The Diplomat
The new Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, Juan Bolivar Díaz Santana, yesterday handed over the Copies of his Letters of Credence to the Director General of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Caridad Batalla.
Today, Juan Bolivar Díaz will present, together with five other new ambassadors accredited in Madrid, their Letters of Credence before the King, in a ceremony to be held at the Royal Palace.
Juan Bolivar Diaz, professor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, is a prestigious journalist, political analyst and writer who between 1984 and 1986 served as ambassador of the Dominican Republic in Peru and Bolivia. In 2014 he won the national journalism award and is one of the founders of the Dominican College of Journalists. Apart from that, in 1993 he was one of the founders of Participación Ciudadana, the largest non-partisan movement in the Dominican Republic. After his appointment as ambassador to Spain, he ended, after 33 uninterrupted years, his work as host of the television program Uno+Uno on the Teleamtillas network.
Juan Bolivar Diaz was proposed as ambassador to Spain by the President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader. The news of his appointment was made public to the press of his country last August, a few days before the new president took office and, therefore, before the new Dominican government requested the approval of the Spanish authorities. This is an unusual event, since appointments are not made public until the aforementioned approval is granted, among other things, to avoid a diplomatic clash in case the candidate is rejected. The official appointment of Juan Bolivar Diaz as ambassador in Madrid took place at the end of last November.
The new ambassador replaces Olivo Rodríguez Huertas at the head of the mission, who will be able to return to his profession as a lawyer and also as a teacher. Rodríguez’s three years as ambassador were characterized by a notable consolidation of bilateral institutional relations and a sustained increase in economic and cultural relations.
