Look to
(06:06):
be honest, these people with their degrees, this classic person,
they're not humanitarians.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Despite the struggles and the relative absence of the government overall,
he felt that the migration had been a positive for
his community. He'd learned a lot from the migrants, he said,
and enjoyed learning about their cuisines. In particular. There's a
common narrative in media that mentions Barjuquito that this village
has been somehow stripped of its culture or ruined by migration,
But the locals don't seem to agree with this. I
(06:41):
also speke to the villagies leader. She's the first woman
in the whole commarker to hold such a position.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're I'm chief of the community police and leader of
the community.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
She explained to me that barju Guito was just one
of several communities along the river, each with its own leader.
Those leaders meet in the council an answer to a
casike of the.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Mara Ganti di Yatala Invia.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
She also explained that as the first woman in the position,
she'd made sure to advance the cause of women in
her community.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Since I've had my administration, which has been seven months
as noca or leader, I have put some women to work.
They're waiting for the migrants.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
There After that, I asked her to explain to listeners
what exactly a migrant encounters when they first set foot
in their village and the various steps that they might
go through before leaving the next morning.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Is not verifica.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
There is a check in at first, verification of whether
they have a crime in their country. From there they
got immigration. The documents are checked and then they are
free to choose where they're going to wait and rest
for the next part of their journey. On behalf of UNICEF,
we have free toilets from the community. We also have
a free place where they can camp or rest. That's
(08:00):
theirs now. If they want better things, better rest, they
can find accommodation available in almost every house here. The
next day we prepare everything at together with the center
front security. We go to the beach there and at
the beach we also coordinate with a coordinator from each village.
(08:20):
I also want to make it clear as well that
the boat driver must have their idea and be of
legal age.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
From there, the migrants pay twenty five dollars ahead and
take the five hour boat trip north to Lahas Blancas,
which is the UN and government run camp and the
first official migrant welcome center outside the DADDI enn Having
boat drivers who are of age is important. Migrants who
can't swim trust their lives to these boat drivers in
high water. Once they're at Last Blancers, they're close to
(08:47):
the Pan American Highway and the beginning of the rest
of their journey north. They don't have to walk any
further unless they run out of money for buses. I
asked what happened when someone couldn't afford the ride to
Last Blancas.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yes, me, what does the community do? The community takes
responsibility presending them, not the state, the state migration Cenafron.
They don't pay for the fuel or the transport of
these people.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Specifically, she told me the community sends three free boats today.
Most of these are filled of women and children, and
in my time there and seeing that these people paid
whatever they could those leftover, usually men would have to
make the walk on their blistered feet and tired legs
and risk further sickness, robbery, and heat exhaustion. I also
wanted to ask a leader about the problems with theft
(09:37):
and sexual assault that the migrants encountered on their walk
into Bajo Jiguito, and she was pretty forthright this was
an issue for the state, not for her community to fix.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But then where is Senafron. Aren't Centafrat supposed to be
on all the banks of the river, Yes, so where
are those thefts?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Despite being able to prevent the Empire from using their
boats on their river to transport migrants them at any
level above the village isn't really present in Bajigito cent
A Front Panamas combined Border patrol and military received migrants
and register them there, but all the services provided to
the migrants come either from the Emberrad or from non
governmental organizations. This pattern of the state failing to provide
(10:17):
basic services, when Neil told me, is one that goes
back a long time before the migrants began arriving here.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So now, before the migrants began arriving here, we had
a town, a town that the government is supposed to
give what it has to give us as Panamanians, but
it doesn't. It was a town without anything. All we
did was sell our products and sell stuff here for us.
We grow rice, corn plantains, everything. Well, it was a lot,
(10:52):
but products that we grow are not enough to get by.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Even today in late twenty twenty four. The village doesn't
have mained electricity, nor does it have a connection to
telephone networks or a road that it can take year
round to connect it to the rest of the country.
And a few clean water taps in the town come
from UNICEF, not Panama City. Doctors here come from European NGOs,
and even the policing of the community is largely done
(11:16):
by the community by a group called the Zara. And
never to better understand that our communities, both with and
without migrants, I wanted to visit another Embero village and
after the break.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
We'll hear about that.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So I'm just in my hammock now. Kind of the
end of the day. We were singing in another end
our village today just probably I mean better, say kilometer
or two kilometers away, you know. Probably it didn't walk,
but it was pretty fast in the Perragua. Just it's
(12:09):
a little more peaceful here. And a boat driver passed
us to stay at his house, so we said we would.
You can probably hear like, I don't know how much
of this is getting picked up. It's a nice little village,
(12:32):
you know, the fucking way till the dogs have stopped.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
When I wasn't in Bajo, I took a boat every
evening to Maraganti. Maraganti is only a couple of kilometers
away on a different branch of the river, but the
walk might dig hours through the thick jungle. Perraguero had
invited us to stay with his family and to see
another but our village. I'm always down to sleep outside,
so I gladly accepted his invitation and slung my hammock
(13:01):
across his front porch. After a long discussion on whether
the dynamic cordage I was using would actually hold my weight,
and on my part, I probably ill advised free solo
onto the roof of his house to find a good
anchor point for my hammock. My time in Madragante, I
found myself growing fonder and fond of his little community.
Everyone's doors were open, and the village's children enjoyed unsupervised
(13:22):
playtime everywhere. There was never not a pickup game going
on at the concrete football and basketball court, and despite
the fact that they were on average several feet short
than me and playing on concrete without shoes, local kids
humiliated me at a wide variety of sports with no
electricity of them generators, one Wi Fi connection in the
whole village as far as I can tell, and a
(13:42):
few hours to myself. In the evening, I happily settled
into a routine of watching in a river along with
everyone else in the hour before sunset, walking around town,
chatting with the inhabitants who seemed surprised but happy to
see a gangly British man nambling around their neighborhood and
betting their dogs. Once it got dark, I'd spend my
evening sitting in my hammock as as grandchildren of our
host asked me how to say various things in English.
(14:03):
I played with the little toys I always bring along
in case I were running to children on my work trips.
Being in Maragantine made me think a lot about my
own life and the US in general. I certainly have
a lot more possessions here, but my neighbors don't let
their kids run around in the streets, and cars would
hit them if they did. People in my community, if
the next door app is anything to go by, spendcing
meally countless hours bitching about the unhoused and other people's children.
