Guess What? As of Today, the Entire Western Hemisphere Has No Wars Greg Myre - KWIT.org
go to original September 27, 2016

Colombians in the capital Bogota hold up the letters for "peace" in Spanish on Monday. The Colombian government and the FARC rebels signed a peace agreement, marking an end to the last war in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia's civil war lasted more than 50 years and Latin America has had civil wars for the past six decades. (Jennifer Alarcon/Associated Press)

Fidel Castro and his rag-tag band of fighters assembled on the shores of Mexico, stealthily navigated their overcrowded boat to southeastern Cuba, and unleashed a 1956 insurgency that rocked all of Latin America. That temblor lasted 60 years and ended, more or less, on Monday.

Castro seized power in 1959, and his brother Raul still rules Cuba today. The revolution washed over the entire region, inspiring leftist insurgencies throughout Latin America for decades until the final one effectively came to a close as the Colombian government and the FARC rebels signed a peace deal in Colombian coastal city of Cartegena.

"Long live Colombia, long live peace," the crowd chanted as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, both dressed in all white, shook hands on Monday evening.

The deal brings peace to a country that's endured more than a half-century of civil war. Yet widely overlooked is the far more sweeping notion that it brings down the curtain on six decades of nonstop conflicts in Latin America.

To take an even broader view, there's no longer a single war in the Western Hemisphere, a collection of more than 30 countries stretching from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego at the bottom of South America.

Of course, the absence of war isn't necessarily full-fledged peace. Mexico still suffers chronic drug violence, along with several other countries. The Central American nations of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are riven with gangs responsible for some of the highest murder rates in the world. Venezuela is wracked by political turbulence. And even as Colombia's main guerrilla group agreed to lay down arms, a separate, much smaller rebel faction carries out the occasional attack.

Still, Latin America, long plagued by autocrats, coups and endless civil wars, now has a moment worth savoring. Elections and peaceful transfers of power have steadily become the norm.

"The region has made tremendous progress from 20, 40 years ago," said Richard Fineberg, a professor at the Univ. of California, San Diego, who closely follows Latin America. "On almost every front — politics, economics, social programs – we've seen vast improvements."

Take a condensed look at 60 years of war and peace at KWIT.org

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