Jorge Castañeda

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jorge Castañeda, 2011

Jorge Germán Castañeda Gutman (born May 24, 1953 in Mexico City ) is a Mexican politician, publicist and scientist and former Foreign Minister of Mexico.

After completing his baccalaureate at the French high school in Mexico City, he earned a BA from Princeton University and a doctorate from the University of Paris (Panthéon-La Sorbonne). He was a lecturer at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México , University of California, Berkeley , Princeton University, New York University and the University of Cambridge , among others . He is the author of several books, including a biography of Che Guevara and a regular author in the Mexican and international press. In 2008 he was honored with admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

family

Castañeda's mother, Neoma Gutman, came from Belarus. His father Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa came from a middle-class background and was Mexico's Foreign Minister (1979–1982) under José López Portillo . Castañeda said of his father after his death that he was very proud that he had been in Mexican government services for 40 years, but had never stolen a cent. Castañeda's parents also had Jewish ancestors. His half-brother, Andrés Rozental, is a high-ranking Mexican diplomat and his sister Marina is an interpreter.

Castañeda was married to Miriam Morales from Chile and has one son.

Publications

His best-known books Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War and Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara both describe the militant left in Latin America with a variety of anecdotal details. As a personal plea for a social democratic left in Latin America and a move away from militancy and camp formation, they have gained broad interest and readership.

Castañeda is a regular author in various international newspapers.

Political career

Castañeda was initially a member of the Partido Comunista Mexicano and was regularly in Cuba. According to Cuban information, he was trained in guerrilla warfare for use in Central America at his own request. Among other things, he was an advisor to Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988 . He later turned to right-wing politics: in 2000 he was an advisor to the neoliberal candidate Vicente Fox . From 2000 until his resignation in 2003, he was Mexico's foreign minister in the Fox cabinet. Among other things, disputes over the positioning towards Israel and the USA contributed to the departure.

Since then he has worked as a publicist and public speaker. In 2004 Castañeda ran as an independent candidate for the presidency of Mexico. Since in Mexico only applications from party candidates are accepted for this office, the application was rejected for formal reasons. A lawsuit against the non-admission to the election failed in the Mexican Constitutional Court, the case is pending before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights .

His special origins, changing political affiliations and his international academic career have made Castañeda the subject of various conspiracy theories. These relate, among other things, to his actual or ascribed secret service activities. According to documents later declassified by the Mexican security authorities, he is said to have been an employee of the Cuban secret service from 1979 to 1985. The Cubans then claimed he was a double agent for the CIA.

bibliography

  • Nicaragua: Contradicciones en la Revolución. 1980.
  • Los últimos capitalismos. El capital financiero: México y los “nuevos países industrializados”. 1982.
  • México: El futuro en juego. 1987.
  • with Robert A. Pastor: Limits on friendship: United States and Mexico. 1989.
  • La casa por la ventana. 1993.
  • The Mexican Shock. 1995.
  • Utopia unarmed. 1995.
  • The Estados Unidos Affair. Cinco ensayos sobre un "amor" oblicuo. 1996.
  • La vida en Rojo, a biography of the Ché Guevara. 1997.
    • German: Che Guevara. Biography. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-39411-8 .
  • La Herencia. Arqueología de la sucesión presidencial en México. 1999.
  • Somos Muchos: Ideas para el Mañana. 2004.
  • Ex Mex. (2008)
  • Mañana o pasado. El misterio de los mexicanos. 2011.
  • Amarres perros. Una autobiografía. Alfaguara, Mexico 2014, ISBN 978-607113538-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Castañeda's father Jorge Castañeda, 76, Diplomat And Foreign Minister for Mexico by SAM DILLON, December 13, 1997.
  2. ↑ Tacha Granma de "diabólico y cínico" a Jorge Castañeda, In: El Universal. dated March 27, 2002, accessed January 13, 2015 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Juan Arvizu: Castañeda espió a México ya su padre, In: El Universal. dated February 4, 2008, accessed January 13, 2015 (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Castañeda, Jorge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Castañeda Gutman, Jorge Germán (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican politician, publicist and scientist, former Foreign Minister of Mexico
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Mexico city