(14:26):
But here everyone had a roof over their heads, and
other people's children ran in and out my host's kitchen
without anyone batting an eyelid. Aside from laughing at my
paleness when I was washing in the river, nobody here
seemed that concerned that I was different. They let me
hold their babies while they cooked. They didn't overcharge me
for the bottles of water of snacks that I bought
from their front room convenience stores. What seemed that bothered
about sharing their meals and their homes with me? At night,
(14:49):
we sat on tiny plastic chairs and talked about our
shared interest in woodwork and what they wanted for their children.
We talked about their boats and the river, and about
how terrible things must be for the migrants to re
their lives making the journey across these mountains that the
Embra and their Gunna neighbors call home. Ever since I
left their village, I've been thinking a lot about the
part of The Dawn of Everything in which Graver and
(15:12):
Wengrove detail how many indigenous people were adopted into colonial
society but chose to return to their communities, how they
settlers in indigenous communities often chose to remain among the
indigenous communities. I don't wish to romanticize the very real
struggles yember have with their economic marginalization and lack of
access to basic services compared to other Panamanians. But I
(15:33):
just want to reflect on the fact that there was
something really special about the little river community, where dogs
and chickens and ducks woke me up in the morning,
little children welcomed me back every evening. They told me
what they did at school, or tossed a little ball
back and forth, and seemed entirely comfortable chatting to an
adult from across the world. The people Abou al Jiguito
have shown that same hospitality to migrants and indeed to me.
(15:55):
And so I wanted to ask the village leader how
migration had changed her community everyone else I spoke to.
She insisted that they had held on to important parts
of their culture, which he illustrated by giving me a
history lesson.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The town of Bajo Chiquito was founded in nineteen sixty five.
At first there were three families, the Vaparizo, the Risales,
the Chagos. They came here for education reasons. Before everyone
lived on their own. The education came and that is
why we grew this town.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It was the education, she said, that had changed town,
not the migrants. They have night school now for adults
and a school for all the children with seven teachers.
The children speak Embaba and Spanish and have a chance
to get more education in Meta Ti or even in
Panama City.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
See.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yes, it's due to education, not because the migrants travel
through here. Let this be clear. That is not because
the migrants came here.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Cly though the perception of changing their community is a concern.
Told me they're a local woman marriages what she called
a Latino man. They can't live together in the village,
and she wanted to make sure I knew that the
children learn in Emberra as well as Spanish. They also
still knew dances and ceremonies, Bono told me. But some
of the changes, she said were positive, including one in
(17:16):
gender relationship.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's an ongoing struggle. I'll say that to show that
we women have the same capacity for thought creativity as men.
We are fighting every day, and as you will see,
it's not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
One thing that surprised me was that the Emberra would
always remind me that they themselves had been migrants. They
migrated to Panama City sometimes, they said, and they have
a little choice if they want post secondary education or
higher level medical attention. Some of their kids even make
the journey to the USA to study. What kind of
hypocrites would they be, they said, if they look down
on people making the same journey.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm going to tell you that before the immigrants arrived here,
within this community, we lived in the same world. I mean,
we came from the countryside, We worked in agriculture, and
we still continue working in the agriculture stuff, fishing, hunting,
and so on. We liked it a lot. Now after
the immigrants started to come. We are still the same
(18:16):
and it doesn't affect us having them within our community
because they are their people, they're humans. The journey that
the immigrants make is out of need, it is in need,
so really we too, for example, if we were to
deal with problems like them, Since we are just like them,
(18:37):
we also have the right to emigrate as well.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
This is not the first influx of migration into emberor
Guna land. In fifteen oh one, a wave of undocumented
immigration from Spain in the form of settler colonias like
Francisco Balboa arrived in the Guna and Emberor territories. Ever
since his Europeans first saw for themselves what the ember
already knew. That this area was part of the narrow
strip of land between two Great Oceans. People from around
(19:03):
the world have been coming to what is now Panama
as part of their journeys from north to south or
east to west. The thin strip of land that joins
the two American continents has been at the crossroads of
the world for half a millennium. Archaeological digs in a
region show that there were once roads, and that gold
and jade came here from afar. This ritinalization is one
that Vasco Nunies de Balboa first encountered, and it was
(19:26):
they who first told him that their land lay between
two oceans. It was somewhere just to the south of
where I was staying. That exactly five hundred eleven years
ago to the day, Barboa became the first European to
set eyes upon the Pacific. Since Barbara, many other colonizers
have come to Dabien to pit their notions of superiority
against the might of the rainforest. The Kingdom of Scotland
(19:48):
sent to group of settlers here in a seventeenth century
mounted the side. This isn't a place with any similarity
to Scotland, and it's easy enough to see why the
plan failed, killed three out of four colonists and essentially
bankrupted an entire nation in two years, forcing it into
a colonial relationship of its own with its neighbor to
the south. After the Scot's left, having failed to create
(20:10):
what they'd hoped would be a quote Scottish Amsterdam of
the Indies, and a Spanish found a flatter and easier
connection between the Pacific and Caribbean, the Dadian region returned
to its indigenous people whose hem it remains, but over
the course of several hundred years, many empires have come
to the Dadi End to die. The French tried to
build a sea level colloud not so far from here,
(20:30):
the canal without locks, but they ultimately failed. The US
tried in the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventies to forge
a route to build a canal to get east coast
Banks Acces to west coast Gold, before eventually finding an
easier route further north. A century later, the US and
Panama openly discussed dropping nuclear bombs on the jungle to
make it passable and to allow the construction of a road.
(20:51):
The US offered to shoulder two thirds of the cost
of building such a road, and hoped to have the
Pan American Highway completed in time for its nineteen seventy
six by centennial. The GAP's hostility in the growing environmental movement,
as well as a desire to protect US livestock from
a foot of mouth disease, it's endemic in South America.
One the day, the gap remained a gap, largely without
the influence of the state. In the nineteen seventies, a
(21:14):
British Army Expedition traversed to dadi Enn in two range rovers,
assisted by horses, parachute drop resupplies and a team of engineers.
