Welcoming participants at a second meeting on migration via videoconference attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken amid tight security precautions, the President reiterated the commitment with the strategic partner and other nations to confront the phenomenon in a shared responsibility and concrete manner Measures in the short, medium and long term.
Cortizo insisted on the need to address the issue with a comprehensive approach to reach common and articulated agreements with multilateral and international financial organizations, since irregular migration also requires sufficient resources to avoid a humanitarian crisis of serious proportions.
In this sense, he recalled that people who migrate usually travel via improvised and unsafe routes – alluding to the jungle of Darién, which borders Colombia –; and they are victims of criminal groups that violate their human rights.
For her part, Panamanian Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes pointed out that migration is an ongoing global and complex phenomenon, usually compounded by temporary conditions such as Covid-19, climate change, political instability or global warfare.
In this context, he asked the participants of the meeting to focus on three objectives, the first of which is to agree on a framework that will facilitate the standardization of migration policies in the region.
He also urged expanding joint efforts in the fight against organized and transnational crime and expanding cooperation between states, international organizations and regional development banks to address the structural causes of migration.
Meanwhile, Blinken, who is seen here as co-hosting the meeting and whose stay has been opposed by popular movements, pledged collaboration with migration bodies, vaccines against the pandemic, more attention to communities hosting migrants and, most importantly, tackling the root causes of the scourge , which he linked to economic factors.
Washington’s speech is being cataloged by pundits as using double standards as successive governments fail to honor bilateral agreements with nations like Cuba — one of the missing along with Venezuela and Nicaragua — causing irregularities and generating migratory spikes, compounded by intensifying coercive measures and Obstacles to consular services.
This meeting on irregular migration, the second in less than a year after that in October 2021 in Colombia, hopes to find possible solutions to the increase in these flows.
Delegations from Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Dominican Republic will take part in the technical tables for Secretary of State and Security. , Suriname, Uruguay and Panama.
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