politiks: carolina barco

Carolina Barco is Colombia's ambassador to the United States. She works at the Colombian embassy in Washington, D.C. In 1973, Barco received her BA in Sociology and Economics from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, the same place Hillary Clinton attended. As an undergrad, she studied abroad in Belgium. In 1975, she received a masters degree in city planning from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. If Harvard weren't enough, she went on to obtain her MBA at the Business Institute in Spain. From 1990 to 1991, she was a visiting scholar at her father's Alma mater, MIT.

In 2002, Barco was appointed Foreign Minister of Colombia by President Alvaro Uribe. She served as minister for four years, until she was appointed Ambassador to the United States, replacing former Colombian president, Andres Pastrana Arango in Washington.

In April, Carolina met with Mark Penn, Hilary Clinton's campaign manager and CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to discuss the bilateral trade agreement that Colombia and the U.S.A are negotiating. Mark Penn resigned from Clinton's campaign as a result, apologizing for meeting with Carolina, calling it an error in judgment. Later that week, the Colombian government fired Burson-Marsteller for the comments, stating that his actions were a "lack of respect to Colombians. We find his response unacceptable."