Political Violence in the Americas

The most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption and state brutality. This extreme violence is a driving factor for asylum seekers fleeing to the US-Mexico border in droves from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places—from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia—have been able to recover. Join us for a Global Cafe Breakfast with Rachel Kleinfeld for a discussion on how these violent democracies come to be, what can be done to turn that around and how this applies to America today. The discussion will be moderated by Maryam Zar, LAWAC member and founder of Womenfound.

Read Kleinfeld’s Wall Street Journal article The Violence Driving Migration isn’t Just Gangs.

Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was the founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project. From 2011 to 2014 she served on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board and regularly advises officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and other allied governments. Kleinfeld is the author of two previous books and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and other national television, radio and print media.

Click here to read a review of Kleinfeld’s new book A Savage Order: How the World’s Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security. 

Maryam Zar is the founder of Womenfound, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of women in underdeveloped parts of the world. She is a City Commissioner on the Commission on the Status of Women, former Chair of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, Chair of the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils (WRAC), founding Chair of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness and an elected Assembly Delegate. Zar is an Iranian born American and former Middle East Correspondent based in Iran for GMR and MEED in the 1990s. She is also a regular contributor to Huffington Post, where she writes about global issues.

Please reserve no later than 12:00 pm on Tuesday, December 11. Cancellations must be made by 12:00 pm on Tuesday, December 11 in order to receive a refund.