They crossed the jungle in ninety six days. They had
to make their own bugnets for their horses out of
the parachute, so we used to drop corn cobs to
the animals and rice for the humans. Expedition leader and
seasoned explorer, as well as possibly the most British Man
in history, Lieutenant Colonel John Blashford Snell, wrote, without doubt
(21:38):
it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,
calling the daddy Enne a god forsaken place. The dadi
Enne is one of the wettest places on the planet.
A particularly cruel twist for that would be colonizers from Scotland.
In the months before I came here, I spent hours
trying to work out how to water prove my podcast equipment,
and most of what you're hearing is recorded on a
voice recorder that I sealed up with gasket maker, shoved
(22:00):
inside a condom, inside a dry bag inside a pelican case.
This rain causes flash flooding, the kind which sweeps whole
villages away. The rivers in the gap on bridge, largely
because they simply wash away bridges after a storm. On
our journey to Barjigito, I saw the remains of bridges
that had dared to try. That's why my hosts built
their houses on stilts, and it's on those stilts that
(22:21):
I slung my hammock in Maraganti. Ever since the failed Dallienski,
the Gap has been constructed in the Western imagination as
the deepest and darkest jungle. The Gap today is home
to every type of malaria and numerous others diseases. There
are deadly vipers, deadly spiders, big cats, and as if
the natural threats were not enough, the US dropped bombs
here in the Cold War to test this destructive might
(22:43):
against one of the few areas of the planet that
hadn't been made amenable to capitalism. Many of them remain
unexploded in the mountains. Certainly, the physical geography of the
Dalli imposed a challenge, but I would argue that the
imaginative geography of the gap which is a greater impediment
to travelers. In Spanish they call it the up on
the Stopper. Local legend has it that the Spanish conquistador,
(23:04):
one of the first to take his last breaths in
the waters of dalli Enn's rivers carved a phrase into
the rock which is endured long after he expired. When
you go to the dadi Ennes and trust yourself to Mary,
for in her hands of the entrance and in God
see exit. It doesn't sound that different to the things
I heard from migrants and in the modern day they'll
tell you about the horrific tiktoks they saw before they
(23:24):
entered the gap, and the decaying remains fellow travelers they
saw us they passed through. Media reports in a Gap
consistently referred to it as a nomad's land, but of
course it's very much someone's land, the land of the
indigenous people who have been here long before countries, borders
or reporters. While it may have remained hostiles to capitalism
in the state, and it can be deadly for unexperienced travelers,
(23:45):
it's supported life for thousands of years. And a wait
about Houjigito, I was reminded of just how comfortable my
hosts were in a place where I felt so out
of place.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
So as we were coming, we are caught in a
huge rain storm just absolutely bucketing it down suddenly and
pulled in to a little sort of or just a
flat area of mighterily. I helped out at the boat,
and next thing I know, our boat guys ran into jungle,
chopped some huge palm leaves down and brought them back
to me to cover me in my bag.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well, the Emberrad might have preserved their comfort and culture.
It's undeniable that Migrace should have made a huge economic impact.
Nine hundred and fifty nine migrants left Bajo Jiguito on
one of the days I was able to get numbers
from Senafront. Each of them paid twenty five dollars for Piagua,
about ten bucks for food and lodging and maybe Wi Fi,
and pressed a few bucks more for clean clothes or
(24:54):
a pair of off bran crocs. And at their feet
heel from three days have been constantly wet and blistered.
Srvdive estimate that's a little more than thirty three thousand
per day raughly the GDP per capital of Panama. That's
a lot of money down here, especially for community which
has been alienated and exploited for solo. Using this money,
people have been closed the bottom floors of their homes
(25:15):
to provide more space to house migrants. All around the village,
they're building better homes. Some of them have satellite internet
now or Starlink or bigger and more reliable generators. This
money has been spread around the amberaur communities in the area,
and every morning each of them sends peraguas to transport
the migrants. Ares almost sixty you needed every day. Rolling
out of Maragante at five in the morning, as almost
(25:36):
the entire adult male population of the village joined us
in a huge flatilla of two stroke smoke and dugout
canoes and the morning mists still sat in the river.
Was an incredible experience, and this is doubtless an industry
for the whole area. Now. If Molino Majorcas ever successfully
stops migration here, it will be a massive economic detriment
to people already marginalized for centuries. But despite the economic benefits,
(26:00):
the people of Maragante didn't seem to want to become
like bah Juquito. On our last day there, as we
set off back towards the dirt road to the borders here,
we saw that they were building little cabins outside of town. These,
they said were for the migrants. They wanted the migrants
to be safe and their community to stay the same.
They might not be able to sell meals to the
migrants this way, or charge them for Wi Fi or
(26:20):
phone charging, but they will be able to live a
little more peacefully. Yamber, I have gone out of their
way to ensure migrant safety. They're the ones who mandate
life jackets and the ones who build a house for doctors.
They're the ones who send free boats for women and children.
Of course they have an economic incentive to do this,
But in nearly a week living with them, I didn't
hear them bad mouth for migrants, and nor did I
(26:41):
hear the migrants complain about the way they were treated
in the village of bahj Jaquito. But before they get
to the village of Bajuquito, migrants aren't safe, and if
you ask them, they'll tell you it's indigenous people who
are rubbing and threatening them. Deeper into the jungle, undoubtedly, robbery,
sexual assault and murderer not uncommon in the Daddy and Gap.
You can hear anecdotes of these on daily basis in Bahjiquito,
(27:02):
and some of the stories I heard and things I
saw are among the most horrific experiences I've had in
years of reporting on pretty terrible things. I haven't included
a great many of them here because I think it's
hard for people to meaningfully consent in those kinds of circumstances.
But yesterday you heard about the human remains that almost
everyone featured in this series had to walk past. This
is a problem that's getting worse, not better. In just
(27:24):
one week in February, medisanten Fontierre, the NGO that Americans
called Doctors Without Borders, treated one hundred and thirteen people,
including nine children, after they were sexually assaulted by criminal
groups in the Darienne. This number is close to one
hundred and twenty people treated during the whole of January.
These figures are double the monthly average treated in twenty
twenty three, when six hundred and seventy six people were
(27:45):
treated for the whole year. As you heard before, this
is the problem that people in the community sometimes acknowledge,
and as a village leader mentioned, it's one that could
be solved as the state would live up to its
obligation to protect migrants within its borders. The leader also
shares me that the community has its own punishment mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
The place of punishment is the stocks. Three days ago
someone behaved very badly and we had to put them
in the stocks. The man who mistreats women, we also
put in the stocks. The woman who gossips, we also
put her in the stocks.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
What she's talking about here is stocks in the old
fashioned sense, not in the watery bed sense. We actually
saw someone chatting them one day with their ankles locked
in place. We didn't ask what they did to how
long they were there, as it seems difficult again to
consent to an interview when you're literally pinned in place.
But this kind of punishment comes from the community, not
the state. Aside from these punishments, the community hasn't done
(28:39):
much to stop things happening in the jungle, and I'm
not sure if it's really able to. They're Panamanian, they
say in the state's responsible for the safety of migrants
women's borders, and while it does send sender front patrols
into jungle, the state doesn't appear to be doing much
protect migrants sexual assault, robbery, or murder. Earlier this year,
the state did take decisive action to reject made same
sans Fontierreen not reviewing their permission to work in the Darienne.
(29:02):
This is quite a challenging permission to obtain, even as
a solo journalist. It took months for me to get mine,
forcing me to rebook my flight several times. I heard
various explanations for why MSF were not allowed to keep working.
I couldn't get an official response, but it's probably worth
noting that they published a report headlined lack of action
she's sharp rise in sexual violence on people transiting the
(29:23):
Darien Gap on the twenty ninth of February, and they
refused permission to remain in the region in the first
week of March. MSF was allowed to return in October
of this year and wouldn't comment further than the following statement,
which they built me in mid October. In October of
twenty twenty four, MSF resumed medical and humanitarian activities at
Lahas Blanca's migration reception Center, located at the edge of
(29:43):
the Dai In Jungle, after Panamanian authorities approved a three
month medical intervention. MSF welcomes its decision and advocates to
collaborate closely with Panama's Ministry of Health to provide comprehensive
medical care to migrants crossing this route as well as
to the local population of the area. Right now, UNICEF,
MAD Saint Dumont, Corporacion Espanola and the Red Cross are
(30:04):
helping migrants in babu Jiquito. UNICEF and salt showers and toilets.
Global Brigades in UNICEF provided tapped with clean drinking water,
and the medical endeos provide healthcare, which is fighting saving
lives and providing survivors of sexual assault with medical care
in a seventy two hour window where it can be
most beneficial. It's worth noting that most migrants who are
sexually assaulted won't stay depressed charges. I know of one
(30:26):
case of sexual assault of a child while I was there,
but the family wanted to continue their journey and so
the charges won't be pressed. This makes it very hard
to ascertain how many cases a sexual assault there are
in a daddy and every year, aside from through medical
reports from NGOs, and those only include the people who
make it to bah Jiquito Alahas Blancas. The numbers are
clearly high, and it's a fear that many migrants articulated
(30:48):
to me. In the jungle, they're at their most vulnerable,
they said. Most people robbed, they tell me help by
armed attackers carrying guns and machetes. But once a migrants
set foot and they're momentarily safe from rory and a
soul for the first time in days, they can sleep
without worry being attacked or washed away. And the rest
of their journeys north they'll face set threat again, but
(31:11):
that's not what's on their mind. When they enter town.
All they want is a cold drink and a warm
deal and a chance to rest their aching feet. It's
a chance that they have thanks to the amber people
who receive them there. And I want to end with
and his reflection on the suffering people endure on their
way to eat rice and plantain in his little front
room cafe.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Truly, the migrants on this route are not here because
they want to be. They are here because the economy
and their countries is terrible or something. Everything is going
badly on their countries. How can we mistreat them knowing
that we won't, not us never. This is a belief
(31:57):
that we have. We are all children of God. God
made the world and humanity, and we are not that different.
We are all brothers.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it could Happen Here listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
All Zone media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everyone, it's me James, and before we listen to
this episode today, I just did want to make you
aware that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish,
mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what
you're hearing is a translated interview that's being edited for
brevity and content. I hope you enjoy the episode. Every
(00:25):
day for the past two years, the population of Bajo
Chiquito has more than tripled. At six in the morning,
piraguas come from other Embera villages along the river, dozens
of them, all filled with orange life jackets. Migrants form
a line so long that it stretches from the beach
north of town all the way through the village and
at the other side, and in groups of fifteen, they
(00:48):
hand over their twenty five dollars each and get onto
the piraguas. Each one puts on their bright orange life jacket,
sits with their legs around the person in front, and
they take off for the first official migrant receipt center
in last blancats As. The last boat leaves. Those who
can't afford the trip begin a walk, which could take
eight hours. I couldn't walk with them. But I hand
(01:10):
to de group my water filter in one of those
over bright energy bars that are basically trail mix in
a rectangular format, and wish them the best of luck
as they force their tired legs and sore feet to
walk again. The population of Barjuqito dropped back to five
hundred or so indigenous people who live here, and the
usual background noise of chattering dozens of languages gave way
to crowing chickens and barking dogs. By the next morning,
(01:33):
as migrants came walking in from the south, it would
grow again to fifteen hundred. For the last ten years
or so, fewer than two thousand people crossed in a year,
but numbers have been steadily increasing, and now the residents
of Bajo Juquito see the numbers that they saw in
a year. In a single weekend, while you listen to
this series, thousands of people will take their lives into
(01:54):
their hands as they leap into mudcolored rivers, ascend towering
mountains in the pouring rain, and desperately fight the urge
to drink from a river polluted with human waste, decaying corpses.
All of those who survive will walk out of that
jungle up the river bank along a muddy path and
into Bajo Jugito. Well, they'll buy themselves a cold drink
(02:14):
and enjoyed the hospitality of the locals for a night
before leaving to head north. At first, the locals told
me didn't charge people at all. They were shocked to
see the migrants and wanted to help them, But as
numbers grew, they had to start asking for money as
they couldn't afford to feed and house all the migrants arriving.
Over time, they said, the costs rose, and now a
(02:35):
bed costs about five dollars for a night, and a
meal is about the same. As they pointed out, that's
less than half what I paid a meta tea the
nearest town a Metaitia doesn't have to haul its supplies
up the river in a canoe using seven dollars per
gallon fuel. In Bajo Juguito, I sat down with a
order man whose front room I just had luncheon. I
wanted to get a sense of the change he'd seen
over his lifetime in his community and how he felt
(02:57):
about it.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
We saw how they arrived injured, sick with vomiting diarrhea.
