Ex-UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto dies at 84

Managua (Nicaragua): Catholic priest and former President of the UN General Assembly Miguel D'Escoto took his last breath on Thursday last, following a long illness. The 84-year-old D'Escoto died in a hospital here.

D'Escoto was also a former Foreign Minister. He headed the UN General Assembly from 2008-2009.

The government headed by Sandinista Daniel Ortega expressed its 'profound dismay and sadness' over the death of D'Escoto, the first priest to occupy the UN presidency.First lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo also condoled his death.

• D'Escoto was born February 5, 1933, in Los Angeles and was ordained a priest of the Maryknoll Missionary Society in New York in 1961.

• As an adherent of the doctrine of 'liberation theology', he secretly joined the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

• After the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, D'Escoto was named Foreign Minister by the Ortega government.

Authorized by his congregation to serve as Foreign Minister for the Left wing government, D'Escoto was suspended as a priest by The Vatican. Pope Francis, however, reinstated him as a priest in 2014.

During his tenure as Minister, Nicaragua sued the US in 1984 before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which ruled against Washington in 1986 and ordered it to pay reparations to Managua, which the US never did.

It may be mentioned that, in Ortega's first defeat at the polls on February 25, 1990, losing to Violeta Chamorro, D'Escoto was elected to a seat in the Nicaraguan Congress.

After Ortega's return to power in January 2007, D'Escoto was named an adviser to the President on border issues and international relations.