Dennis Jett

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Dennis Jett

Born 1945
Nationality United States
Field Diplomacy
Institutions University of Florida
Alma mater University of New Mexico
Known for Serving as a United States Ambassador to Peru and Mozambique

Dennis Coleman Jett (born 1945) is an American diplomat and academic. He served as the United States ambassador to Mozambique and Peru under the Clinton administration and since 2000 has served as dean of the International Center and lecturer of political science at the University of Florida.

Jett is a noted expert on peacekeeping.

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[edit] Service as diplomat

Jett is from New Mexico. He attended the University of New Mexico, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (1968) and Master of Arts (1969) in economics. [1]

Jett worked as an economist for the New Mexico state government before joining the United States Foreign Service. [2]

Jett was a Foreign Service Officer from 1972 to August 2000. [3] During his time in the Foreign Service he was posted in Buenos Aires, Argentina (political officer, 1990), Tel Aviv, Israel (science attaché), Lilongwe, Malawi (Deputy Chief of Mission), and Monrovia, Liberia (Deputy Chief of Mission). [4]

Jett has also served as Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and on the National Security Council as special assistant to the President and senior director for African affairs. His final assignment for the State Department was as senior advisor on Africa at the Carter Center in Atlanta working on projects in democracy and conflict resolution. [5] [6]

[edit] Ambassador to Mozambique

U.S. ambassador to Mozambique

Appointed: July 16, 1993
Presented credentials: November 17, 1993
Terminated mission: Left post, July 20, 1996

Jett served as United States Ambassador to Mozambique.

Jett made the controversial decision to forbid the embassy staff to speak with British Mozambique writer Joseph Hanlon, an advocate of debt cancellation. [7] Jett wrote that "We have spent many hours in the past answering Mr. Hanlon's questions, which failed to improve the quality of his reporting. Using more time of embassy personnel to respond to more of Mr. Hanlon's questions, given his ideological orientation and lack of objectivity, would therefore be a waste of such resources." [8]

[edit] Ambassador to Peru

U.S. ambassador to Peru

Appointed: July 2, 1996
Presented credentials: October 16, 1996
Terminated mission: Left post, July 3, 1999

Jett was United States Ambassador to Peru from 1996 to 1999. He attended a reception at the Japanese ambassadorial residence in Lima on December 17, 1996, but left the gathering early, narrowly escaping becoming a hostage, when members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement stormed the residence and held hundreds hostage for 126 days in the incident known as the Japanese embassy hostage crisis.

Jett received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998. His dissertation, "Why Peacekeeping Fails," has been published (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

Jett was noted as a critic of American citizen Lori Berenson, who is imprisoned in Peru for her association with MRTA members; he was unsympathetic when a human rights delegation, including Berenson's parents, came to visit in March 1999. In February 2002 Jett wrote an op-ed published in the Washington Post entitled "No Tears for Terrorists," in which he likened Berenson to John Walker Lindh and said Berenson was a terrorist who exercised "monumentally bad judgment." [9] Berenson's parents said that Jett's article was "intensely poisonous" and contained "outrageously mean-spirited, blatantly-inaccurate, and erroneous statements about her to discredit support for her release from her wrongful six-year and four-month incarceration."

[edit] University of Florida

Since 2000 Jett has served as dean of the International Center and lecturer of political science at the University of Florida.

He was the moderator when U.S. Senator John Kerry came to the University of Florida to speak on September 17, 2007 at which the University of Florida Taser incident occurred.

In spring of 2008, he taught Making American Foreign Policy at the University of Florida.

Jett's new book, Why American Foreign Policy Fails (Palgrave Macmillan) will be published in May 2008.

Jett received the James F. Zimmerman Award from the University of New Mexico Alumni Association in 2001. [10]

[edit] External links