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Lawrence G. Rossin (U.S.A)

Lawrence G. Rossin was most recently the Senior International Coordinator for the Save Darfur Coalition. In this capacity, he was responsible for designing and leading implementation of the Coalition’s outreach to foreign governments and non-governmental organizations to advocate on behalf of the people of Darfur.

Ambassador Rossin previously was Assistant Secretary General and Principal Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and before that for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). In each position, Mr. Rossin was the deputy head of a UN peacekeeping Mission with a complex Security Council mandate, several thousand military, police and civilian personnel, and a multi-hundred million-dollar budget.

Prior to his United Nations service, Ambassador Rossin was a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, retiring in 2004 at the rank of Minister-Counselor. He was American Ambassador to Croatia, served twice on the National Security Council staff (as Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Southwest Asia, and earlier as Director for Inter-American Affairs), and was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Earlier, he was State Department Director for South-Central Europe during the Kosovo crisis, and then was sent to Kosovo to establish and head the U.S. diplomatic office there at the end of the war in 1999. Other assignments were Deputy Chief of Mission in Spain, Director for Chief of Mission Authority and Overseas Staffing for the State Department, Political Counselor in The Hague and Port-au-Prince, and other positions in Washington, Mali, South Africa, Barbados and Grenada.

Ambassador Rossin received the B.A. degree in economics in 1975 from Claremont McKenna College in California. He attended the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy, and completed MIT’s “Seminar XXI” program and the Aspen Institute Executive Seminar. He speaks French and Spanish and some Dutch and Croatian. He received many U.S. Government awards, including the Presidential Distinguished Service Award and the State Department Award for Valor, as well as the Order of Duke Branimir from Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. He is married to Debra McGowan and has one daughter and one son.