Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's prime minister in the '90s, dies at 72

 
Viktor Chernomyrdin, who served as Russia's prime minister in the turbulent 1990s as the country was throwing off communism and developing as a market economy, died Wednesday in Moscow. He was 72.

No cause of death has been released, but Chernomyrdin had grown thin in recent years and was reported to have been ill. His wife of nearly 50 years died early this year.

In recognition of the stature Chernomyrdin has carried in Russia's post-Soviet history, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his chief of staff to organize Friday's funeral and instructed the state television network to broadcast it live.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid tribute to him at the start of a Cabinet meeting with a moving eulogy.

Chernomyrdin helped see Russia through some difficult times, including the economic devastation that followed the Soviet collapse and the war in Chechnya, where he once played a crucial if unlikely role as peace negotiator.

Over the years he grew on his countrymen, who came to appreciate his everyman's charms and sense of humor.

He had a knack for bursting out with colorful, nongrammatical expressions, such as "we wanted the best but things turned out as always," a phrase that has become part of Russian culture.

Born in a Siberian village, he was a bear of a man who rose through the ranks of the Communist Party to head the Soviet oil and gas ministry from 1985 to 1989. Chernomyrdin then engineered the transformation of the ministry into a state gas company, Gazprom, which is now the bedrock of Russia's economy.

In late 1992, he was appointed prime minister by then-President Boris Yeltsin and surprised the young economists leading Russia's transformation by pushing ahead with liberal reforms.

In 1995, in the middle of the first Chechen war, he held televised negotiations with rebel leader Shamil Basayev, whose forces had taken more than 1,500 people hostage in a hospital in Budyonnovsk. The hostages were freed in exchange for Russia's promise to begin negotiating a peaceful settlement, but Chernomyrdin took heat for allowing the hostage-takers to escape.

His phrase "Shamil Basayev, we can't hear you, speak louder," a plea made during the negotiations, became a symbol of the war. For some it showed the government's helplessness against the rebels, but others saw in it a rare and admirable willingness to compromise for the sake of saving lives.

Chernomyrdin was fired in March 1998, but following the financial crash in August of that year, when Russia defaulted on its debts and devalued its currency, Yeltsin asked him to return as prime minister. Parliament, however, refused to confirm him.

In 2001, a year after Putin had been elected president, he appointed Chernomyrdin as ambassador to Ukraine. Chernomyrdin had been elected to Parliament and his diplomatic posting was seen as an effort to distance a political heavyweight from Moscow. Chernomyrdin remained ambassador until last year.

Putin praised him Wednesday as a "real patriot," noting his contributions to the development of Russia, but most of all his character.

"Behind his seeming simplicity, his jokes, his playing on his own aphorisms ... was in fact hidden a subtle, wise and decent man," Putin said at the televised Cabinet meeting. He concluded by asking the ministers to rise to pay their respects.

Chernomyrdin is to be buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery, the final resting place of Yeltsin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and many of Russia's most notable cultural and military figures.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, right, with President Boris Yeltsin in 1993. Credit: Grigory Dukor / Reuters

Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, 60, dies of a heart attack

 

Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, the current president's husband and a contender to succeed her in next year's election, died Wednesday after a heart attack. He was 60.

Kirchner was credited by many Argentines with putting South America's No. 2 economy back on its feet after a devastating 2001-02 economic crisis, but critics reviled his combative governing style.

"It was a sudden death," Kirchner's doctor, Luis Buonomo, told Reuters after the former president died in the Patagonian tourist city of El Calafate, where he and President Cristina Fernandez have a weekend home.

The death of the center-leftist, who kept a firm hold on the reins of power even after his wife was elected to succeed him in 2007, raises uncertainty about the government's strategy for next year's election and might encourage Fernandez to seek a second term. Her approval ratings have consistently been higher than Kirchner's.

Kirchner, elected as a virtual unknown in 2003 on the ashes of the economic meltdown, started his political career in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, where he was governor for many years.

He was a member of the dominant Peronist party and oversaw a strong economic recovery that won him solid backing.

Critics, however, branded his tough political style and strongly worded attacks on big business, journalists and political rivals as authoritarian.

When farmers rebelled over a tax hike on soy exports in 2008, he accused them of being coup plotters and told supporters to boycott companies that hiked prices.

Kirchner focused on cementing political alliances at home to shore up his administration and that of his wife, but he also forged close links abroad with Latin American leftists such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who called his death "a huge loss."

President Obama offered his "sincere condolences" and said Kirchner "played a significant role in the political life of Argentina and had embarked upon an important new chapter with UNASUR [Union of South American Nations]." Kirchner had been UNASUR secretary-general.

Kirchner was widely expected to run in the October 2011 election, but concerns over his health increased after he underwent arterial procedures in February and September.

