Crisis in the Andes: Why Venezuela is Different

Keith Mines serves as Director of Andean Affairs in the State Department with responsibility for managing U.S. relations with Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Prior to this, he was an interagency fellow in residence at the U.S. Institute of Peace, working on Middle East Peace and post-conflict stabilization. He has also served as Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Senior Civilian Representative in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, and Director of the Narcotics Affairs Section in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, where he managed the Merida Initiative, a new partnership between the U.S. and Mexico in counter-narcotics and law enforcement. Mr. Mines is a career Foreign Service Officer with additional postings to San Salvador, Port-au-Prince, Washington D.C. (Brazil Desk), Budapest, and Ottawa. In addition, Mr. Mines ran the U.S. Field Office in Darfur in 2007; served as Senior Civilian Representative in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq from 2003-2004; was interim Economic Counsellor in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2002; and Executive Assistant to the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in the UNOSOM II peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1994. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Mines was a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer (7th Group) with service in Grenada, Central America, and North Carolina. He was educated at Brigham Young University and Georgetown University where he studied history and diplomacy.