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U.S. policy toward Latin America under the Obama Administration has been a product of domestic U.S. priorities and partisan considerations as they interact with changed realities in Latin America. The significant losses for the Democratic Party in the November 2, 2010, mid-term elections are likely deepen the partisan rancor that has enveloped Washington in recent years. The Obama administration inherited two wars and the near-collapse of the U.S. financial system from the previous administration. It has little room to maneuver, let alone expendable political capital for costly domestic battles involving the Western hemisphere. As Latin American countries diversify their foreign partners, U.S. power to contest the entry of new political, economic, and military actors is limited. But recognizing the region's stable, prosperous democracies as successes rather than threats sets forth a new vision of hemispheric relations. The Obama administration's commitment to multilateralism and, in the Mexican case, to shared responsibility for the violence by organized crime, are significant shifts that serve as a basis for more vigorous and creative diplomatic engagement. (Pensam Iberoam/GIGA)

On December 29, 1996, the Guatemalan government and guerrillas of the Unidad Revoludonaria Nadonal Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity) (URNG) signed an "Accord for a Firm and Lasting Peace," formally ending Central America's longest and bloodiest internal armed conflict. According to estimates by Guatemalan human rights groups, brutal counterinsurgency campaigns by the army and civil defense groups took over 100,000 lives, resulted in the "disappearance" of some 40,000 others, and produced hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons.