The political crisis that has gripped the Southern Cone after Colombian troops opened fire on a FARC guerrilla camp on Ecuadorian territory has spilled over to Central America. After the Costa Rican police found cash belonging to FARC guerrillas stashed away in the home of two prominent left-wing intellectuals, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal stated that this was just the tip of the iceberg and that the Colombian guerrilla group had infiltrated the left. Berrocal's allegations threw the country into turmoil and caused and the minister was asked to appear before Congress and prove what he claimed. But one day before he was due to appear in Congress, Berrocal suddenly resigned arguing that “he did not want the case to become politicized”. For many, this excuse was hardly convincing. Did he resign or was he gagged in order to avoid further damage and embarrassment to the Arias administration? According to critics, President Arias ousted Berrocal fearing that his allegations would arouse anger among the left and hinder the approval of the CAFTA implementation laws in Congress, which are required for the free trade agreement to come into effect.

A report recently issued by the Guatemalan government's Secretariat for Peace (SEPAZ) shows the government's National Compensation Plan (PNR) to be a financial disaster, as most of the budget has been spent on staff and administrative costs and very little has actually reached those whom it was designed to benefit. According to SEPAZ director, Orlando Blanco, “the PNR has 30% more staff than is necessary to function” and “acts contrary to the interests of the victims it was intended to help.” War victims' associations say the news in the report is not new, and that they have been fighting to receive the promised compensation money for years.

By Dan Gordon

The Venezuelan capital, Caracas, became the scene of a showdown between President Hugo Chávez and the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), a major group of newspaper publishers that has long criticized his record on press freedom. During the IAPA's biannual meeting in late March, three motions were approved accusing the Venezuelan leader of muzzling critical media outlets. Chávez responded with a rival forum, the Latin American Summit Against Media Terrorism which focused on what he described as “attempts by the mass media to provoke violence and spin lies”.

As the five members of Guatemala's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) finished their terms on March 20, passing their duties on to a newly-appointed team of legal experts, they stood at the center of an ongoing investigation involving multiple counts of fraud, insider dealing, and document forgery. The most recent allegations against the members, filed on March 18, claim commissioners paid up to US$4.5 million dollars, ostensibly for voter information and registration materials, to Central American Technical Organization, Inc., which turned out to be a fictitious business.

Many representatives of the Panamanian tourism industry are feeling optimistic thanks to new reforms that will lead to the creation of an official Tourism Board.to regulate standards in the industry across the country. Other tourism sector representatives remain cautious, waiting to see how the new policies will be enforced and whether or not the changes will allow the country to offer serious competition to more popular Central American tourist destinations like Guatemala and Costa Rica. All agree, however, that the new Board will bring changes to the way tourism is run in Panama in the future.