Liberata Mulamula, a career foreign service officer, presented her credentials as Tanzania’s ambassador to the United States to President Barack Obama on July 18, 2013. Mulamula is also credentialed as ambassador to Mexico.
Mulamula graduated from the University of Dar-es-Salaam in 1980 and later received a master’s degree in government and politics from New York’s St. John’s University in 1989. She joined Tanzania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1981 as a third secretary in its legal and multilateral department.
In 1985, Mulamula came to the United States to serve in her country’s permanent mission to the United Nations as an advisor on disarmament, decolonization and anti-apartheid issues. In addition, she was a member of the UN/Organization of African Unity group on the denuclearization of Africa. That group’s work eventually resulted in the Treaty of Pelindaba, which created a nuclear-weapon-free zone on the continent. From 1992 to 1994, Mulamula participated in the Rwandan peace talks as a member of the facilitators team.
Mulamula went to Canada as deputy high commissioner in 1999, serving in that role until 2002. She then was made head of chancery for Tanzania’s mission to the UN in New York. Mulamula returned home in 2003 to become ambassador/director of multilateral cooperation in the foreign ministry.
In 2006, Mulamula was named first executive secretary of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region in Burundi. That multilateral group includes Angola, the Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Zambia and Tanzania and discusses issues of importance to the region. Mulamula served with that organization until 2011.
Mulamula was named senior personal assistant to Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in 2012, a position she held until coming to Washington.
Mulamula and her husband, George Mulamula, have two children, Alvin and Tanya.
-Steve Straehley
To Learn More:
Botswana, Tanzania ‘Sisters’ Share Different Africa Story (by Larry Luxner, Washington Diplomat)
