Garret FitzGerald, former Irish prime minister, dies at 85

Garret FitzGerald, who as Ireland's prime minister in the 1980s was an early architect for peace in neighboring Northern Ireland, died Thursday in a Dublin hospital, the government and his family announced. He was 85.

Flags were lowered to half-staff as politicians of all parties paid tribute to FitzGerald as a man of integrity and vision.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, on the third day of her visit to Ireland, hailed FitzGerald as "a true statesman" who had "made a lasting contribution to peace."

FitzGerald, former leader of Ireland's perennial No. 2 party Fine Gael, lived just long enough to see Fine Gael finally overtake its old enemy, the Fianna Fail party, and claim first place in a national election this year for the first time.

FitzGerald's closest political colleagues said he was deeply heartened to see this week's first-ever trip to Dublin by the queen, a crowning event of the Northern Ireland peace process that FitzGerald did much to promote during his two terms in office between 1981 and 1987.

FitzGerald's greatest triumph was the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1985 with Britain, an achievement shaped by his Dublin upbringing with a northern Protestant mother and southern Catholic father.

FitzGerald was a unique figure in Irish politics: an intellectual and university economist who turned to parliament in mid-career. His polished manners and soft-spoken wit offered a polar opposite to Ireland's dominant politician of the day, the corrupt and coarse Charles Haughey. Their parliamentary battles were the centerpiece of Irish political life in the 1980s.

FitzGerald, a relative liberal in his conservative Catholic party, sought greater roles for women in public life. He was an enthusiast for the European Union, which Ireland joined soon after Fine Gael came to power in 1973. FitzGerald served as foreign minister in that 1973-77 government.

As prime minister between 1981 and 1987, FitzGerald was unable to reverse a fiscal and economic crisis bequeathed him by the reckless spending of Haughey's government of the late 1970s.

Ireland suffered double-digit unemployment, heavy emigration and a losing battle to control deficits during his six years in power.

Fine Gael's partner in government, union-linked Labour, refused to back FitzGerald's austerity plans, and the coalition installed in June 1981 collapsed after eight months. Haughey returned to power but only for nine months, and FitzGerald returned in 1982 heading another coalition.

After resigning as Fine Gael leader after the party's election defeat in 1987, FitzGerald remained active during election campaigns.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Garret FitzGerald in 1984. Credit: Getty Images

Lidia Gueiler, Bolivian president between coups, dies at 89

 

Lidia Gueiler, the only woman ever to have been Bolivia's president, died Monday, her family announced in the capital of La Paz. She was 89.

Her grandson, Luis Eduardo Siles, confirmed her death in an interview with Fides radio. He didn't specify the cause but said she had been sick for weeks.

Gueiler was the second woman to lead a Latin American nation as president when she held the post for about eight months in 1979-80 between coup d'etats. Isabel Martinez de Peron, the third wife of Argentine leader Juan Peron, was that country's president in 1974-76.

In 1956, Gueiler became the first woman elected to the Bolivian legislature. As president of Congress, she followed Bolivia's constitutional line of succession and assumed the presidency in 1979 after a deadly popular revolt ousted coup leader Gen. Alberto Natusch Busch.

Gueiler called elections but no candidate won a majority to immediately become president as required by Bolivian law. Her cousin Gen. Luis Garcia Meza overthrew her 18 days after the vote, before a runoff could be held.

Garcia Meza's government lasted two years, during which it killed and imprisoned dozens of political opponents and cooperated with drug traffickers. Garcia Meza is imprisoned in Bolivia for human rights crimes.

Gueiler fled into exile after her ouster but returned from Chile in 1983.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Former Bolivian president Lidia Gueiler in a 2008 file photo. Credit: Martin Alipaz / European Pressphoto Agency

Cuban exile militant Orlando Bosch dies in Miami at 84

Prominent Cuban exile militant Orlando Bosch, who was acquitted in Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner, has died in Miami. He was 84.

The opponent of Cuba's Fidel Castro died Wednesday after a lengthy hospital stay in suburban Miami. Bosch's wife, Adriana, said he had suffered complications from various illnesses and had been hospitalized since December.

Bosch and fellow militant Luis Posada Carriles were both accused in the 1976 bombing that killed all 73 people aboard the flight from Venezuela to Cuba.

Venezuelan authorities arrested Bosch and held him for 11 years. They failed twice to convict him and finally freed him to return to the United States. The federal government then held Bosch for three years in a Miami jail as an "undesirable alien" and released a report linking him to right-wing terrorist groups responsible for 50 bombings in Miami, New York and Latin America. While Posada was awaiting a retrial after an acquittal by a military court, he escaped from a Venezuelan prison. Posada was recently acquitted on charges of lying to U.S. immigration authorities about his past.

Former Fijian President Ratu Josefa Iloilo dies at 91

Ratu Josefa Iloilo, a Fijian tribal chief who as president made crucial decisions backing the military takeover of the South Pacific country, died Feb. 7 at Suva Private Hospital in Fiji, the government said. He was 91 and had a longtime heart condition.

The government is honoring Iloilo with a full state funeral Thursday.

A traditional high chief and former teacher, Iloilo became a key ally of armed forces chief Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who overthrew the elected government in a December 2006 coup amid rising tensions between indigenous Fijians and the country's large ethnic Indian minority.

Bainimarama seized the president's powers in the coup but returned them within days to Iloilo, who then swore in the armed forces chief as prime minister and his appointees as the Cabinet, giving the regime a veneer of legitimacy.

Iloilo stepped in again on Bainimarama's behalf in April 2009, when Fiji's Court of Appeal ruled that Bainimarama's government was illegal and all decisions that it had made were invalid.

Iloilo responded by abolishing the constitution, firing the nation's judges and imposing emergency rule that continues to this day, with the nation ruled by decrees issued by the office of president on the advice of Bainimarama and his Cabinet.

Since the coup — Fiji's fourth since 1987 — Fiji has been suspended from the 53-nation Commonwealth group and 16-country Pacific Islands Forum, and aid from the Commonwealth and European Union has been cut. Neighbors Australia and New Zealand have imposed travel sanctions on its leadership.

But Bainimarama has refused to bow to demands for an early return to democracy, saying he will reform the country's institutions and root out corruption before holding elections in 2014.

Iloilo stood down as president in 2010 and was replaced by Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, a former armed forces commander.

He had been appointed to the country's highest office in 2000, shortly after the collapse of the country's third military coup. He swore in the Cabinet of the democratically elected government of premier Laisenia Qarase that lasted until the 2006 coup.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Fiji's President Ratu Josefa Iloilo in 2000. Credit: Associated Press

Samuel Ruiz, Mexican bishop who helped mediate peace talks in Chiapas, dies at 86

 
Samuel Ruiz, a Roman Catholic bishop famed as a defender of Mexican Indian rights and best known for helping mediate peace talks with the leftist Zapatista rebels in the southern state of Chiapas in the 1990s, has died in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, from a long-standing pulmonary ailment. He was 86.

Bishop Felipe Arizmendi, who took over Ruiz's diocese, confirmed his death Monday.

Arizmendi says Ruiz's remains will be returned to Chiapas for a memorial service. Ruiz is survived by a nephew.

Ruiz earned the affection of the state's largely Indian population and allowed some aspects of Indian religious practices to permeate his diocese -- irritating conservatives.

A complete obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Samuel Ruiz, bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, in 1999. Credit: Janet Schwartz / AFP/Getty Images

Liu Huaqing, Chinese naval commander, dies at 95

Liu Huaqing, the father of the modern Chinese navy, died Friday of an undisclosed illness at age 95, state broadcaster CCTV said from Beijing. No other details were given.

Liu commanded the People's Liberation Army Navy from 1982 to 1988 and is credited with revitalizing a coastal patrol force and setting it on course to becoming a powerful navy.

As commander, he laid out a strategy of building an offshore navy capacity by 2000 and a true blue-water navy able to operate far from home ports by 2050. That included the concept of a first, second and third line of island chains through which the navy would gradually expand operations eastward into the Pacific toward Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam and eventually Australia.

