Washington, DC - This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chapultepec Peace Accords that brought an end to over a decade of civil war in El Salvador. The landmark agreement successfully integrated the FMLN guerrillas into political life, resulting in a functional two-party system. Recently, however, El Salvador has seen heightened political polarization and a troubled economy. The country has also struggled with persistently high rates of crime and violence, ongoing emigration, organized criminal gangs known as maras, difficulties reforming the government, and—more recently—serious allegations of corruption. 

For this open discussion on El Salvador's challenges and, more broadly, the impacts of the Trump administration and the changing outlook for Central America, the Dialogue is pleased to welcome Carlos Dada and José Luís Sanz, the founder and the current director of El Faro, the preeminent online investigative journalism outlet in El Salvador and one of the most well-respected in Latin America. 

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Speakers:

• Carlos Dada, Founder, El Faro (@CarlosDada)
• José Luís Sanz, Director, El Faro (@jlsanz)

Moderator:

• Michael Shifter, President, Inter-American Dialogue (@MichaelShifter)

Carlos Dada is the founder of El Faro, of which he was the director from 1998 to 2014. He is a Stanford Knight Fellow and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He has received the Maria Moors Cabot Award and the Latin American Studies Association Media Award, among others. He teaches at the Garcia Marquez Foundation and Yale University. José Luís Sanz has been the director of El Faro since 2014. Before that he spent six years as a reporter covering the Mara Salvatrucha and Calle 18 gangs in Central America. He is part of the team that won the IPYS Investigative Journalism Latin American Prize in 2013 and the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Excellence Award in 2016. Michael Shifter is the president of the Inter-American Dialogue.