and international agencies demonstrated how politicized the debate, and the collection and interpretation of migration data, became. In 1982, for example, the US Department of State estimated that 225,000 Guatemalans had been “displaced” by the political turmoil; the Roman Catholic Bishop's Conference of Guatemala, in turn, estimated that as many as 1 million Guatemalans had been displaced.93 Ironically, agencies often arrived at different statistics using the same sources; for example, using data provided by the Mexican government, the US Department of State concluded that 5,000 Salvadoran refugees were in Mexico, while the UNHCR placed the number at 120,000, and other NGOs estimated as many as half a million.94 Estimating the number of refugees and displaced persons was an inherently difficult task given the spontaneous and transient nature of this population; 95 but US government statistics were generally much lower than those compiled by the UNHCR and other NGOs because of their stricter definitions of refugee status. As the principal supplier of military aid to Central America, the United States was also reluctant to admit that its policies caused displacement and generated refugees. Instead, they categorized this migration as economically driven, and their statistics reflected this bias. Human rights organizations, in turn, were accused of inflating the numbers to promote their own political agenda, namely, increasing their operational budgets and critiquing state policies. Unfortunately, US government estimates were disproportionately influential in determining the amount of emergency aid available to those affected by the wars: by 1984 the UNHCR received one-third of its funding from the United States, and US contributions were adjusted according to the reports and estimates provided by the country's own State Department.96
The lack of protection offered by states, then, became one more means by which migrants became the victims and pawns of foreign policy decisions. Human rights organizations and other NGOs were at times the migrants' only advocates, urging a broader definition of their status that would facilitate their accommodation, and assisting in their temporary or long-term integration into host societies.97
In Nicaragua, the first large-scale migration out of the country began during the mid- to late 1970s, when the fighting between Sandinista rebels and the Somoza dictatorship was most intense. An estimated two hundred thousand Nicaraguans fled to other countries during this period, although the majority are believed to have returned after the Sandinista victory in 1979.98 A second wave of emigrants left after 1979 because of the Sandinistas' policies and/or the upheaval caused by the Contra war. For those who chose to leave the country, wealth, language, availability of transportation, and historical patterns of migration all played a role in determining the country of first asylum. The majority of middle- to upper-class exiles, for example, who perhaps had once studied or vacationed in the United States and had the financial resources to return, traveled to cities like Miami, Los Angeles, and Houston, where they found employment in the large Latino enclaves. Those interested in supporting the counterrevolution were particularly drawn to Miami, where exile groups such as the Nicaraguan Democratic Front were working with the US government to oust the Sandinistas. Other exiles/refugees migrated to neighboring and more familiar Spanish-speaking countries such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama.
The Salvadorans and Guatemalans followed a similar pattern. Those threatened by the warring factions were the most likely to leave. Salvadoran migration increased after October 1979, when the death squads intensified the campaign against the opposition. According to the UNHCR, half a million Salvadorans fled their homeland during the period 1979-1982. By the end of the 1980s, one million people were estimated to have migrated, and over half a million were internally displaced.99 In turn, Guatemalan migration increased during 1982—1984, when the governments of Ríos Montt and Mejía Víctores escalated their counterinsurgency campaigns. According to UNHCR estimates, over one million people became internal migrants or refugees in Guatemala during the 1980s. According to US estimates, only one-fourth of the Salvadorans and Guatemalans displaced by the war received assistance, mostly in camps and settlements in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico. The UNHCR placed the number as low as 10 percent.100
The countries that bordered Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala suddenly found themselves reluctant hosts to thousands of refugees. Humanitarian concern for the refugees was tempered by political and economic considerations: politicians feared that comprehensive assistance would encourage the refugees to stay permanently within their borders and increase resentment among nationals, who would have to compete with the refugees for jobs, housing, and social services. The presence of thousands of dissidents and rebels could also potentially destabilize their own countries. Central American governments therefore tried to discourage large-scale migration, and isolated the refugees in rural areas far from their population centers, where they would draw as little attention as possible, and their movement and activities could be controlled. The UNHCR as well as NGOs such as OXFAM, Catholic Relief Services, and the Church World Service played a critical role in helping the region to cope with the refugee crisis. By 1990, an estimated hundred international NGOs and six hundred grassroots NGOs operated in Central America.101 However, paramilitary groups often equated assistance to refugees and displaced persons with support for guerrilla insurgents, and interfered with the delivery of humanitarian assistance and harassed, arrested, and even murdered aid workers.102
The UNHCR advocated resettlement in neighboring countries because such an arrangement would facilitate eventual repatriation. The UNHCR provided millions of dollars in funding to local government agencies to establish camps and to provide emergency food and medical care. Unfortunately, the agency's budget, stretched by refugee crises around the world, limited the amount of assistance it could offer in Central America. The refugee camps that emerged throughout the region varied in quality and in the level of social services. Camps that were designed as a temporary measure became permanent housing; some residents remained in their camps for as long as ten years with limited opportunities for education and recreation. In many cases, camps housed thousands more than they were designed to hold, and individual countries restricted the refugees' movements outside the camps as well as their opportunities to engage in wage-earning labor. International NGOs experimented with “durable solutions”—projects designed to make the refugees self-supporting through farming, artisanry, or industrial shops—but budgetary constraints limited the quality of these programs as well.103 Not surprisingly, most refugees bypassed these camps altogether. Instead they chose to live as anonymously as possible as illegal immigrants in major cities. Others decided to try their luck further north, seeking employment in the more developed economies of Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
Honduras and Costa Rica provide important—and opposite—case studies of the regional responses to refugee accommodation and assistance. Honduras became one of the principal refugee-recipient nations in Central America, in part because of foreign policy decisions that placed the Contra soldiers and their families in camps on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, but also because of traditional patterns of migration. The Honduran government recognized the UNHCR's principle of non-refoulement in its domestic legislation, but did not have formal procedures for determining refugee status.104 The government (which had reestablished diplomatic relations with El Salvador in 1980) insisted that Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees live and work in certain zones and not within the general population. The UNHCR established “reception areas” along the border, where refugees were met and transported to one of several camps or supervised settlements, which some likened to concentration camps because of the visible army presence patrolling the zones.105 These camps included Colomancagua, La Virtud, Guarita, El Amitillo, Guajiniquil, Los Hernandez, and San Antonio, but the largest camp was at Mesa Grande, which offered the most protection from roving Salvadoran army units who frequently crossed the border to kill suspected rebels. By 1983, the camps and settlements housed 18,000 Salvadorans and 550 Guatemalans.106 The security violations made life extremely difficult, as did the normal tensions, rivalries, and anxieties that accompanied the concentration of people in a small geographic space.107 The inability to sustain themselves through agriculture, construction, or other trades made the refugees dependent on relief agencies, and this further decreased morale among the camp population. If the Salvadorans left these camps, they forfeited their refugee status and became subject to deportation.