Accomplishing that goal requires the addition of modern submarines, surface ships and naval aircraft, and the Chinese navy has received lavish budget increases each year to acquire new equipment. China now has the largest navy in Asia, although it remains far behind the U.S. Navy in most respects.

Liu joined the Communist Party in 1935 and served with the People's Liberation Army throughout the struggle against Japan and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. Following the Communist victory in 1949, he was sent to the then-Soviet Union for schooling before being assigned to command units in the fledgling navy.

In his later years, he rose to the position of vice chairman of the party and served on its Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of Chinese political power.

"Comrade Liu Huaqing was an excellent party member, a faithful Communist fighter, outstanding proletarian, politician, soldier, and outstanding leader of the state and party," CCTV said in its official obituary broadcast on the evening national news.

Liu lived through many of the seminal events of the party's history, including the 1934-35 Long March that saved the party from annihilation by Chiang's troops and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution that saw many party elders persecuted by radical Red Guard.

Liu remained active through the mid-1990s and appeared in uniform at 2007 commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Liu Huaqing in 1996. Credit: Associated Press

Jiri Dienstbier, first foreign minister of Czechoslovakia after fall of communism, dies at 73

Jiri Dienstbier, a journalist, anti-communist dissident and the first foreign minister of Czechoslovakia after the collapse of communism, has died. He was 73.

Dienstbier died Saturday in a Prague hospital, according to Czech public television and his Senate assistant. The cause of death was not given.

Dienstbier played an important role in the 1989 Velvet Revolution as a close ally of its leader, Vaclav Havel, that peacefully ended 41 years of the communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

After the collapse of communism in 1989, he first served as the country's foreign minister before also becoming a deputy prime minister.

"It's a great loss for both, the Czech Republic and me, personally," Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said.

Born on April 20, 1937, Dienstbier became a member of the Communist Party in 1958 and worked as a foreign correspondent for Czechoslovak radio in several countries, including the United States.

After the Soviet invasion crushed the liberal reforms of Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and ended an era known as the Prague Spring, Dienstbier was fired from the party.

He became an anti-communist dissident and was among the first to sign Charter 77, a human-rights manifesto inspired by Havel, who was then a dissident playwright and later was president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia  was divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

Dienstbier was jailed for three years for his anti-communist activities.

From 1998 to 2001, he served as special envoy for the U.N. Human Rights Commission in former Yugoslavia.

Dienstbier returned to Czech politics in 2008, when he became a lawmaker in the Czech Senate as an independent candidate with support of the leftist Social Democrats. His term was to expire in 2014.

-- Associated Press

 

Shah of Iran's son Alireza Pahlavi dies at 44, an apparent suicide

Alireza Pahlavi, the youngest son of the late shah of Iran, was found dead Tuesday in an apparent suicide at his home in Boston, after he had "struggled for years to overcome his sorrow," his brother said. He was 44.

"Once again, we are joined with mothers, father and relatives of so many victims of these dark times for our country," the shah's oldest son, Reza Pahlavi, wrote on his website in announcing the death of his brother.

Pahlavi, died from a gunshot wound that apparently was self-inflicted, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney's office.

Boston police said officers responding to a 911 call found the man dead in his home in the city's South End neighborhood shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday. A police spokesman did not know who made the call or whether it came from the home.

Fardia Pars, who is close to Reza Pahlavi, said by phone from Paris that Alireza Pahlavi went into a deep depression following the 2001 death of his sister Leila Pahlavi, who was found in a London hotel room at age 31 after overdosing on barbiturates.

Alireza Pahlavi never recovered, Pars said.

"He became a different person," he said.

Pahlavi's depression "grew over time — his departure from Iran, living in exile, the death of his father and then his sister to whom he was very close," said Nazie Eftekhari, who works in Reza Pahlavi's office in Washington, D.C., and is a close family friend.

"The deaths were a huge blow to him," she said.

When Leila Pahlavi died, her mother said her daughter had been "very depressed." Her doctor had said she had a history of anorexia, bulimia and psychological problems.

