US embassy cable - 05QUITO983

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 QUITO 000983 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINR, EC 
SUBJECT: BIO INFO FOR NEW GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: PART 3 
 
REF: QUITO 911 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney, Reason 1.4 (b&d) 
 
1.  (U) Summary:  Pablo Rizzo was named Minister of 
Agriculture on April 29.  President Palacio has yet to name 
Ministers of Labor and Energy.  Below is biographical 
information for the following new Cabinet members and 
government officials:  First Lady Maria Beatriz Paret de 
Palacio, Vice FM Marcelo Fernandez de Cordova, Vice Minister 
of Government Juan Carlos Guzman, Minister of Environment 
Anita Alban, Secretary of Public Administration Luis Herreria 
Bonnet, Minister of Education Consuelo Yanez Cossio, Minister 
of Tourism Maria Isabel Salvador Crespo, SRI Director Elsa De 
Mena, and additional information for FM Antonio Parra Gil. 
More information on recently-named government officials will 
follow septel.  End Summary. 
 
First Lady 
---------- 
 
2.  (C) Maria Beatriz Paret de Palacio, who has assumed the 
leadership of the National Institute for the Child and Family 
(INNFA), is a native of Guayaquil.  She attended primary 
school, high school and college in San Diego and Boston.  She 
speaks Spanish and excellent English.  Paret had been living 
in Miami for the past eight years.  She is separated from the 
President, though not legally.  Palacio is rumored to have a 
lady friend in Guayaquil. 
 
3.  (C) Paret was born on April 18, 1948 and married on 
September 5, 1969.  The presidential couple has four 
children:  Dr. Ana Maria Palacio de Tamariz (34), Llinka 
Maria Palacio de Zambrano (32), Alfredo Inti Palacio (30), 
and Carola Maria Palacio (22).  All of the children grew up 
in the US; Alfredo Jr. has returned to Ecuador to assist his 
father for the coming year.  The son and one daughter are 
doctors.  Another daughter is married to Dr. Leonardo 
Tamariz, a former Consul of Ecuador to Miami. 
 
Additional Info on the Foreign Minister 
--------------------------------------- 
 
4.  (U) Antonio Parra Gil holds a J.D. from the University of 
Salamanca in Spain.  He has also served as a magistrate in 
the Guayas province electoral tribunal.  Other previous 
positions include professor of territorial law in the State 
University of Guayaquil; professor specializing in the Rio de 
Janeiro Protocol and international organizations in the 
University of Guayaquil's School of Diplomacy; lawyer at the 
Central Bank of Ecuador; lawyer at the National Credit Bank; 
lawyer, director, vice president and president of Amazonas 
Bank (owned by the Parra family).  He is a member of the 
Guayaquil's Hispanic Cultural Institute. 
 
Vice Foreign Minister 
--------------------- 
 
5.  (C) Marcelo Fernandez de Cordova is a career diplomat who 
joined the Foreign Service in 1966.  His first tour was as 
consul in San Diego (1971).  He also served as commercial 
counselor, then minister counselor in Lima (1975-80), broken 
up by two years as alternate representative to the OAS 
(1977-78).  Fernandez returned to Ecuador early from his OAS 
mission because his wife's brother was kidnapped by a 
Colombian guerrilla group and later killed.  Fernandez 
previously served as Vice Foreign Minister in 1995 in the 
Duran Ballen government.  Within the MFA, he has held the 
positions of Chief of Staff (1972 and 1983), Chief of the 
Legal Department (1972), and Assistant Chief of Protocol 
(1973).  He reportedly only briefly served as Chief of 
Protocol in early 1985, getting re-assigned after upsetting 
President Leon Febres Cordero with his mishandling of a state 
visit to Brazil. 
 
6.  (C) Fernandez served as Ambassador to Sweden with 
accreditation for Denmark, Norway, and Finland (1985-89), 
Bulgaria (1989-92), Italy (one year), Venezuela (five years), 
and the Vatican (until February 2005).  Fernandez began the 
Ecuador-Peru peace negotiations in Brazil and has written a 
book about the experience. 
 
7.  (C) Fernandez has a law degree from Quito's Catholic 
University and taught international law there.  He also has a 
bachelor's degree from the same university in public and 
social science.  He comes from a politically conservative 
family.  Fernandez was born in Quito on December 8, 1941.  He 
speaks English and Italian.  Fernandez was a squash partner 
of previous US Ambassador Newell.  Previous Embassy officers 
found him easy to get along with and generally pro-US.  They 
found him intelligent, but lacking organizational and 
managerial skills. 
 
8.  (C) Fernandez is married to Maria Elena Briz and has two 
children.  A daughter, born in San Diego, is an architect 
living in Quito and married to businessman Dr. Gustavo 
Arteta.  A son is an economist working for the UN in Geneva. 
 
