CEDEHCA Second session on the UN Forum on Ethnic Minorities Panel: Necessary conditions for the effective political participation of ethnic minorities Presentation: Francisco Campbell November 12 and 13, 2009 Geneva, Switzerland Central American societies are intrinsically multicultural and multinational. However, since the beginning their institutions were conceived and imposed to watch over the interests of hegemonic groups, systematically marginalizing other peoples considered threats to the control imposed over the economy, politics, and culture. The reduced judicial order in defence of the recognition of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants should be seen from the background of the formation of the state and its monoethnic and exclusive citizenship forms. It wasn’t until the middle of the 80s and later that indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations participated actively in the armed movements that shook the region, particularly in Guatemala and Nicaragua, and that ethnocultural descriptions began to explicitly appear in the State discourse and the political or administrative agreements of the region. Confronting the profound crisis that at the time wasted Central American societies and states, the five presidents of the era, after difficult negotiations exacerbated by strong pressures they knew how to resist, subscribed in 1987 to the historical agreements of Esquipulas I & II, considered as an extraordinary agreement, and the agreement reflected the political will assumed from a regional vision and perspective. In addition to the pacification of the region, the process of Esquipulas marks the beginning of the deepening of representative democracy in Central America. Before the event of this year in Honduras, all the governments in the region were elected democratically and although there have been cases of doubt and suspicion, the participants in electoral contests accept the legitimacy of the results. Because of this, the aspects of peace and representative democracy can be affirmed, and the results of Esquipulas I & II are extremely positive. That political will to work for peace and deepen formal democracy, unfortunately, was not made extensive in other aspects contemplated in the agreements of Esquipulas. The fight against poverty, inequality, the exclusion of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, as well as other grave social and