Sacha Walters, Staff Reporter

Chilean Ambassador, Alfredo Garcia Castelblanco. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Alfredo Garcia Castelblanco always wanted to be a diplomat. Growing up in Santiago, the capital of his homeland Chile, he yearned to follow in his grandfather's footsteps.

The father of four children has been around the world a lot in his 32-year career, living in 12 countries.

Six months ago he took up his latest post as Chilean Ambassador to Jamaica.

Senor Castelblanco is also Chile's permanent representative to the International Seabed Authority. Previous posts include deputy chief of protocol at the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Chile to Portugal.

"My grandfather was an ambassador in Canada and Mexico. He was the only diplomat in the family. I'm the only one now and my daughters and my son they don't want to hear about it," he told The Gleaner. "In a way, the family of a diplomat suffers a lot with this career."

What is Santiago like?

It's a very modern city; it's a very big city, almost half the population of the country lives in Santiago. It's not very easy to move around, but now there are some new freeways in the city that allow you to move easier.

Is your traffic anything in comparison to Kingston's?

It's much easier. It depends on where you're going and at what time. In general, you don't have big problems if you're not moving at peak time and it depends on where you're going.

You've been in Jamaica almost six months, what has it been like?

I've been all around the island because I like it very much. My wife and I are trying to cover the island as soon as possible. We spent Christmas in Montego Bay and we've been around Port Antonio about six times. I like it very much.

Have you had to adjust in any way?

After a while in this career you're used to adjusting everywhere and here is not a difficult place to adjust. As an ambassador you have everything in place before you arrive.

What is the (diplomatic) link between Jamaica and Chile?

We have been involved in various programmes. We are providing assistance with teaching Spanish teachers. They are going to Chile for a couple of months. We have about 15 (to) 17 teachers and they come back after a couple of months, then UWI (University of the West Indies) selects persons in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.

We have political consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last April and we're planning to have a visit of (Chile's) Minister of Foreign Affairs in the last quarter of the year. We are planning to have a seminar of our experience in the implementation of free trade agreements because CARICOM is having their first agreement with Europe. We have this arrangement with Europe for several years, and we have an experience that we'd like to transfer not only to Jamaica but to CARICOM. We're hoping to have the seminar at the end of September.

Any favourite causes?

Economics is my business. I have been in international economic negotiations from the beginning of my career, that is why I'm pushing this seminar because I think the Chilean experience with this type of agreement is great and we can help to understand the challenges that Jamaica and CARICOM are confronting with this negotiation under the signature of EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement).

We can give assurance that the gains of these treaties are good. We are also planning to have a film festival in October with some Chilean films that will participate in a Latin American Countries Film Festival here in Kingston.

We'll have two or three movies and this is one of the things I think we should encourage for the relationship in both countries.

Is the film industry big in Chile?

It's growing. It was a very small industry until 15 or 20 years ago. Now, we're having seven or eight movies per year. Some of them are very good. We're growing in films but not as big in music as you are here.

What would you say contributed to the growth of the industry?

It's easier to make movies. Thirty years ago it was very expensive, but now it's easier and the government is giving a lot of backing to this industry.

For someone who has never been to Chile, what are some of the sites they have to see?

We have a very narrow and long country of almost 5000 kilometres. We have all kinds of attractions; you have a desert in the north and we have a very fertile valley in the centre of the country. We produce great wine, and wine is one of our main products in Jamaica, in the Caribbean in general.

Are Caribbean people big drinkers of wine?

Beginning to be. Beer, Jamaican beer, I think is fantastic and I like it very much, I think it's the main drink of the country but wine is entering. The Chilean wine is very famous in this area.

Tour of DUTY with SACHA WALTERS