Religion Roman Catholic Name Patricia Butenis | Nationality United States Appointed by Barack Obama | |
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Similar People Barack Obama, Robert O Blake - Jr, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ray Mabus, Jeffrey Zients | ||
Patricia Agatha Butenis (born 1953) is an American diplomat. In 2014 she retired with the rank of Career Minister.
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Early life and education
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts degree in international relations from Columbia University.
Career
Butenis' final career assignment was as the Dean of the School of Professional and Area Studies in the Foreign Service Institute. From 2009-2012, Butenis was the United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the United States Ambassador to the Maldives. As the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2007-2009 Butenis won the State Department's Baker-Wilkins Award as the Outstanding Deputy Chief of Mission (2008). She was the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh from April 13, 2006 – June 23, 2007, and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad before that.
Butenis joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980 and has served consular tours in Karachi, Pakistan; San Salvador, El Salvador; New Delhi, India; and Bogotá, Colombia.
Diplomatic-cable leak by WikiLeaks
Butenis sparked controversy in Sri Lanka in late 2009 when WikiLeaks — an international new-media, non-profit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks — disclosed diplomatic cables sent by her on verifying the accountability of war crimes that allegedly happened in the final stages of Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009).
WikiLeaks also leaked Butenis's Bangladesh mission, where she worked during a volatile political situation in 2006-07 period and met political leaders including Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda Zia and Mukhlesur Rahman Chowdhury and there were moves to solve the political deadlock. She had series of meetings with various leaders including military officials.