Pars said Alireza Pahlavi's style even in taking his life was militaristic in nature, reflecting his royal background.

"Like an army commander, he shot himself. He was a very disciplined man," Pars said.

 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. He fled Iran and moved from country to country, ill with cancer, and eventually died in Egypt in 1980.

Alireza Pahlavi was born in Tehran in 1966 and attended school there until 1979, according to a brief biographical sketch on the website of his mother, the former empress Farah Pahlavi.

From 1979 to 1981, Alireza Pahlavi attended schools in New York and Cairo, and from 1981 to 1984 he attended Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown, Mass.

Pahlavi studied music as an undergraduate at Princeton University and ancient Iranian studies as a graduate student at Columbia University.

He also did postgraduate work at Harvard University in ancient Iranian studies and philology. He was not studying at the university at the time of his death, a Harvard spokesman said Tuesday.

A police officer was seen late Tuesday afternoon going in and out of Pahlavi's Boston apartment and speaking with family representatives, who would not talk to reporters.

A neighbor, Dan Phillips, said he did not know Pahlavi personally but recognized his picture and described him as someone who was very sociable and "who always dressed very dapper."

"I would always see him walking around here, and he used to wear blue jeans and a blazer," Phillips said.

Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said in a statement that "the Iranian-American community was deeply saddened" by news of the death.

"There are many divisions in the community, but on a day like this, I think we are all united in our sympathy with the Pahlavi family for their tragic and painful loss," Parsi said.

Reza Pahlavi has spoken out in opposition to Iran's clerical regime. It's not clear how much weight exiled opposition forces have inside Iran nor how many Iranians support the idea of a return to monarchy. Pahlavi said in 2009 that that was not his goal.

"I'm not here to advocate anything but … freedom and democracy for the Iranian people at first, and I've determined this as my unique mission in life," he said at the time.

-- Associated Press

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, architect of euro currency, dies at 70

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an architect of the euro currency and a founding member of the European Central Bank's executive board, has died. He was 70.

Padoa-Schioppa died after suffering a heart attack Friday night in Rome, the newspaper La Repubblica reported.

Padoa-Schioppa, who fought for the single currency as a catalyst for European integration, served on the central bank's executive board from 1999 until 2005. He was deputy director general of the Bank of Italy for 13 years and was named finance minister under Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in May 2006, a position he kept until the government collapsed in January 2008.

"Our new currency unites not only economies, but also the people of Europe," he said in June 1999, six months after the euro's launch. "The society with these unifying bonds is now the European society, and not only a national society: this, I think, represents a profound change in human history."

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa was born July 23, 1940, in Belluno, Italy. His father, Fabio Padoa-Schioppa, worked in insurance and was a schoolteacher. He studied at the Bocconi University in Milan, where he got a degree in economics in 1966, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was fluent in German and English.

In 1988, Padoa-Schioppa served as joint secretary to the Delors Committee, named after the then-president of the European Commission, investigated how European Union countries could remove all common trade barriers by introducing a single currency. The committee came up with a three-stage plan that was later included in a 1992 treaty that instituted the single currency.

Padoa-Schioppa called the euro "a currency without a state."

-- Bloomberg News

Photo: Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa in New York earlier this month.

Credit: Jim Lee / Bloomberg

 

Dov Shilansky, Israeli advocate of Holocaust victims, dies at 86

Dov Shilansky, a former Israeli parliament speaker and advocate for memorializing the victims of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, has died. He was 86.

Shilansky died Thursday at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, parliament spokesman Giora Pordes told the Associated Press.

The diminutive politician with an unruly thatch of white hair was known for his hard-line political views alongside an easygoing manner and ready smile.

From 1988 to 1992, Shilansky served as speaker of the parliament. In 1993, he was the Likud candidate for the ceremonial post of president, losing an election in the parliament to Ezer Weizman, a popular ex-air force commander.

Possibly his longest-lasting legacy is a ceremony that has become part of Israel's observance of an annual memorial day for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Concerned that the huge number was incomprehensible, in 1989 he got fellow lawmakers to stand at a podium in the parliament building and read names of victims.

