Rudy Insanally

Who is Rudy Insanally?

Samuel Rudolph "Rudy" Insanally is a Guyanese diplomat. He has been Guyana's Permanent Representative to the United Nations since 1987 and was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana from 2001 to 2008.

Insanally was born in Georgetown, Guyana. Before his career as a diplomat began, he taught French and Spanish in Jamaica at Kingston College and Jamaica College, as well as in Guyana at Queen's College and the University of Guyana. In his first diplomatic posting, he was Counsellor to Guyana's Embassy to the United States from 1966 to 1969, and he subsequently became Guyana's charge d'affaires in Venezuela in 1970. He was briefly his country's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 1972, then served as Ambassador to Venezuela from 1972 to 1978. After this posting, he was Permanent Representative to the European Economic Community and Ambassador to Belgium; although living in Brussels, he was also Ambassador to Austria, Norway, and Sweden at this time.

Subsequently, having returned to Guyana, Insanally was Head of the Political Division covering the Western Hemisphere, also serving as Ambassador to Colombia and as High Commissioner to a number of Caribbean nations. He became the Permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations on February 18, 1987. At the UN, he was Vice President of the United Nations Council for Namibia prior to Namibian independence in 1990, and in April 1990 he was Vice President/Rapporteur of the Special Session of the General Assembly on International Economic Cooperation. He was the President of the Forty-Eighth Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which was held from 1993 to 1994. He is the longest serving current delegate to the United Nations.