NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ERITREA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
Press Release
BIO/3096
NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ERITREA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
19970911 Biographical NoteHaile Menkerios Drar, the new Permanent Representative of Eritrea to the United Nations, today presented his credentials to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Menkerios served, from December 1996 through June 1997, as his President's Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa. Between 1991 and 1996, he was also the President's Special Envoy to Somalia.
Mr. Menkerios has been a member of Eritrea's legislative body, the National Council, since 1991. From 1993 to 1996, he was also Eritrea's Ambassador to Ethiopia and to the Organization of African Unity (OAU). From 1991 to 1993, he was also representative of the Provisional Government of Eritrea to Ethiopia.
From 1993 to 1994, he was also a member of the High-Level Horn of Africa Committee on Somalia. From 1994 to 1995, he also served as mediator in the Somalia crisis, a mandate he derived from the OAU and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development.
Mr. Menkerios has also been a member of the Central Council of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) since 1977. Between 1973 and 1991, Mr. Menkerios served in several administrative positions in the EPLF, such as Governor of the East and South Zone (1990-1991) and head of the Research and Policy Division of the EPLF's Department of Foreign Relations (1987-1990).
Beginning his career in 1971 as a teaching assistant at Harvard University in the United States, he went on to serve as a combatant in the Eritrean People's Liberation Army (EPLA), from 1973 to 1974. In 1974, he became head of the Tigrigna Section of the EPLF's Department of Information and Propaganda. From 1976 to 1977, he was a member of the EPLF's three-man Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr. Menkerios was also assistant to the head of the EPLF's Department of Foreign Relations and head of African Relations (1977-1979), head of the Research Division of the EPLF's Department of Conscientization, Education and Culture (1979-1986), and head of its Research and Information Centre of Eritrea.
- 2 - Press Release BIO/3096 11 September 1997
After serving his freshman year at Addis Ababa University, Mr. Menkerios went on to earn a Bachelor's degree in economics from Brandies University in the United States (1967-1970), and a Master's degree in manpower development planning from Harvard University (1970-1971).
Born on 1 October 1946, Mr. Menkerios has two children.
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