Celso Amorim

Celso Amorim
Amorim in 2007
Minister of Defence
In office 4 August 2011 – 1 January 2015
President	Dilma Rousseff
Preceded by	Nelson Jobim
Succeeded by	Jaques Wagner
Minister of External Relations
In office 1 January 2003 – 1 January 2011
President	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Preceded by	Celso Lafer
Succeeded by	Antonio Patriota
In office 20 July 1993 – 1 January 1995
President	Itamar Franco
Preceded by	Luiz Felipe Lampreia
Succeeded by	Luiz Felipe Lampreia
Personal details
Born	Celso Nunes Amorim (1942-06-03) June 3, 1942 Santos, São Paulo, Brazil
Spouse(s)	Ana Maria Amorim
Residence	Brasília, Brazil
Profession	Diplomat, politician

Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim (born 3 June 1942) is a Brazilian diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Relations from 1993 to 1995 under President Itamar Franco and again from 2003 to 2011 under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and as Minister of Defence from August 2011 to December 2014 under President Dilma Rousseff.^[1][2]

Before his appointment by Lula, Amorim served as Brazil's ambassador to the United Kingdom.^[3] On 7 October 2009, Amorim was named the "world's best foreign minister" by Foreign Policy magazine blogger David Rothkopf.^[4]

Personal life and academic career

Amorim was born in Santos, São Paulo, on 3 June 1942. He is married to Ana Maria Amorim and has four children: Vicente, Anita, João, and Pedro.^[5]

He graduated from the Rio Branco Institute, a graduate school of international relations run by the Ministry of External Relations, in 1965, and obtained his post-graduate degree in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna in 1967.

Amorim was a professor of Portuguese language at the Rio Branco Institute, as well as professor of political science and international relations at the University of Brasília. He is a permanent member of the Foreign Affairs Department of the University of São Paulo Institute of Advanced Studies.

Government positions

Amorim has a long history of government service, beginning in 1987 when he was appointed Secretary for International Affairs for the Ministry of Science and Technology. He served in that position until 1989, when he was selected to be the Director-General for Cultural Affairs in the Ministry of External Relations. Amorim was shifted again in 1990, moving to a new post as Director-General for Economic Affairs. In 1993, he was promoted to the position of Secretary General of the Brazilian foreign-affairs agency.

Ambassadorial positions

While serving in the Ministry of External Relations, Amorim spent large amounts of time working as an ambassador to the United Nations. Most notably, he represented Brazil on the Kosovo–Yugoslavia sanctions committee in 1998, and the Security Council panel on Iraq in 1999. Amorim was named as Brazil's permanent ambassador to the United Nations and the WTO later that year, and served for two years before becoming ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2001.

WTO controversy

On 19 July 2008, Amorim stirred up controversy by comparing the descriptions used by wealthier countries to characterize the agricultural concessions they were offering during the Doha Round of WTO talks to the work of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. This brought a swift condemnation from the U.S. State Department.^[6]

Minister of Defence

On 4 August 2011, Amorim was appointed by Dilma Rousseff to replace Nelson Jobim as Minister of Defence. Jobim's resignation came after he called Ideli Salvatti, Secretary of Institutional Relations, weak and criticized Gleisi Hoffmann, Rousseff's chief of staff, as someone who "doesn't even know Brasília". Jobim had increasingly expressed his displeasure with the government. He had said that he was surrounded by "idiots" in the administration and angered government colleagues even further after he admitted in an interview that he had voted for José Serra, Rousseff's main opponent in the presidential election. He left the position in January 2015.

References

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