United States of Central America, Dream or Necessity?

Aaron Hedman, a tocayo (someone with the same name) of mine submitted this answer to the Davos Question: "What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"

Central America was not always divided. In colonial times, the region was know as the Capitancy General of Guatemala, with its capital at what is now the beautiful ruined city of Antigua Guatemala.

When we became independent of Spain in 1821, we were a federation of five states, from north to south: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Savador, and Costa Rica. For 8 months, we were part of the First Mexican Empire, until that collapsed. Panama was part of Colombia until the U.S. incited and helped them to secede in exchange for a strip of land through which to build the Panama Canal. Belize was a British colony until 1981.

In the following years, much blood was spilled as the region spiraled into civil war. Four separate attempts were made at reunification, and all ended in bloodshed. Still, our peoples retain a common friendship, and all, except prosperous Costa Rica, see the wisdom of reuniting. But, we retain a subconscious memory of the wars between us, which have erupted as recently as 1967 between El Salvador and Honduras, and the 1980 Contra affair between Nicaragua and Honduras.

Even so, several organizations have been created to prepare us for union, for instance: The Central American Court of Justice, the Central American Parliament, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Central American Common Market. Citizens of member nations need no passport to travel between them.

Who know, maybe we will be successful in following the model of the European Union instead of that of the United States. I'm very curious as to what your opinions might be on the subject, please comment!

If you want to vote for Aaron's Davos proposal, search for "itwasaaron" at the Davos Question website