Millionaire supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli of the conservative Democratic Change (CD) party easily won Panama's presidential election on May 3. With 80% of the ballots counted at around 10 PM, Martinelli had 60.62% of the votes, against 36.97% for Balbina Herrera of the governing center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Under current president Martín Torrijos, Panama has had economic growth rates approaching double digits, but growth has slowed with the global crisis. Media analysts note that Martinelli's victory goes against the recent trend in Latin America for voters to replace conservative governments with left or center-left governments. The PRD had been losing support from the left; at Panama's May Day celebrations, labor and activist organizations urged the thousands of participants to abstain from the voting or leave their ballots blank. Herrera was also hurt by her ties to former dictator Manual Noriega. (Reuters, May 3; La Opinión, May 2 from AP)

In a ceremony in Managua on April 24, Nicaraguan National Police director Aminta Granera and US ambassador Robert Callahan signed an agreement making Nicaragua a member of the Mérida Initiative, a program the US government started in 2007 ostensibly to fight drug cartels and organized crime. Nicaragua is to receive $1.5 million in US aid to improve the sharing of fingerprint information among Central American countries, develop a special investigations unit and equip agents better, according to a statement from the US State Department.

From April 2 to April 3 hundreds of indigenous Chortí blocked access to Copán archeological park, probably Honduras' most important ancient Mayan site, to press demands for land. Tourism minister Ricardo Martínez said the protesters agreed to leave after the government offered to start negotiations on April 15. An estimated 400 European and US tourists visit Copán a day, each paying a $15 entrance fee.

Three masked men kidnapped Guatemalan attorney and university professor Gladys Monterroso on March 25 as she was eating breakfast in a restaurant in Guatemala City and held her for 13 hours before leaving her on a street in the Atlántida neighborhood. She said the men burned her with cigarettes, beat her and subjected her to sexual and psychological abuse; at one point they put a pistol in her mouth and said they would kill her. They didn't demand a ransom.

The National Security Archive (NSA), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit institute, posted declassified US government documents on its website on March 18 that it says show the US government knew US-backed Guatemalan officials were behind the disappearance of thousands of people during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld March 17 a district court decision finding former Salvadoran military commander Nicolas Carranza liable for murder and torture committed during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s. In 2005, a Tennessee federal jury found Carranza liable for acts of murder and torture in El Salvador under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victims Protection Act. Carranza had appealed the verdict, claiming that the district court abused its discretion by not granting comity to a Salvadoran amnesty law.

Shortly after El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal issued its second bulletin confirming the FMLN's lead late March 15, president-elect Mauricio Funes addressed the nation, saying that with their vote the people had signed "a new accord on peace and reconciliation"—an invocation of the 1992 agreement that ended the country's long civil war and saw the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) transform from a guerilla army to an electoral party.

On March 10, a march was held in San Salvador against the Central America free trade agreement (AdA, for Acuerdo de Asociación) currently being negotiated with the European Union. Many of the signs carried also called for a repeal of the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Protesters charge the AdA would increase the gap between rich and poor, privatize public services, and legalize the depletion of biodiversity and natural resources. The march, organized by the group Red Sinte Techan, concluded at the Legislative Assembly, where a statement was delivered to lawmakers.