Contadora Group

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The Contadora Group was an initiative by the Foreign Ministers of Colombia , Mexico , Venezuela and Panama to resolve the military conflict in El Salvador , Nicaragua and Guatemala in the early 1980s. This conflict threatened to destabilize all of Central America .

founding

The origin of the initiative came from the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme and the Nobel Prize winners Gabriel García Márquez , Alfonso García Robles and the Nobel Prize winner Alva Myrdal , who called on the Presidents of Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and Panama to act as mediators to work against the conflicts. Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay later formed the Contadora support group .

job

The group met for the first time in 1983 on Contadora Island ( Panama ), part of the Pearl Islands . On October 15, 1984, Contadora was supposed to sign the document. However, this did not happen because of intervening negotiations between the USA and Honduras and other Central American governments. Their work nevertheless led to the Esquipulas Peace Accords (also Arias Sánchez Plan) in 1987, for which Óscar Arias Sánchez was awarded the Nobel Prize.

effect

The Rio Group (Platform for Common Foreign Policy) formed in 1986 emerged from the Contadora Group and the Contadora Support Group. The group of three (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela) for economic cooperation also followed an initiative of the Contadora group.

This associative foreign policy led to increased dialogues within Latin America and also in extra-zonal integration forums, for example with regard to the relationship with Europe.

The UNESCO paid tribute to the work of the Contadora Group in 1985 with the award of the Simon Bolivar Prize . The group had worked to end the suffering of the people of Central America, to ensure that each of the peoples could exercise their right to dignity and independence, and to find a solution to a conflict which, if it persisted, opened up the prospect of peace in the world seriously endangered.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also: Immediate signing of the Contadora plan required. Corresponding resolution passed unanimously in the UN. In: Neues Deutschland from October 27, 1984, p. 6 (Rapporteur: Horst Schäfer )
  2. ↑ Willy Brandt: The organized madness. Arms race and world hunger. 2nd edition, Cologne 1987, p. 201.
  3. ^ Gerhard Drekonja-Kornat: Nova geometría. Latin America in the Atlantic Triangle. In: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 6, 1999, pp. 710 - 718, here p. 713.
  4. ↑ Address by Amadou Mahtar-M'Bow on the occasion of the award of the Simón Bolívar Prize, June 20, 1985 (PDF; 171 kB), last accessed: February 15, 2012