par Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, who distinguished himself on the international stage by securing the release of Americans and others detained by autocratic regimes, has died at the age of 75, announced his foundation, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, on Saturday.
Also former congressman, secretary of energy and governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who unsuccessfully tried to become the first Hispanic president of the United States in 2008, died in his sleep, at his summer home in Chatham, Mass., Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, said in a statement.
“The world has lost a champion for those unjustly detained abroad and I have lost a dear mentor and friend,” Mickey Bergman said.
Born to a Mexican mother and an American father, Bill Richardson was an elected member of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives from 1982 to 1996, before becoming United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. .
A fine negotiator with a warm reputation, Bill Richardson obtained the release of many people detained in North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Iraq, Iran and Cuba.
“For me, the first rule in negotiation is that you have to have a personal relationship with the opponent. You have to respect him. You have to know what (…) makes him vibrate”, he explained. in a podcast produced by Foreign Policy magazine in 2018.
“You have to let the other side save face and find ways to give them credit, to make them think they’re getting something out of the negotiation, when in reality it may just be of praise for a humanitarian gesture,” he continued.
While he was Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson ran for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election, before renouncing it in view of the disappointing results obtained in preliminary polls in New Hampshire and Iowa.
Barack Obama, who at the time won the Democratic nomination and then the presidency of the United States, had considered making Bill Richardson his running mate as vice-president.
In 2009, Barack Obama appointed Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce. The latter, however, resigned following an investigation aimed at determining whether his collaborators in New Mexico had awarded lucrative contracts to a political donor. The investigation was eventually dropped without any charges being brought against Bill Richardson.
(Report Will Dunham in Washington, with Lucia Mutikani, French version Claude Chendjou)
2023-09-03 09:05:00
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