 The Central American nation has never sat on the Security Council, and is one of only six of the original signatories of the UN Charter to be in that position (along with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Luxembourg, and Saudi Arabia).In recent years, following the conclusion of its 36-year-long Civil War and the succession of several democratically elected governments, it has been playing a more proactive role in multilateral affairs.For instance, after having been on the receiving end of UN assistance between 1994 and 2004 with the MINUGUA verification mission,
it is now a provider of troops for peace-keeping missions (215 worldwide most in MONUC), with Guatemalan soldiers deployed in Haiti, DR Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, and other global hot spots.