The custom, known as "Every Person Has a Name," quickly spread to public squares all over Israel. After retiring from politics, Shilansky served on the board of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial authority.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a political ally, said that with Shilansky's passing, Israel lost one of its most dedicated and exemplary leaders.

"The story of his life is the story of our people," he said Thursday.

Born in Lithuania, Shilansky immigrated to Israel in 1948 after years of activism in a hard-line Jewish movement. He was a lawyer by training and was first elected to parliament for the hawkish Likud Party in 1977. Later he was appointed a deputy minister in Prime Minister Menachem Begin's government.

Before arriving in Israel, he was a commander in the Jewish underground movement Etzel in Germany and Italy. He arrived in Israel aboard the Altalena, a ship carrying tons of arms illegally to the Etzel militia. Etzel, also known as Irgun, was headed by Begin in Israel. It was disbanded when the state of Israel was set up.

Shilansky fought in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948-49. In 1952, Shilansky was arrested for carrying explosives into the Foreign Ministry building in Tel Aviv to try to disrupt Israeli-German negotiations for a reparations agreement after the Holocaust. That reflected extreme displeasure of his and Begin's Herut party, an outgrowth of Etzel, to any dealings with Germany.

Shilansky was sentenced to two years in prison.

Shilansky is survived by two children, according to Pordes. Another son died in 1974 while serving in the Israeli army.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Dov Shilansky in an undated photo. Credit: Associated Press

Huang Hua, diplomat and translator for Mao Tse-tung, dies at 97

Huang Hua, a former translator for Mao Tse-tung who oversaw China's formation of diplomatic ties with the United States in 1979, died Wednesday. He was 97.

State broadcaster CCTV said Huang died of an undisclosed illness.

Huang helped lay the foundation of China's modern foreign policy, meeting secretly with U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and helping draft the announcement of President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit to the country in 1972.

As foreign minister from 1976-1985, Huang oversaw the formation of diplomatic ties with Washington in 1979 and accompanied paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on his tour of the United States that year.

Huang joined the then-underground Communist Party in 1936 and was one of Mao's English translators in the years before the 1949 communist seizure of power, according to his official biography.

He was increasingly pivotal in China's foreign relations at a time when the communist state was largely isolated and battling for diplomatic recognition with Chiang Kai-shek's U.S.-allied Nationalists on Taiwan.

In the early 1950s, Huang was part of the Chinese delegation to drawn-out Korean War peace talks that eventually resulted in the 1953 armistice still in force.

In 1958, he took part in tentative initial contacts with the U.S. in Warsaw, Poland, that at the time were the only conduit for direct contacts between the sides.

-- Associated Press

North Korean military official Jo Myong-Rok dies at 82

Top North Korean military official Jo Myong-Rok, a longtime confidant of leader Kim Jong Il who traveled to Washington in 2000 on a then-unprecedented goodwill mission, has died. He was 82.

Jo, who was vice marshal of the Korean People's Army and held the No. 2 post on the powerful National Defense Commission behind Kim, died Saturday of heart disease, the official Korean Central News Agency reported from Pyongyang.

Jo, a Korean War veteran, paid a rare visit to Washington in October 2000 as Kim's special envoy, meeting during that trip with then-President Clinton. He also pledged to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that North Korea would take steps to fundamentally improve relations in the interests of peace and security.

Jo was the highest-level North Korean official to visit Washington, and his trip -- followed by Albright's landmark visit to Pyongyang -- was part of North Korea's efforts to keep up the momentum generated by a breakthrough summit between Kim and late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung held earlier that year.

Jo was born into a peasant's family in Yonsa County in North Hamgyong province, the news agency said. He served as a pilot during the war, which North Korea refers to as the "Fatherland Liberation War," and later rose to the position of chief of staff and commander of the air force of the Korean People's Army, state media said.

Jo's body will lie in state at Pyongyang's Central Hall of Workers to receive mourners before a state funeral Wednesday. Kim and his son and heir apparent Kim Jong Un are among members of the funeral committee.

-- Associated Press