Then there was no health care here. What did we do?
We had to speak for the government. It wasn't easy.
It was not easy. We told them that we needed
a doctor. And finally, now, thank god, we have doctors here.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The community, which has long been socially and economically marginalized
and acutely underprovided with government services, had built a house
themselves for the doctors, another house for migration officials. It
was the only way to help migrants access services, which
in turn allowed them to move on with their journeys quicker,
he said. However, like almost every other our person I
(03:49):
spoke with, he felt that the government should be doing
more here. Even after all these years serving as the
first Panamanian village, many thousands of people enter every year.
They still don't have electricity or a road that's successible
year round, both of which would make their lives and
the transit of the migrants much safer. But that doesn't
mean the state's totally absent here. It used to be
(04:10):
possible for migrants to take a paragua from come Galina
a little further south up river and avoid some of
the most dangerous river crossings. Bonio told me that authorities
in the comarca, which is like a state in the
USA have prohibited this. I wanted to see more of
what was going on further south and what made it
so dangerous, but I wasn't permitted to join a center
front patrol going out that way despite my request. I
(04:32):
asked Bonnio what made things more dangerous than that part
of the river. First, he explained that the wide and
low lying beaches often seemed like good points for migrants
to sleep, but that any rain in the mountains above
would result in the rapid increase of the water level,
turning those beaches into rapids in minutes, he told me,
looking down at the table. But not so long ago,
a storm had washed away sleeping migrants, drowning them in
(04:54):
their sleep and washing their remains towards his village. But
terrible as it is, that isn't the only risk.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
What they said, you know very well that there's not
a single country that does not have criminals. In every country,
there are criminals. Yeah, So what happens at that point
in the river, as I was saying, at that point,
and clearly it is not everyone, but there are some
certain young men who engage in robbery and even rape.
(05:24):
So that's why in this community in this village, in
coordination with the community and the leaders, we well. The
leader spoke to the national government to ask for a
chance to transport people from came Gaina so that nothing
would happen to them. The government talked and talked, and
for a while it was possible, and it was safe,
(05:45):
and nobody died and nobody robbed. It was all going well.
But what happened. We have a leader at Kasik. I
don't know if you've heard about it, but the regional
leader he put a barrier, he stopped it. Look to
(06:06):
be honest, these people with their degrees, this classic person,
they're not humanitarians.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Despite the struggles and the relative absence of the government overall,
he felt that the migration had been a positive for
his community. He'd learned a lot from the migrants, he said,
and enjoyed learning about their cuisines. In particular. There's a
common narrative in media that mentions Barjuquito that this village
has been somehow stripped of its culture or ruined by migration,
But the locals don't seem to agree with this. I
(06:41):
also speke to the villagies leader. She's the first woman
in the whole commarker to hold such a position.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You're I'm chief of the community police and leader of
the community.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
She explained to me that barju Guito was just one
of several communities along the river, each with its own leader.
Those leaders meet in the council an answer to a
casike of the.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Mara Ganti di Yatala Invia.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
She also explained that as the first woman in the position,
she'd made sure to advance the cause of women in
her community.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Since I've had my administration, which has been seven months
as noca or leader, I have put some women to work.
They're waiting for the migrants.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
There After that, I asked her to explain to listeners
what exactly a migrant encounters when they first set foot
in their village and the various steps that they might
go through before leaving the next morning.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Is not verifica.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
There is a check in at first, verification of whether
they have a crime in their country. From there they
got immigration. The documents are checked and then they are
free to choose where they're going to wait and rest
for the next part of their journey. On behalf of UNICEF,
we have free toilets from the community. We also have
a free place where they can camp or rest. That's
(08:00):
theirs now. If they want better things, better rest, they
can find accommodation available in almost every house here. The
next day we prepare everything at together with the center
front security. We go to the beach there and at
the beach we also coordinate with a coordinator from each village.
(08:20):
I also want to make it clear as well that
the boat driver must have their idea and be of
legal age.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
From there, the migrants pay twenty five dollars ahead and
take the five hour boat trip north to Lahas Blancas,
which is the UN and government run camp and the
first official migrant welcome center outside the DADDI enn Having
boat drivers who are of age is important. Migrants who
can't swim trust their lives to these boat drivers in
high water. Once they're at Last Blancers, they're close to
(08:47):
the Pan American Highway and the beginning of the rest
of their journey north. They don't have to walk any
further unless they run out of money for buses. I
asked what happened when someone couldn't afford the ride to
Last Blancas.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yes, me, what does the community do? The community takes
responsibility presending them, not the state, the state migration Cenafron.
They don't pay for the fuel or the transport of
these people.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Specifically, she told me the community sends three free boats today.
Most of these are filled of women and children, and
in my time there and seeing that these people paid
whatever they could those leftover, usually men would have to
make the walk on their blistered feet and tired legs
and risk further sickness, robbery, and heat exhaustion. I also
wanted to ask a leader about the problems with theft
(09:37):
and sexual assault that the migrants encountered on their walk
into Bajo Jiguito, and she was pretty forthright this was
an issue for the state, not for her community to fix.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But then where is Senafron. Aren't Centafrat supposed to be
on all the banks of the river, Yes, so where
are those thefts?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Despite being able to prevent the Empire from using their
boats on their river to transport migrants them at any
level above the village isn't really present in Bajigito cent
A Front Panamas combined Border patrol and military received migrants
and register them there, but all the services provided to
the migrants come either from the Emberrad or from non
governmental organizations. This pattern of the state failing to provide
(10:17):
basic services, when Neil told me, is one that goes
back a long time before the migrants began arriving here.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So now, before the migrants began arriving here, we had
a town, a town that the government is supposed to
give what it has to give us as Panamanians, but
it doesn't. It was a town without anything. All we
did was sell our products and sell stuff here for us.
We grow rice, corn plantains, everything. Well, it was a lot,
(10:52):
but products that we grow are not enough to get by.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Even today in late twenty twenty four. The village doesn't
have mained electricity, nor does it have a connection to
telephone networks or a road that it can take year
round to connect it to the rest of the country.
And a few clean water taps in the town come
from UNICEF, not Panama City. Doctors here come from European NGOs,
and even the policing of the community is largely done
(11:16):
by the community by a group called the Zara. And
never to better understand that our communities, both with and
without migrants, I wanted to visit another Embero village and
after the break.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
We'll hear about that.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So I'm just in my hammock now. Kind of the
end of the day. We were singing in another end
our village today just probably I mean better, say kilometer
or two kilometers away, you know. Probably it didn't walk,
but it was pretty fast in the Perragua. Just it's
(12:09):
a little more peaceful here. And a boat driver passed
us to stay at his house, so we said we would.
You can probably hear like, I don't know how much
of this is getting picked up. It's a nice little village,
(12:32):
you know, the fucking way till the dogs have stopped.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
When I wasn't in Bajo, I took a boat every
evening to Maraganti. Maraganti is only a couple of kilometers
away on a different branch of the river, but the
walk might dig hours through the thick jungle. Perraguero had
invited us to stay with his family and to see
another but our village. I'm always down to sleep outside,
so I gladly accepted his invitation and slung my hammock
(13:01):
across his front porch. After a long discussion on whether
the dynamic cordage I was using would actually hold my weight,
and on my part, I probably ill advised free solo
onto the roof of his house to find a good
anchor point for my hammock. My time in Madragante, I
found myself growing fonder and fond of his little community.
Everyone's doors were open, and the village's children enjoyed unsupervised
(13:22):
playtime everywhere. There was never not a pickup game going
on at the concrete football and basketball court, and despite
the fact that they were on average several feet short
than me and playing on concrete without shoes, local kids
humiliated me at a wide variety of sports with no
electricity of them generators, one Wi Fi connection in the
whole village as far as I can tell, and a
(13:42):
few hours to myself. In the evening, I happily settled
into a routine of watching in a river along with
everyone else in the hour before sunset, walking around town,
chatting with the inhabitants who seemed surprised but happy to
see a gangly British man nambling around their neighborhood and
betting their dogs. Once it got dark, I'd spend my
evening sitting in my hammock as as grandchildren of our
host asked me how to say various things in English.
(14:03):
I played with the little toys I always bring along
in case I were running to children on my work trips.
Being in Maragantine made me think a lot about my
own life and the US in general. I certainly have
a lot more possessions here, but my neighbors don't let
their kids run around in the streets, and cars would
hit them if they did. People in my community, if
the next door app is anything to go by, spendcing
meally countless hours bitching about the unhoused and other people's children.
(14:26):
But here everyone had a roof over their heads, and
other people's children ran in and out my host's kitchen
without anyone batting an eyelid. Aside from laughing at my
paleness when I was washing in the river, nobody here
seemed that concerned that I was different. They let me
hold their babies while they cooked. They didn't overcharge me
for the bottles of water of snacks that I bought
from their front room convenience stores. What seemed that bothered
about sharing their meals and their homes with me? At night,
(14:49):
we sat on tiny plastic chairs and talked about our
shared interest in woodwork and what they wanted for their children.
We talked about their boats and the river, and about
how terrible things must be for the migrants to re
their lives making the journey across these mountains that the
Embra and their Gunna neighbors call home. Ever since I
left their village, I've been thinking a lot about the
part of The Dawn of Everything in which Graver and
(15:12):
Wengrove detail how many indigenous people were adopted into colonial
society but chose to return to their communities, how they
settlers in indigenous communities often chose to remain among the
indigenous communities. I don't wish to romanticize the very real
struggles yember have with their economic marginalization and lack of
access to basic services compared to other Panamanians. But I
(15:33):
just want to reflect on the fact that there was
something really special about the little river community, where dogs
and chickens and ducks woke me up in the morning,
little children welcomed me back every evening. They told me
what they did at school, or tossed a little ball
back and forth, and seemed entirely comfortable chatting to an
adult from across the world. The people Abou al Jiguito
have shown that same hospitality to migrants and indeed to me.
(15:55):
And so I wanted to ask the village leader how
migration had changed her community everyone else I spoke to.
She insisted that they had held on to important parts
of their culture, which he illustrated by giving me a
history lesson.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The town of Bajo Chiquito was founded in nineteen sixty five.
At first there were three families, the Vaparizo, the Risales,
the Chagos. They came here for education reasons. Before everyone
lived on their own. The education came and that is
why we grew this town.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It was the education, she said, that had changed town,
not the migrants. They have night school now for adults
and a school for all the children with seven teachers.
The children speak Embaba and Spanish and have a chance
to get more education in Meta Ti or even in
Panama City.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
See.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yes, it's due to education, not because the migrants travel
through here. Let this be clear. That is not because
the migrants came here.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Cly though the perception of changing their community is a concern.
Told me they're a local woman marriages what she called
a Latino man. They can't live together in the village,
and she wanted to make sure I knew that the
children learn in Emberra as well as Spanish. They also
still knew dances and ceremonies, Bono told me. But some
of the changes, she said were positive, including one in
(17:16):
gender relationship.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's an ongoing struggle. I'll say that to show that
we women have the same capacity for thought creativity as men.
