ABSTRACT
The Contadora Initiative was begun because of shared Mexican, Venezuelan, Colombia, and Panamanian concerns about the future of Central America. Their primary concern was that Central America had been defined, largely without justification, by the United States as a focal point of East-West tensions. This chapter attempts to point out some of the lessons learned from the progress and pitfalls of the Contadora process that might be taken into account in planning the strategy for implementing a zone of peace in the entire hemisphere. In theory, the Contadora process has been working toward, and the Contadora draft treaties embody the concepts for the establishment of such a zone of peace in its entirety. In practice, however, the Contadora process has been seeking a way toward implementing portions of the concept of a comprehensive zone in stages, although there is not a consensus on how these stages should be ordered.
