Mariano Fernández (Chile)

Mariano Fernández Amunátegui (* April 21, 1945 in Santiago de Chile) is a Chilean journalist, diplomat and politician.

Biography

After studying law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1967, he entered the diplomatic service in 1969 and took his first overseas use. Between 1971 and 1973 he served as Third Secretary at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. After the fall of the government of President Salvador Allende and the subsequent military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, he remained in Germany until 1982 in exile. During this time he was a journalist for various newspapers and next to it a completed postgraduate studies in social sciences at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Later he was editor of the magazine " Desarrollo y of Cooperation " and the news agency " IPS Third World News Agency " and editor of " Handbook of development aid".

After the start of Rückkehrs to democracy under the Constitution of 1980, he returned back to Chile in 1982 and was co-founder and member of the Executive Committee until 1990, the Research Center for Development Assistance ( Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo ). He also served on the board of "Radio Cooperativa ," President of the Institute for relations between Europe and Latin America ( Instituto de Relaciones Europe Latinoamérica) and an honorary member of the Chilean Society of Political Sciences ( Asociación de Ciencia Política de Chile).

After deselection of Pinochet and the election of Patricio Aylwin as the new president in 1990, he returned back into the diplomatic service and was appointed as Permanent Representative to the European Union. Then he was between 1992 and 1994 Ambassador to Italy and, as such, also vice president of the Italian - Latin American Institute (Instituto Latinoamericano - Ítalo ). Then he returned to Chile and until 2000 was Under Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2000 he was appointed ambassador to Spain and subsequently from 2002 to 2006 as ambassador to Great Britain. Most recently, he was from July 2006 to March 12, 2009 Ambassador to the United States.

On 12 March 2009 he was appointed by President Michelle Bachelet to the Secretary of State. On the edge of the state visit of President Bachelet in June 2009 in the U.S., he arranged with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an expansion of American- Chilean cooperation.

Minister Fernández, who is an excellent connoisseur of wine production in Chile is now also Titularmitglied the International Wine Academy and an Honorary President of the Association of Sommeliers of Chile.

Successor as foreign minister was on 11 March 2010 Alfredo Moreno.