We are fighting every day, and as you will see,
it's not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
One thing that surprised me was that the Emberra would
always remind me that they themselves had been migrants. They
migrated to Panama City sometimes, they said, and they have
a little choice if they want post secondary education or
higher level medical attention. Some of their kids even make
the journey to the USA to study. What kind of
hypocrites would they be, they said, if they look down
on people making the same journey.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm going to tell you that before the immigrants arrived here,
within this community, we lived in the same world. I mean,
we came from the countryside, We worked in agriculture, and
we still continue working in the agriculture stuff, fishing, hunting,
and so on. We liked it a lot. Now after
the immigrants started to come. We are still the same
(18:16):
and it doesn't affect us having them within our community
because they are their people, they're humans. The journey that
the immigrants make is out of need, it is in need,
so really we too, for example, if we were to
deal with problems like them, Since we are just like them,
(18:37):
we also have the right to emigrate as well.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
This is not the first influx of migration into emberor
Guna land. In fifteen oh one, a wave of undocumented
immigration from Spain in the form of settler colonias like
Francisco Balboa arrived in the Guna and Emberor territories. Ever
since his Europeans first saw for themselves what the ember
already knew. That this area was part of the narrow
strip of land between two Great Oceans. People from around
(19:03):
the world have been coming to what is now Panama
as part of their journeys from north to south or
east to west. The thin strip of land that joins
the two American continents has been at the crossroads of
the world for half a millennium. Archaeological digs in a
region show that there were once roads, and that gold
and jade came here from afar. This ritinalization is one
that Vasco Nunies de Balboa first encountered, and it was
(19:26):
they who first told him that their land lay between
two oceans. It was somewhere just to the south of
where I was staying. That exactly five hundred eleven years
ago to the day, Barboa became the first European to
set eyes upon the Pacific. Since Barbara, many other colonizers
have come to Dabien to pit their notions of superiority
against the might of the rainforest. The Kingdom of Scotland
(19:48):
sent to group of settlers here in a seventeenth century
mounted the side. This isn't a place with any similarity
to Scotland, and it's easy enough to see why the
plan failed, killed three out of four colonists and essentially
bankrupted an entire nation in two years, forcing it into
a colonial relationship of its own with its neighbor to
the south. After the Scot's left, having failed to create
(20:10):
what they'd hoped would be a quote Scottish Amsterdam of
the Indies, and a Spanish found a flatter and easier
connection between the Pacific and Caribbean, the Dadian region returned
to its indigenous people whose hem it remains, but over
the course of several hundred years, many empires have come
to the Dadi End to die. The French tried to
build a sea level colloud not so far from here,
(20:30):
the canal without locks, but they ultimately failed. The US
tried in the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventies to forge
a route to build a canal to get east coast
Banks Acces to west coast Gold, before eventually finding an
easier route further north. A century later, the US and
Panama openly discussed dropping nuclear bombs on the jungle to
make it passable and to allow the construction of a road.
(20:51):
The US offered to shoulder two thirds of the cost
of building such a road, and hoped to have the
Pan American Highway completed in time for its nineteen seventy
six by centennial. The GAP's hostility in the growing environmental movement,
as well as a desire to protect US livestock from
a foot of mouth disease, it's endemic in South America.
One the day, the gap remained a gap, largely without
the influence of the state. In the nineteen seventies, a
(21:14):
British Army Expedition traversed to dadi Enn in two range rovers,
assisted by horses, parachute drop resupplies and a team of engineers.
They crossed the jungle in ninety six days. They had
to make their own bugnets for their horses out of
the parachute, so we used to drop corn cobs to
the animals and rice for the humans. Expedition leader and
seasoned explorer, as well as possibly the most British Man
in history, Lieutenant Colonel John Blashford Snell, wrote, without doubt
(21:38):
it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,
calling the daddy Enne a god forsaken place. The dadi
Enne is one of the wettest places on the planet.
A particularly cruel twist for that would be colonizers from Scotland.
In the months before I came here, I spent hours
trying to work out how to water prove my podcast equipment,
and most of what you're hearing is recorded on a
voice recorder that I sealed up with gasket maker, shoved
(22:00):
inside a condom, inside a dry bag inside a pelican case.
This rain causes flash flooding, the kind which sweeps whole
villages away. The rivers in the gap on bridge, largely
because they simply wash away bridges after a storm. On
our journey to Barjigito, I saw the remains of bridges
that had dared to try. That's why my hosts built
their houses on stilts, and it's on those stilts that
(22:21):
I slung my hammock in Maraganti. Ever since the failed Dallienski,
the Gap has been constructed in the Western imagination as
the deepest and darkest jungle. The Gap today is home
to every type of malaria and numerous others diseases. There
are deadly vipers, deadly spiders, big cats, and as if
the natural threats were not enough, the US dropped bombs
here in the Cold War to test this destructive might
(22:43):
against one of the few areas of the planet that
hadn't been made amenable to capitalism. Many of them remain
unexploded in the mountains. Certainly, the physical geography of the
Dalli imposed a challenge, but I would argue that the
imaginative geography of the gap which is a greater impediment
to travelers. In Spanish they call it the up on
the Stopper. Local legend has it that the Spanish conquistador,
(23:04):
one of the first to take his last breaths in
the waters of dalli Enn's rivers carved a phrase into
the rock which is endured long after he expired. When
you go to the dadi Ennes and trust yourself to Mary,
for in her hands of the entrance and in God
see exit. It doesn't sound that different to the things
I heard from migrants and in the modern day they'll
tell you about the horrific tiktoks they saw before they
(23:24):
entered the gap, and the decaying remains fellow travelers they
saw us they passed through. Media reports in a Gap
consistently referred to it as a nomad's land, but of
course it's very much someone's land, the land of the
indigenous people who have been here long before countries, borders
or reporters. While it may have remained hostiles to capitalism
in the state, and it can be deadly for unexperienced travelers,
(23:45):
it's supported life for thousands of years. And a wait
about Houjigito, I was reminded of just how comfortable my
hosts were in a place where I felt so out
of place.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
So as we were coming, we are caught in a
huge rain storm just absolutely bucketing it down suddenly and
pulled in to a little sort of or just a
flat area of mighterily. I helped out at the boat,
and next thing I know, our boat guys ran into jungle,
chopped some huge palm leaves down and brought them back
to me to cover me in my bag.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well, the Emberrad might have preserved their comfort and culture.
It's undeniable that Migrace should have made a huge economic impact.
Nine hundred and fifty nine migrants left Bajo Jiguito on
one of the days I was able to get numbers
from Senafront. Each of them paid twenty five dollars for Piagua,
about ten bucks for food and lodging and maybe Wi Fi,
and pressed a few bucks more for clean clothes or
(24:54):
a pair of off bran crocs. And at their feet
heel from three days have been constantly wet and blistered.
Srvdive estimate that's a little more than thirty three thousand
per day raughly the GDP per capital of Panama. That's
a lot of money down here, especially for community which
has been alienated and exploited for solo. Using this money,
people have been closed the bottom floors of their homes
(25:15):
to provide more space to house migrants. All around the village,
they're building better homes. Some of them have satellite internet
now or Starlink or bigger and more reliable generators. This
money has been spread around the amberaur communities in the area,
and every morning each of them sends peraguas to transport
the migrants. Ares almost sixty you needed every day. Rolling
out of Maragante at five in the morning, as almost
(25:36):
the entire adult male population of the village joined us
in a huge flatilla of two stroke smoke and dugout
canoes and the morning mists still sat in the river.
