Adolfo Aguilar Zinser

Adolfo Aguilar Zínser (Mexico City, December 2, 1949 - June 5, 2005) was a Mexican writer, political analyst, journalist, diplomat, and politician who served as Commissioner of the Council National Security, Order, Justice and Respect of Mexico during the presidency of Vicente Fox and as Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations, serving as president of the UN Security Council, during the United States invasion of Iraq, Zinser being an opponent of that military incursion.

Biography

Born in Mexico City to an upper-class family, Adolfo Aguilar was the son of Adolfo Aguilar y Quevedo, a criminal lawyer, and Carmen Zínser, a philanthropist. He was the great-grandson of Miguel Ángel de Quevedo, The Apostle of the Tree , considered the first environmentalist in Mexico.

Aguilar Zinser studied Law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and International Relations at El Colegio de México (1972-1975), he also completed a master's degree in Public and International Administration from the Kennedy School of Harvard University, (1977 -1978). In the early 1970s, briefly subscribing to Marxist ideology, he directed the Luis Echeverría Center for Third World Economic and Social Studies.

Trajectory

He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, representing the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1994 and served until 1997. From 1997 to 2000 he was an independent senator of the Republic of Mexico, after running as a multi-member candidate for the Green Party Ecologist from Mexico with the agreement to distance himself from him once he had been elected. Adolfo Aguilar Zinser was not a member of any political party.

Following the election of Vicente Fox to the Presidency (representing a coalition of the National Action Party and the PVEM), on July 2, 2000, Aguilar was an adviser to the transition team on international affairs. After taking office, Fox appointed Aguilar Zinser as National Security Advisor.

In January 2002, Fox appointed him Mexico's permanent representative to the United Nations. His term coincided with Mexico's election to the Security Council and, in accordance with the Security Council's rules of procedure, he served as its president for two one-month terms.

Following a speech before students at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City on November 11, 2003, in which Aguilar stated that the political and intellectual class of the United States considers Mexico as "a country whose position is that of a backyard" (backyard) and that Washington was interested only in "a relationship of convenience and subservience" and "a weekend adventure" (a weekend courtship), President Fox requested his resignation on November 18. Two days later, Aguilar announced his resignation in writing, and accused Fox of treason and submission to US interests. Aguilar did not see anything controversial in his speech, considering that it was an "obvious and historical" truth, however, it was implied in the media that Aguilar believed that Mexico was the backyard of the United States and was therefore unworthy to represent the country at the UN. The speech served as a pretext to fire him and placate the US, even though Mexico did not give the US what it wanted: support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. After leaving the UN, Aguilar received an honorary degree from the Ricardo Palma University (Peru) and hosted a current affairs weekly program on television.

He died in a traffic accident near his summer chalet in Tepoztlán, Morelos, on June 5, 2005, at the age of 55.

In the run up to the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war he was the subject of an episode of the BBC series 10 Days to War, in which he was portrayed by Tom Conti.