Henk Ary Christiaan van der Zwan (20 May 1956) is a Dutch diplomat. He served as ambassador of the Netherlands to Estonia (2006–2010), Canada (2016–2020), and since 2021, Suriname.

Biography

Van der Zwan was born on 20 May 1956 in

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; fy, Ljouwert, longname=yes /; Town Frisian: ''Liwwadden''; Leeuwarder dialect: ''Leewarden'') is a city and municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 123,107 (2019). It is the provincial capital and seat of ...

. In 1975, he graduated from the

European School A European School ( la, Schola Europaea) is a type of international school emphasising a multilingual and multicultural pedagogical approach to the teaching of nursery, primary and secondary students, leading to the European Baccalaureate as th ...

in Luxembourg, and continued his studies at Leiden University where he graduated in 1984. He started to work for the

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands The Minister of Foreign Affairs ( nl, Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken) is the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Cabinet and the Council of Ministers. The incumbent minister is Wopke Hoekstra of the Christian Democratic ...

. Between 2002 and 2006, van der Zwan was general secretary of

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her hus ...

. In 2006, he was appointed Ambassador of the Netherlands to

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...

, and served until 2010. Between 2016 and 2020, van der Zwan served as ambassador to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. In April 2012, , the Dutch ambassador for Suriname, was recalled after the Bouterse government passed an

amnesty law An Amnesty law is any legislative, constitutional or executive arrangement that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for the crimes that they committed. More speci ...

for the

December murders The December murders (Dutch: ''Decembermoorden'') were the murders on 7, 8, and 9 December 1982, of fifteen prominent young Surinamese men who had criticized the military dictatorship then ruling Suriname. Thirteen of these men were arrested on De ...

. Diplomatic affairs were handled by ''chargé d'affaires''. In 2020, van der Zwan was nominated as

Ambassador of Suriname to the Netherlands An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

, and was installed on 10 February 2021. Van der Zwan also serves as non-resident ambassador to Guyana as of 7 December 2020.

Honours

* Honorary Cross of the

Order of the House of Orange The Order of the House of Orange (Dutch: ''Huisorde van Oranje''), sometimes referred to as the House Order of Orange, is a dynastic order of the House of Orange-Nassau, the royal family of the Netherlands similar to the Royal Victorian Order in ...

References

Living people 1955 births People from Leeuwarden Ambassadors of the Netherlands to Estonia Ambassadors of the Netherlands to Suriname Ambassadors of the Netherlands to Canada Dutch diplomats Alumni of the European Schools Leiden University alumni {{Netherlands-bio-stub