His wife's government said Kirchner was rushed to hospital in the early hours of Wednesday after suffering an apparent heart attack. Fernandez was with him when he was taken ill.

A full obituary will follow at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Reuters

Photo: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez with her husband, former Argentine President  Nestor Kirchner, last week. Credit: Reuters

Kwa Geok Choo, wife of Singapore's first prime minister and mother of current premier, dies at 89

Kwa Geok Choo, the wife of Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and the mother of the island-nation’s current premier, Lee Hsien Loong, died Saturday after suffering a stroke two years ago. She was 89.

Born in 1921, Kwa first met Lee in the late 1930s when they studied in Raffles Institution, where she was the only girl in an all-boys high school. At Raffles College several years later, they competed for the Queen’s Scholarship, which allowed recipients to study at either Cambridge or Oxford universities.

Kwa was the top student in English and economics, besting Lee to his “horror,” he said in the first volume of his memoirs dedicated to her. World War II interrupted their studies, and Lee left Singapore in 1946 to study at Cambridge after the Japanese left. Kwa joined him a year later after she won the Queen’s Scholarship, and they both graduated with law degrees.

She married Lee in December 1947, and they had two sons and a daughter. She was regularly seen accompanying Lee at state events and overseas visits.

Lee said he could afford to give up his career as a lawyer and follow his convictions to enter politics because of Kwa, according to the book “Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas.”

“My great advantage was I have a wife who could be a sole breadwinner and bring the children up,” Lee was quoted as saying. “That was my insurance policy. Without such a wife, I would have been hard-pressed.”

The couple and Lee’s brother founded law firm Lee & Lee in September 1955, according to the legal company’s website. Kwa and her brother-in-law, Lee Kim Yew, ran the firm after Lee became the city’s prime minister from 1959 to 1990.

Their elder son was sworn in as Singapore’s third prime minister six years ago, replacing Goh Chok Tong, who took over as premier in 1990. Lee now has the role of minister mentor.

-- Bloomberg

Ten years ago: Pierre Trudeau

If Pierre Trudeau's life were a movie, at least part of it would be a '70s spy-thriller spoof costarring Barbra Streisand (whom the former Canadian prime minister dated in real life). A heady montage would feature the energetic, popular premier -- who was elected in 1968 on a tide of "Trudeaumania," the phenomenon spun by his irreverence, bachelorhood and glamour -- sliding down a banister at Buckingham Palace and making an obscene gesture at protesting constituents, which he really did. And that sequence would run over the rhythmic piano chords of a Beatles track, since Trudeau once welcomed John Lennon and Yoko Ono to his office in Ottawa.

Flashy though he was -- Trudeau once charged five grizzly bears up a hillside -- he was also a firm statesman, a defender of Canada's unity against its own linguistic and cultural divisions, and a champion of civil rights. Long after colonial rule, Canada existed as an act of British parliament; Trudeau brought the constitution home, appending a Bill of Rights-like charter in the process. And when he died, on Sept. 28, 2000, mourning for Trudeau bore the full weight of his generational 16 years as a head of state. (He served until 1984, with a few months off imposed by voters in the 1979 elections.)

Trudeau's politics featured trademarks of the left. He constructed a European-style welfare state and, earlier, as justice minister, liberalized laws on divorce, abortion and homosexuality. But he also disdained the "bleeding hearts" who protested his swift and severe crackdown on violent Quebecois separatists in October 1970. Trudeau's martial reaction was "overkill," his biographer said in The Times' obituary, "but there's no question it was a success."

The obituary has more on the grizzly-charging incident and on Trudeau's relationship with his wife, Margaret, whom he married in 1971 and who betrayed him for -- as is really only fitting -- the Rolling Stones.

-- Michael Owen

Photo: Trudeau in London, in 1975. Credit: Agence France-Presse

Juan Mari Bras, Puerto Rican independence activist, dies at 82

Juan Mari Bras, 82, an elder statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement who gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired hundreds of other activists, died Friday at his home in the San Juan suburb of Rio Piedras. He had lung cancer and had recently taken a fall, said Elaine Mulet Hocking, a spokeswoman for his Hostosiano independence movement.

A writer and law professor, Mari Bras was deeply involved in the independence cause from his days as a teenage student activist in the 1940s. He founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and was a co-founder of the small but influential Independence Party.

He dedicated his later years to seeking unity among the various pro-independence factions in Puerto Rico, a U.S. Caribbean territory whose 4 million residents are American citizens but cannot vote for president.

Gov. Luis Fortuno, who represents the opposite end of Puerto Rico's political spectrum as leader of the pro-statehood party, issued a statement praising Mari Bras as a legendary leader who fought for his ideals.