Was an incredible experience, and this is doubtless an industry
for the whole area. Now. If Molino Majorcas ever successfully
stops migration here, it will be a massive economic detriment
to people already marginalized for centuries. But despite the economic benefits,
(26:00):
the people of Maragante didn't seem to want to become
like bah Juquito. On our last day there, as we
set off back towards the dirt road to the borders here,
we saw that they were building little cabins outside of town. These,
they said were for the migrants. They wanted the migrants
to be safe and their community to stay the same.
They might not be able to sell meals to the
migrants this way, or charge them for Wi Fi or
(26:20):
phone charging, but they will be able to live a
little more peacefully. Yamber, I have gone out of their
way to ensure migrant safety. They're the ones who mandate
life jackets and the ones who build a house for doctors.
They're the ones who send free boats for women and children.
Of course they have an economic incentive to do this,
But in nearly a week living with them, I didn't
hear them bad mouth for migrants, and nor did I
(26:41):
hear the migrants complain about the way they were treated
in the village of bahj Jaquito. But before they get
to the village of Bajuquito, migrants aren't safe, and if
you ask them, they'll tell you it's indigenous people who
are rubbing and threatening them. Deeper into the jungle, undoubtedly, robbery,
sexual assault and murderer not uncommon in the Daddy and Gap.
You can hear anecdotes of these on daily basis in Bahjiquito,
(27:02):
and some of the stories I heard and things I
saw are among the most horrific experiences I've had in
years of reporting on pretty terrible things. I haven't included
a great many of them here because I think it's
hard for people to meaningfully consent in those kinds of circumstances.
But yesterday you heard about the human remains that almost
everyone featured in this series had to walk past. This
is a problem that's getting worse, not better. In just
(27:24):
one week in February, medisanten Fontierre, the NGO that Americans
called Doctors Without Borders, treated one hundred and thirteen people,
including nine children, after they were sexually assaulted by criminal
groups in the Darienne. This number is close to one
hundred and twenty people treated during the whole of January.
These figures are double the monthly average treated in twenty
twenty three, when six hundred and seventy six people were
(27:45):
treated for the whole year. As you heard before, this
is the problem that people in the community sometimes acknowledge,
and as a village leader mentioned, it's one that could
be solved as the state would live up to its
obligation to protect migrants within its borders. The leader also
shares me that the community has its own punishment mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
The place of punishment is the stocks. Three days ago
someone behaved very badly and we had to put them
in the stocks. The man who mistreats women, we also
put in the stocks. The woman who gossips, we also
put her in the stocks.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
What she's talking about here is stocks in the old
fashioned sense, not in the watery bed sense. We actually
saw someone chatting them one day with their ankles locked
in place. We didn't ask what they did to how
long they were there, as it seems difficult again to
consent to an interview when you're literally pinned in place.
But this kind of punishment comes from the community, not
the state. Aside from these punishments, the community hasn't done
(28:39):
much to stop things happening in the jungle, and I'm
not sure if it's really able to. They're Panamanian, they
say in the state's responsible for the safety of migrants
women's borders, and while it does send sender front patrols
into jungle, the state doesn't appear to be doing much
protect migrants sexual assault, robbery, or murder. Earlier this year,
the state did take decisive action to reject made same
sans Fontierreen not reviewing their permission to work in the Darienne.
(29:02):
This is quite a challenging permission to obtain, even as
a solo journalist. It took months for me to get mine,
forcing me to rebook my flight several times. I heard
various explanations for why MSF were not allowed to keep working.
I couldn't get an official response, but it's probably worth
noting that they published a report headlined lack of action
she's sharp rise in sexual violence on people transiting the
(29:23):
Darien Gap on the twenty ninth of February, and they
refused permission to remain in the region in the first
week of March. MSF was allowed to return in October
of this year and wouldn't comment further than the following statement,
which they built me in mid October. In October of
twenty twenty four, MSF resumed medical and humanitarian activities at
Lahas Blanca's migration reception Center, located at the edge of
(29:43):
the Dai In Jungle, after Panamanian authorities approved a three
month medical intervention. MSF welcomes its decision and advocates to
collaborate closely with Panama's Ministry of Health to provide comprehensive
medical care to migrants crossing this route as well as
to the local population of the area. Right now, UNICEF,
MAD Saint Dumont, Corporacion Espanola and the Red Cross are
(30:04):
helping migrants in babu Jiquito. UNICEF and salt showers and toilets.
Global Brigades in UNICEF provided tapped with clean drinking water,
and the medical endeos provide healthcare, which is fighting saving
lives and providing survivors of sexual assault with medical care
in a seventy two hour window where it can be
most beneficial. It's worth noting that most migrants who are
sexually assaulted won't stay depressed charges. I know of one
(30:26):
case of sexual assault of a child while I was there,
but the family wanted to continue their journey and so
the charges won't be pressed. This makes it very hard
to ascertain how many cases a sexual assault there are
in a daddy and every year, aside from through medical
reports from NGOs, and those only include the people who
make it to bah Jiquito Alahas Blancas. The numbers are
clearly high, and it's a fear that many migrants articulated
(30:48):
to me. In the jungle, they're at their most vulnerable,
they said. Most people robbed, they tell me help by
armed attackers carrying guns and machetes. But once a migrants
set foot and they're momentarily safe from rory and a
soul for the first time in days, they can sleep
without worry being attacked or washed away. And the rest
of their journeys north they'll face set threat again, but
(31:11):
that's not what's on their mind. When they enter town.
All they want is a cold drink and a warm
deal and a chance to rest their aching feet. It's
a chance that they have thanks to the amber people
who receive them there. And I want to end with
and his reflection on the suffering people endure on their
way to eat rice and plantain in his little front
room cafe.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Truly, the migrants on this route are not here because
they want to be. They are here because the economy
and their countries is terrible or something. Everything is going
badly on their countries. How can we mistreat them knowing
that we won't, not us never. This is a belief
(31:57):
that we have. We are all children of God. God
made the world and humanity, and we are not that different.
We are all brothers.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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