Nicaragua’s authorities is reporting the loss of life of Paul Oquist, a U.S.-born educational who turned an in depth adviser to President Daniel Ortega and drew U.S. monetary sanctions
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Paul Oquist, a U.S.-born educational who turned an in depth adviser to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and drew U.S. monetary sanctions has died within the Central American nation of undisclosed causes, the president’s workplace stated on Tuesday.
Oquist, who was born in 1943, had served in quite a lot of administrative positions underneath Ortega’s Sandinista governments in the course of the Nineteen Eighties and once more after he returned to energy in 2007. In the course of the Nineties, he had labored in a sequence of U.N. posts.
Oquist most not too long ago was a political adviser and in command of the stalled, Chinese language-financed challenge to construct a canal throughout Nicaragua to rival the Panama Canal. He additionally printed a e book final yr on the worldwide atmosphere, titled “Equilibra.”
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, he attended faculties within the Los Angeles space and graduated from the College of California, Los Angeles, in 1965. He later studied in Santiago, Chile, obtained a doctorate in political science from the College of California, Berkeley, and hung out educating in Colombia — the topic of his doctoral thesis.
His public protection of the Ortega authorities’s crackdown on opponents earned him the hostility of the Trump administration, which final yr included him on an inventory of greater than two dozen Nicaraguan officers topic to monetary sanctions.
He was married to a Nicaraguan and was naturalized within the Central American nation.
“Paul Oquist Kelly served the folks, the households, all Nicaraguans with love, faithfulness, dedication and untiring bravery,” Ortega and first woman Rosario Murillo stated in a message saying his loss of life.