BRIDGETOWN, Barbados -- Cuba has appointed one of its long-serving foreign service and trade officials as new ambassador to Barbados and three other Eastern Caribbean states -- Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Jose' Joaquin Alvarez Portella, who recently presented his credentials to Governor-General Sir Clifford Husbands, is a 56 year-old former officer of Cuba's armed forces with years of service also as a professor of politics and director-general of the National School for the Ministry of Transport, before starting his diplomatic career as a commercial attaché in Cuba's embassy in Algeria in the 1980s.

Ambassador Portella, who succeeded Lazaro Cabezas, the Cuban diplomat who spent 17 years as ambassador in the Caribbean, said he had the good fortune to establish personal relations with a number of Caribbean Community government leaders, ministers and officials while serving his country in various capacities.

These included assignments to the European Union, Permanent Representative to the International Group for Nickel in The Hague and director of commerce for Latin America and the Caribbean in Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Trade.

With 10 years of service in Europe and involvement in negotiations that extended to the new Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, ambassador Portella also participated in negotiations for the inter-governmental Mixed Commissions with Latin America and Caricom.

He is the recipient of a number of official awards such as the Medal for Internationalist Combatant in Angola; Medal of Literacy; Medal for the 40th anniversary of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

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