In an effort to establish Puerto Ricans' separate national identity, Mari Bras traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994 and renounced his American citizenship while claiming the right to continue living in Puerto Rico. His actions inspired other "independentistas" to do the same.

The State Department initially approved Mari Bras' petition, but reversed its decision in 1998, the centennial year of the U.S. invasion that resulted in the seizure of Puerto Rico from Spain. U.S. officials told Mari Bras he was again a U.S. citizen because he hadn't registered as a resident alien.

As the result of legal challenges stemming from that case, the island government in 2007 issued its first certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship to Mari Bras. Some other islanders have also requested the document, which is valid as an ID on the island but not recognized as a travel document outside the island given that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Mari Bras also became the first Puerto Rican to lobby the United Nations for the island's independence in 1973, kicking off what has become a tradition at the U.N.’s special committee on decolonization.

The Independence Party typically receives less than 5% of the vote, with most islanders split between supporting statehood for Puerto Rico and the status quo as a U.S. commonwealth.

Mari Bras was born in the west-coast city of Mayaguez on Dec. 2, 1927, and graduated from American University Law School in Washington.

He is survived by his wife and five children. Another child, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was murdered in 1976 while Mari Bras was campaigning for governor on a Socialist Party ticket. The family has expressed suspicions that he was slain in reprisal for his father's political activism, but the case was never solved.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Jose Mari Bras in 2007. Credit: Thais Llorca / EPA

Italian politician Francesco Cossiga dies at 82

Francesco Cossiga, a veteran politician who led Italy's fight against domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s but resigned after failing to save the life of a politician kidnapped by the Red Brigades, died Tuesday in Rome. He was 82.

Cossiga had been hospitalized since last week with heart and respiratory problems. His health took a "drastic" turn for the worse Monday night, and early Tuesday he was put back on life support, Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic said.

Cossiga declared himself "politically dead" in 1978 after the Red Brigades leftist terrorist group assassinated his mentor and friend Aldo Moro, the leader of the Christian Democrats and a former premier, two months after kidnapping him.

But Cossiga went on to lead a vigorous political life for several more years, including as prime minister and president of the republic, Italy's highest office.

As president in the mid-1980s, he used the largely ceremonial, head-of-state role to publicly lambaste parliament and the judiciary in what some saw as an effort to spur reform in an increasingly inefficient, moribund postwar system of revolving-door coalition governments.

Often accused of harboring political secrets, Cossiga, a staunch U.S. supporter, eventually admitted involvement in a shady Cold War-era, anti-Communist network known as Gladio.

In another murky, never resolved Italian case, Cossiga was premier in 1980 when an Italian domestic jetliner exploded in flight and crashed near the island of Ustica. Among theories for the jet's demise was a bomb planted by domestic terrorists, or an errant U.S. or French missile allegedly fired at a Libyan MiG streaking over the Mediterranean.

Various nicknames marked the stages of Cossiga's political career.

Ghazi Algosaibi, controversial writer and former Saudi Arabia ambassador, dies at 70

Ghazi Algosaibi, Saudi Arabia's former ambassador to Britain who also was known for his poetry and liberal religious views in an overwhelmingly conservative country that banned his writings, has died. He was 70.

Algosaibi died Sunday of colon cancer that had spread to his stomach lining, said his cousin, Saud Algosaibi. Algosaibi underwent surgery three weeks ago at Riyadh's King Faisal Specialist Hospital and had been in the intensive care unit since, said Badr al-Qahtani, a hospital official.

Algosaibi headed the ministries of health, electricity, water, industry and labor. He also served as ambassador to Britain from 1992-2002.

The scion of a wealthy trading family, Algosaibi was close to the kingdom's ruling family.

"Ghazi was a symbol of modernity in Saudi Arabia," said Khalid al-Dakhil, a pro-reform political scientist at King Saud University. He said Algosaibi's modernist views were valued by the kingdom's current monarch, King Abdullah. "He was the first to hold that position ... a bridge between the authority and modern thoughts."

Algosaibi spoke out against terrorism and extremism and called for democratic reform in the kingdom, while recognizing that it needed to be a very gradual process.

"What makes reform here slow is that Saudi Arabia has always been based on the principle of consensus. You have to wait for a viable consensus to reform before you go ahead," he said in 2005 during the country's first nationwide municipal elections.

Algosaibi was also a prolific novelist, poet and columnist. His writings were banned in Saudi Arabia because they frequently voiced criticism of ruling regimes in the region and often presented a satirical depiction of social and political mores.

In his 1994 novel "Freedom Apartment," he described the coming of age of a group of Arab university students living together in Cairo during turbulent political times in the 1960s.

It was only in the last month that the Saudi Culture Ministry lifted the ban on his writings, citing his contributions to the kingdom.

