Region: peace dividend

There's no certainty that gangs in El Salvador and Guatemala have permanently traded their knives for ploughshares or other peaceful implements.

But this week marks 300 days since the announcement of a truce in El Salvador, where homicides are down close to 75%.

Other violent crimes are likewise down significantly, as is the case also in Guatemala, a year after Otto Perez, a former army general with a get-tough policy, took office as President.

Gangs themselves may have reached a point of exhaustion, after years of violence so extensive that both countries during the past decade have consistently been among the top five in world homicide rankings.

Some gangs may have matured, especially in relation to the drug trade, with which most of the main criminal mobs are involved.

Instead of shooting each other, and any innocent bystander who gets in the way, they may be ready to divide territories by negotiation.

If so, they will have done better than their Mexican counterparts, with whom they often work.

For their part, the administrations of both countries may be willing to turn a blind eye to the drug trade, as long as the gangs run it without domestic violence.

Either way, life and business in El Salvador and Guatemala will be better, if crime levels stay low.