Alberto M. Fernandez serves as US Ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. He was confirmed by the Senate on November 19, 2009.

Fernandez came to the United States in 1959 as a refugee from Cuba a year after he was born. A graduate of the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Ft. Huachuca, he studied Arabic at the Defense Language Institute-Foreign Language Center from 1976 to 1977. He served in the US Army from 1976 to 1979. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Middle East Studies in 1981 and received an M.A. in the same subject in 1983. 

 

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, Fernandez joined the US Information Agency in 1983. He was a Junior Officer in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Press Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua. In 1988, he transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait to serve as Public Affairs Officer. He departed Kuwait, on the eve of the Iraqi Invasion, on August 1, 1990. He was then assigned to Washington, D.C., where he served as Country Affairs Officer for Egypt, Yemen and Sudan in the USIA/NEA Area Office. After Advanced Arabic Training, he served as Public Affairs Officer in Damascus, Syria (1993-1996), Guatemala City, Guatemala (1996-1999), Amman, Jordan (1999-2002), and Kabul, Afghanistan (2002-2003) where he was the first permanent Public Affairs Officer since the fall of the Taliban.

 

Fernandez's served as US Charge d’Affaires to Sudan from June 2007 to May 2009 before his appointment as ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. Previously, he served as Director for Near East Public Diplomacy (2005-2007), Director for Iraq Public Diplomacy (2004-2005) and in senior public diplomacy positions at the US embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria and Guatemala.

 

Fernandez was interviewed by Arabic news station Al-Jazeera while serving as Director for Near East Public Diplomacy, Fernandez.   Fernandez said the US had shown “arrogance and stupidity in Iraq” and the world was “witnessing failure in Iraq.” He later apologized for his comments, saying that he seriously misspoke and his comments represent neither his views nor those of the State Department. 

 

Alberto M. Fernandez's Official Biography