Biografia

Claudio Pacifico, Italian diplomat, writer and essayist, was born in Rome in 1947. He obtained the Classical High School Diploma at the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti Lyceum in Rome (1965) and graduated in Law, with the highest grade of 110 cum laude, at the La Sapienza University of Rome (1971). He specialized in international disciplines studying at Johns Hopkins University, University of Baltimore, Bologna Center (1971-1972) and at Winston Churchill College in Cambridge, University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom (1972). He attended courses for the Research Doctorate (PhD) in Law at the La Sapienza University of Rome and the preparation course for a diplomatic career (1973-1974). Subsequently, he attended a postgraduate summer course at Harvard University in Cambridge, Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States (1981). In 1974 he joined the Italian diplomatic service where he served until his retirement on January, 1st 2013.

In his long career, Ambassador Pacifico carried out his diplomatic service in places of particular importance for Italian interests (starting with the Embassy of Italy in Washington) and also on the front line in contexts of real danger, sometimes in theatres of war, such as the Iran upon the Iranian Revolution; Somalia during tribal and civil war; Sudan, at the time of Bin Laden's refuge there and thus the target of American bombs; Colonel Mouammar Gaddafi's Libya, or even the Bangladesh in times of cyclones and the worst pandemics; and finally Egypt of the Tahrir Square Revolution, the epicentre and symbol of the so-called Arab Springs, where he was strongly committed to the protection of our compatriots and the important interests of Italian companies until the end of his career.

As a young man, he worked with some of the great Italian ambassadors of the second half of the 20th century, Vittorio Cordero di Montezemolo, Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, Francesco Paolo Fulci, Rinaldo Petrignani, Luigi Cottafavi, Bruno Bottai, Boris Biancheri, Sergio Romano, Umberto La Rocca, Ferdinando Salleo, Luigi Guidobono Cavalchini, Umberto Vattani Giorgio Giacomelli, Patrizio Schmidlin, Amedeo De Franchis, Arduino Fornara, Sergio Kociancich. Throughout his career he collaborated with all the great Italian statesmen of his time, from Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti, to President Sandro Pertini and Prime Ministers Aldo Moro, Emilio Colombo, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, up to younger Prime Ministers, Lamberto Dini, Romano Prodi, Silvio Berlusconi, Presidents Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Giorgio Napolitano, and Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema.
He knew many international leaders such as Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the last Shah of Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini; great American presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama; great Arab leaders: Yasser Arafat, King Husayn of Jordan, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, i Premiers israeliani, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu; the yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh; the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafq al-Hariri; the Colonel Mouammar Gaddafii; the Egyptian Presidents Hosni Mubarak, Mohammed Morsi e Abdel Fattah al-Sisi; the Presidents of Sudan Omar el-Bashir and Hassan el-Tourabi; historical leaders of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, Nabil Elarabi, Ahmed Abul Gheit; great African leaders, the Somali Presidents Mohamed Siad Barre, Ali Mahdi, Mohamed Farah Aidid, Hussein Farah Aidid, Abdiqasim Salad; il Presidente etiopico Meles Zenawi; il Presidente eritreo Isaias Afewerki; il Presidente Ugandese Yoweri Museveni; il Presidente dellUganda Paul Kagame; the Congolese Presidents Laurent Kabila and Joseph Kabila; the Presidents of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moii; the President of South Africa Nelson Mandela; United Nations General Secretaries, Ban Ki-moon, Boutros Boutros Ghali, Kofi Annan; Asian political leaders such as Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Narendra Modi, President Abdul Kalam; the Emperor of Japan Akhito and Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinz Abe; Chinese Presidents Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping; the King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej; the last King of Afghanistan Ebrahim Mohammed Zaher Shah and President Hamid Karzai; the Presidents of Pakistan Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto; the President of Bangladesh Shahabuddin Ahmed and Prime Ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina; lthe President of Sri Lanka Chandrika Bandaranaike; Korean Presidents Kim Dae-Jung and Moo-hyun Imelda Marcos; Philippines Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino, and former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos.

His first foreign office was at the Italian Embassy in Tehran, where, as Consul of Italy in Iran, he successfully organized the evacuation of his compatriots and other European citizens during the Iranian Revolution (1978-1979). He was granted two Solemn Commendations for the evacuation operations. On 19 July 1979 he was transferred to the Italian Embassy in Washington where he remained until June 1983. On 17 June 1983 he returned to Rome to the headquarters of the Italian Foreign Ministry. He takes up service, first as Deputy Head of Office for the Middle East, then as Head of Office for Asia in the Directorate for Development Cooperation. From June 1984 to February1987 he was Head of the Secretariat of Undersecretary Bruno Corti with responsibility for the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Oceania. On February 14, 1987 he was sent to the Italian Embassy in Mogadishu as First Counsellor of the Embassy, that is Number Two or Deputy Ambassador. In this capacity, during the Somali civil war (1990 -91), he led a nucleus of Carabinieri of the Tuscania Battalion in the rescue operations of civilian populations, compatriots and numerous civilians of various nationalities. In recognition of these actions, two gold and four silver medals were awarded for Civil Valor. In the honourable mention it is emphasized that the nucleus of the Carabinieri led by the First Counsellor of the Embassy of Italy in Mogadishu Claudio Pacifico, performed acts of great humanitarian value with a sense of self-denial and contempt for danger. For this conduct, he will then be appointed by the Carabinieri, 'Meritorious Member' of the National Carabinieri Association. Again in recognition of his service in Somalia, in 1991 he was appointed, for the first time, Ambassador of Italy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, at the time the youngest Ambassador on the entire Italian diplomatic network. He took up his duties on 23 August 1991. On 2 May 1995 he returned to Rome, to the Farnesina, as Director of the Middle East Office in the Directorate General for Political Affairs. Subsequently, in a series of increasingly important assignments, he was: