How about some recent news from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia?

The Pan-American Post has some really interesting updates on developments in the Americas today.

In the first one, Salvadoran Catholic Church Refuses to Turn Over Archives to Officials. It's a really troubling situation in El Salvador. However, I love the idea of creating a new organization to oversee the records and have it named after deceased Tutela Legal director Maria Julia Hernandez. I'd also say that this is another example that it is not just the perpetrators of human rights violations who are afraid of opening up the wounds of the civil war. Obviously, these are wounds that have never closed for many people.

There's also another post on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos recognizing that his original timeline for negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was too optimistic. The URNG and the Guatemalan Government met on and off for nearly a decade before negotiations picked up in 1994. It took the Serranazo and tremendous pressure by local and international actors to bring the negotiations to fruition.

And in El Salvador, the FMLN and Duarte administration negotiated in the mid-1980s under the guidance of the Catholic Church. Those negotiations didn't get too far. They picked up once again following Alfredo Cristiani's 1989 election. However, the FMLN's disappointment with the pace of negotiations contributed to its November 1989 offensive which led the military high command to go after and kill pro-democracy and pro-negotiation civilians, including the Jesuits at the UCA.

A military stalemate, the discrediting of the government and military, tremendous pressure by the Catholic Church in the US, President Bush's 1988 victory and the end of the Cold War still didn't bring about a quick end to the Salvadoran civil war. The UN was brought in the help mediate the peace and it was only then, after eighteen more months, that all sides were able to hash out the Chapultepec Accords.

And I thought that I had seen a recent poll related to next year's presidential elections in El Salvador but now I can't find it. It was probably another close call. At this point, I'm wondering if the FMLN is wondering whether they should have put Oscar Ortiz at the front of the ticket. Probably not the leadership whose private internal polls that will never be shared probably have them winning in the first round. The FMLN has no one else to blame but themselves if they lose next year and allow ARENA to return to the presidency.