From the BBC:
“Madeleine Albright: First
female US secretary of state dies”
Madeleine Albright, a Czech
immigrant who went on to become the first female secretary of state in US
history, has died aged 84. A long-time foreign policy veteran, Albright became
America's top diplomat in 1997 during the Clinton government. Often hailed as
"a champion of democracy", Albright was instrumental in efforts to
end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Her death from cancer was confirmed by her
family in a statement. "She was surrounded by family and friends,"
the statement said. "We lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt
and friend".
Among those to pay tribute to her
after the announcement of her death were former President Bill Clinton and
Hillary Clinton, who later followed in her footsteps as Secretary of State. "Few
leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served,"
the Clintons said. "Because she knew first-hand that America's policy
decisions had the power to make a difference in people's lives around the
world, she saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity." Nato's
current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said after the announcement that
Albright "was a force for freedom" and an "outspoken champion of
Nato". Former US President George W Bush said that Albright
"understood first-hand the importance of free societies for peace in our
world". UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the world "needs
to stand by" Albright's values "more than ever".
Born Marie Jana Korbelova in
Prague in 1937 - in what was then Czechoslovakia - Albright was the daughter of
a Czechoslovak diplomat who was forced into exile after the occupation of his
country by Nazi Germany in 1939. She moved to the United States in 1948, the
same year her family applied for political asylum, arguing that they were
unable to return home as opponents of their country's communist regime. She
became a US citizen in 1957. Albright went on to work at the White House during
the Jimmy Carter administration and later as foreign policy adviser to a number
of vice-presidential and presidential candidates. Soon after Bill Clinton was
inaugurated in 1993, Albright was appointed ambassador to the United Nations -
her first diplomatic posting.
Analysis box by Anthony Zurcher, North America reporter
Madeleine Albright's story is
quintessentially American. A refugee who fled to the US with her family
as a child, she made history by becoming the first woman to serve as secretary
of state - the highest-ranking woman in US government up to that point. As
a diplomat, Albright helped shape the post-Soviet world during the Clinton
administration, employing what she called "pragmatic idealism" to
navigate uncharted geopolitical waters. That included, at times, an aggressive
foreign policy that used US military might - in places like Iraq and the
Balkans - when diplomacy failed. The Nato bombing campaigns in the former
Yugoslav states helped define a post-Soviet role for the Western alliance at a
time when Nato's future was very much in doubt. Albright was also
champion of Nato expansion, overseeing the addition of Poland, Hungary and the
Czech Republic in 1999 - a move whose repercussions are being keenly felt
today. In 1997, she became secretary of state, overcoming opposition
from what some later termed the "anything but Albright" faction of
the White House. She became most famous during this time for her efforts
to push the Clinton administration to intervene to stop ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo being carried out by the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Some
critics termed the subsequent Nato bombing campaign "Albright's War".
"I take full responsibility... for believing it was essential for us
not to stand by and watch what Milosevic was planning to do," she said at
the time. "We cannot watch crimes against humanity." Kosovo
eventually declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after the
allied intervention. Its President, Vjosa Osmani, said on Wednesday the
country had lost an "invaluable friend", adding that Albright's
"contribution to our freedom and democracy will never be forgotten". In
2012, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom
- the highest award available to a civilian - for her work in the Balkans. Paying tribute on Wednesday, Mr Obama lauded
her "trailblazing career".
Just a month ago, on the eve of
the invasion of Ukraine, Albright stepped back into the public spotlight with a
New York Times editorial taking aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom
she first met soon after he took office in 2000. "Ukraine is entitled to
its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbours happen to be. In the modern era,
great countries accept that, and so must Mr Putin," she wrote. "This
is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. "It defines the
difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no
rules at all."
^ She is a true American Story.
She fled the Nazis and the Communists and helped her adopted homeland – the United
States – to continue to be a world leader. ^
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