Algosaibi also came under fire in 2002 when, as an ambassador to Britain, he wrote a poem praising Palestinian suicide bombers at the height of the second Palestinian uprising.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Ghazi Algosaibi in 2008. Credit: Issam Kanafani / AFP/Getty Images

Guido de Marco, Maltese president who worked for EU membership, dies at 79

Guido de Marco, a former president of Malta who helped the island nation win European Union membership, has died. He was 79.

He died Thursday after suffering a heart attack at his home in Valletta, Malta, and the government responded by declaring three days of mourning.

A veteran Nationalist party leader, De Marco was foreign minister when he submitted Malta's application for EU membership in 1990. The tiny Mediterranean archipelago joined in 2004, the last year of De Marco's five-year term as president.

A fine orator and a top criminal lawyer in Malta, he was first elected to Parliament in 1966.

He also served as president of the U.N. General Assembly in the 1990s.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Guido de Marco, former president of Malta, in 2008. Credit: Reuters

One year ago: Corazon Aquino

Corazon Aquino was the charismatic president of the Philippines who drove dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos from power in 1986, leading to the restoration of democracy in the country.

In what she called her greatest achievement, Aquino presided over free elections, appointed an independent judiciary, encouraged a free press and restored other democratic institutions gutted by Marcos during his 20-year authoritarian rule.

Aquino, who served as president for six years, died a year ago at age 76. She left a mixed legacy despite her high profile and popularity when she took power. Her government was beset by seven bloody coup attempts, threatened by Muslim secessionists and debilitated by a series of government scandals.

She also appeared jinxed by a series of natural disasters that included a deadly earthquake, one of the century's worst volcanic eruptions at Mt. Pinatubo, floods, typhoons and a drought.

In her final State of the Nation address in July 1991, Aquino seemed to speak more to her failures than to her successes.

"God knows, we have made mistakes," she said. "I hope that history will judge me ... favorably ... because, as God is my witness, I honestly did the best I could."

For more on the woman who restored democracy to the Philippines, read Corazon Aquino's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Corazon Aquino in her signature yellow.

Credit: Associated Press

Zenani Mandela, 13: A famous family says farewell

Times staff writer Robyn Dixon writes of a "simple tragedy" that touched South Africa's most famous family:

At her funeral, her mother wished she'd given the girl more hugs and more kisses. Her grandfather said she was an "old soul" who understood the world better than most adults. Her father extolled her musical abilities. Her uncles said she was mischievous, charming and sometimes irritating.

And in the front pew at the funeral sat an old man who rarely ventures into public these days: Nelson Mandela saying farewell to 13-year-old Zenani Mandela, one of his nine great-grandchildren.

Zenani had attended a kick-off concert on the eve of the World Cup and was killed in a car accident on the way home. The driver, a family friend, has been arrested and may be charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, according to South African news reports.

Click on the hyperlink above to read the rest of the story.

-- Valerie J. Nelson

Photo: Nelson Mandela, 91, arrives for his great-granddaughter's funeral, which was held at a chapel at her school north of Johannesburg in South Africa. Credit: Themba Hadebe / Pool Photo

Labor leader Michael Foot and his special traits

Michael Foot, leader of the Labor Party in Britain from 1980 to 1983, died Wednesday in London. He was 96.

Head of his party when the opposition Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher, administered a crushing defeat in the 1983 elections, Foot was known for his left-leaning politics and for his eloquent oratory.

"We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves," Foot said during the 1983 campaign.

"That is our only certain good and great purpose on Earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do."

In today's news obituary, the Associated Press offers this vivid description of Foot's appearance:

A shambling figure with thick glasses and an untamed white mane, Foot offended some in 1981 by attending the annual Remembrance ceremony in London in a casual coat described as a "donkey jacket." Although Foot said Queen Mother Elizabeth had complimented his choice of "a smart, sensible coat for a day like this," the incident attained legendary status.

His wife, Jill Craigie, said she had tried but failed to get him to smarten up for the occasion.

"Michael will look scruffy whatever he wears," said Craigie, who died in 1999. "He thinks pockets are not there for decorative purposes but to put things in."

More of Foot's story is here. Plus the Guardian obit and the Telegraph too.

-- Claire Noland

Photo: Looking not so shambling, Michael Foot and his wife, Jill Craigie, in 1983. Credit: Associated Press

Should Reagan replace Grant on the $50 bill?

The Times' Richard Simon reports on an effort to place the likeness of Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill in place of Ulysses S. Grant's.

This is not the first attempt to fiscally honor the former president, who died in 2004.

Democrats objected to an earlier proposal to put Reagan on the dime in place of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And Tennessee legislators didn't like a plan for Reagan to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

You can find Simon's story here.

--Keith Thursby

Photo: President Reagan at the State of the Union address in 1982. Credit: Associated Press