EMBASSY: 3517
International
Ct. NW, 20008
TELEPHONE: 202-243-6500
RESIDENCE: 2343 S St. NW, 20008
PROFESSORTURNED
AMBASSADOR
PALAU
AMBASSADOR: Hersey
Kyota, Dean
of the Diplomatic Corps
SPOUSE: Lydia Shmull Kyota
EMBASSY: 1701 Pennsylvania
Ave. NW, Suite 300, 20036
TELEPHONE: 202-349-8598
RESIDENCE: 6423 13th St.
Alexandria, VA 22307
Miguel Basanez heads Mexico’s embassy
BY ROLAND FLAMINI
PANAMA
AMBASSADOR: Emanuel
Arturo
Gonzalez Revilla Lince
SPOUSE: Luc Miro Tode
De Gonzalez Revilla
EMBASSY: 2862 McGill Terrace NW, 20008
TELEPHONE: 202-483-1407
RESIDENCE: 2601 29th St. NW, 20008
PAPUANEWGUINEA
AMBASSADOR: Rupa
A Mulina
Numa Mulina
EMBASSY: 1779 Massachusetts
Ave. NW, Suite 805, 20036
TELEPHONE: 202-745-3680
SPOUSE:
PARAGUAY
AMBASSADOR: Igor
Alberto Pangrazio Vera
Massachusetts
Ave. NW, 20008
TELEPHONE: 202-483-6960
RESIDENCE: 3238 Broad Branch
Terrace NW, 20008
EMBASSY: 2400
PERU
AMBASSADOR: Luis
Miguel Castilla Rubio
Massachusetts
Ave. NW, 20036
TELEPHONE: 202-833-9860
RESIDENCE: 3001 Garrison St. NW, 20008
EMBASSY: 1700
PHILIPPINES
AMBASSADOR: Jose
L. Cuisia, Jr.
Maria Victoria Cuisia
EMBASSY: 1600 Massachusetts
Ave. NW, 20036
TELEPHONE: 202-467-9300
RESIDENCE: 2253 R St. NW 20008
SPOUSE:
POLAND
AMBASSADOR: Ryszard
Marian Schnepf
Dorota Anna Schnepf
EMBASSY: 2640 16th St. NW, 20009
TE LEPHONE: 202-234-3800
RESIDENCE: 3041 Whitehaven
St. NW, 20008
SPOUSE:
WA S H I N G T O N L I F E
M
iguel Basanez, Mexico’s ambassador
to Washington, didn’t have far to go
to reach his new post. A pollster and
academic, he has for the past seven years
been teaching Culture, Human Values, and
Development at Tufts University’s Fletcher
School. His appointment to head Mexico’s
mission ends an unprecedented five-month gap
since his predecessor resigned to become a
judge of the Mexican supreme court.
Basanez has no previous diplomatic
experience, but is politically close to Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto – a qualification that
should make him feel right at home in Washington
where the top ambassadorial appointments
are routinely doled out to non-careerists as
presidential favors. The 65-year-old envoy is a
member of Atlacomulco, Mexico’s secretive,
powerful inner circle that has for decades
played musical chairs with political posts: he is
also credited with introducing opinion polling in
Mexico starting with an election in 1985.
In announcing his appointment, the Mexican
government called Basanez “ideal to represent
us in Washington.” Why he is ideal was not
specified except perhaps for the fact that he
has spent 12 years in the United States, seven
of them in Boston at Tufts. In his remarks to the
Mexican Senate hearing on his nomination he
suggested that in moving to Washington from
Boston he had simply moved from one American
capital to another. In reality, he said, “the United
States has three capitals: the political capital in
Washington, the information capital in Silicon
| O C T O B E R | washingtonlife.com
Valley, but the latter was miniscule compared
with the knowledge capital in Boston.”
But it’s in Washington that he faces a full
workload of urgent repairs to the damage in the
bi-lateral relationship between the United States
and its neighbor south of the border, some of
them issues in the U.S. presidential elections
– for example, finding common ground on border
security and the war on drugs, advancing trade
($534 billion), making sense on immigration..
Also muddying the water is the deeply
embarrassing escape of the drug boss Joaquin
“El Chapo” from a maximum security prison
where the U.S. had helped put him after 14
years on the run. “El Chapo’s” escape exposed
the government in Mexico City as incapable of
effectively fighting corruption.
At the same hearing Basanez said “the U.S.
has been in the world’s driving seat for 25 years,
since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” but Mexico had
undergone positive changes, and as ambassador
he intended to publicize them. The embassy
laster said other items on the ambassador’s
agenda included “designing a new architecture
in the bi-lateral relationship,” and empowering
the 11.4-million Mexican community in the United
States.
Not surprisingly, Mexico’s new ambassador
has been quick to respond to Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump’s scathing
comments on Mexican immigrants. Trump, he
says, “knows very well that what he is saying is
totally false, and sooner or later he is going to
have to ask the Mexicans for forgiveness.”
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