Odeen Ishmael

Odeen Ishmael (born 1948) is a Guyanese diplomat. He is the current Guyanese Ambassador to Kuwait, having been appointed to that post in January 2011. He also served as ambassador to Venezuela (Nov. 2003-Jan. 2011) and to the United States (June 1993-Oct. 2003) and as Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) (June 1993-Oct. 2003). At the OAS he served for two periods as Chairman of the Permanent Council. In 2009, he was elected to a one-year term as Chairman of the Latin American Council, the political governing body of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela.

In 1997, Ishmael received the Cacique Crown of Honour, Guyana's third highest national honor, for his outstanding work in diplomacy. Back in 1974, he was awarded the Gandhi Centenary Gold Medal for academic achievement at the University of Guyana. In January 2002, in Washington DC, he was honored in the United States of America with the Martin Luther King Legacy Award for International Service. The US Congress, in a joint resolution, also paid a special tribute to him in October 2003 just before he completed his service in the United States.

Ishmael's commentaries on international affairs, in particular his analyses of South American integration issues, are being published worldwide. As an author, his has published books dealing with Guyanese history, culture and education; and political developments in Latin America and the Caribbean. (See Biography at Guyana.org)

Personal life

Ishmael traces his ancestry back to what are now the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He has two children, Safraz, a Georgetown University law school alumnus and a Physics alumnus of the University of Maryland, and currently an attorney attached to a law firm in Boston; and Nadeeza, (alumnus of the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University), who, up to 2008, worked at a genetics company in Maryland ^[1] and who is currently a research biologist at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. His wife, Evangeline, is a teacher by profession. He also has eight brothers and three sisters which makes him the uncle of many children.

References

1. ^ The Washington Diplomat

Sources

• Biography at Guyana.org
• "Socialist Ideology Takes New Roots in South America" 29 January 2007, Venezuela Analysis by Odeen Ishmael
• Speeches by Odeen Ishmael
• Political commentaries by Odeen Ishmael

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Name	Ishmael, Odeen
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Date of birth	1948
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