Vice Minister of Government 
--------------------------- 
 
9.  (U) Juan Carlos Guzman was born in Guayaquil in 1950.  He 
holds a law degree.  He held the position of director at the 
Ministry of Finance.  He previously served as Vice Minister 
of Social Welfare as well as of the Finance Ministry.  He has 
been an advisor to the Congress.  He has worked in the Guayas 
Electoral Tribunal. 
 
Minister of Environment 
----------------------- 
 
10.  (C) Anita Alban is a lawyer by profession and previously 
was the director of Ecuador's Nature Foundation in Guayaquil. 
 According to Embassy sources, Alban was named MOE because of 
her close ties to Lourdes Luque, a former MOE who stepped 
down after corruption charges.  Luque is close to President 
Palacio's sister, and while Palacio could not give the job 
directly to Luque because of outstanding allegations, Alban 
is beholden to Luque for her position.  Alban has her own 
detractors; Embassy contacts have charged that Alban has no 
environmental expertise, is inept, and possibly corrupt.  She 
allegedly left the Nature Foundation $1 million in debt.  Her 
father is retired from the Ecuadorian Navy. 
 
Secretary of Public Administration 
 
SIPDIS 
---------------------------------- 
 
11.  (U) Luis Herreria Bonnet studied law at the University 
of Guayaquil.  He was president of the Guayaquil Superior 
Court and a magistrate on the Supreme Court.  Herreria was 
Vice Minister of Fishing under the Borja government.  He is a 
member of the Luso-Hispanic judicial organization. 
 
Minister of Education 
--------------------- 
 
12.  (U) Dr. Consuelo Yanez Cossio is considered a specialist 
in bilingual education.  She received her doctorate in 
linguistics from Quito's Catholic University, a masters in 
linguistics from Colorado State University, and a bachelor's 
degree in education from Quito's Catholic University.  She is 
the president of the education corporation Macac, and rector 
of the College and Institute of Superior Intercultural 
Bilingual Pedagogy Macac.  She is a full-time professor of 
English as a second language at Quito's Catholic University, 
as well as director of the University's English as a Second 
Language Department and of its Language and Linguistics 
Institute.  Dr. Yanez created the degree program in Quichua 
linguistics at the university.  She has written several books 
on intercultural bilingual education, as well as literary 
works and articles.  She is a corresponding member of the 
Ecuadorian Language Academy.  Yanez speaks Spanish, English, 
French, Quichua, and Huaorani.  Dr. Yanez is 66 years old and 
a native of Quito. 
 
13.  (U) On April 26, Ministry of Education workers took over 
the Ministry's buildings to prevent Yanez from taking office, 
demanding that President Palacio replace her with someone 
without prior links to the Ministry.  One worker told press 
that Yanez had been an advisor to previous Ministers and had 
a reputation for mistreatment of employees. 
 
Minister of Tourism 
------------------- 
 
14.  (U)  Maria Isabel Salvador Crespo has served as 
assistant to the director of the Commission on Church 
Participation in Development at the World Council of Churches 
in Geneva.  She has also been a teacher of French at Quito's 
Alliance Francaise.  She worked as an airport agent for Air 
France in Quito and was general manager for the air transport 
company SORCIAIR.  Ms. Salvador studied law at Quito's 
Catholic University (1980-1984).  She also studied at Geneva 
University's School of French Language and Civilization 
(1985-1988) and at Quito's San Francisco University's College 
of Continuing Education (1998-1999). 
 
15.  (U) Salvador has served as president and treasurer of 
the Fund for Tourism Promotion in Ecuador, vice president of 
Pichincha's Provincial Chamber of Tourism, director of the 
Federation of Tourism Company Executives, president of the 
Association of Tourism Company Executives, and member of the 
board of the Franco-Ecuadorian Chamber of Industry and 
Commerce.  Ms. Crespo was born in Quito and is 43 years old. 
She speaks Spanish, English, French, and Italian. 
 
Internal Revenue Service Director 
--------------------------------- 
 
16.  (C) President Palacio returned Elsa Romo-Leroux De Mena 
to her previous post as director of Ecuador's Internal 
Revenue Service (SRI).  De Mena had been removed by Gutierrez 
in December 2004, reportedly as one of banana magnate Alvaro 
Noboa's conditions for his party (PRIAN) joining the 
pro-Gutierrez alliance in Congress.  Noboa is rumored to owe 
millions to the SRI.  De Mena has six years previous 
experience working at the SRI and a reputation for integrity. 
 Previously, in her position as director of the SRI, Mena 
dramatically improved tax collection in Ecuador.  De Mena 
modernized the institution, introducing advanced information 
systems and databases to track income for tax purposes. 
 
17.  (C) Mena received an economics degree from Quito's 
Catholic University in 1975 and worked for many years at the 
National Financial Corporation (CFN), a state bank that 
serves as an intermediary between external providers of soft 
loans for development purposes and the domestic banking 
sector.  She went from a credit analyst position to Chief of 
Planning and Financial Management.  She left the CFN in 1989 
to become a consultant specializing in improving state 
enterprise's financial performance.  She worked from 1997-98 
at National Modernization Council.  She does not speak 
English. 
KENNEY