William Graham Walker

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William Graham Walker

William Graham Walker , also William G. Walker , (born June 1, 1935 in Kearny , New Jersey ) is a former American diplomat .

Life

Walker studied architecture and political science at the University of Southern California and UCLA and graduated from UCLA in 1969 with an MA in Latin American Studies. He then worked as Foreign Service Officer in the State Department in Peru , Japan , Brazil , El Salvador , Honduras and Bolivia . He was in the State Department for Argentina from 1967 to 1968, from 1972 to 1974 at the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco and from 1977 to 1988 he was the State Department representative at the Council on Foreign Relations . From 1988 to 1992 he was the successor to Edwin G. Corr as the United States Ambassador to El Salvador, where a civil war between government forces, supported by death squads , and the left guerrillas of the FMLN was taking place at the time. On August 1st, 1997 he was appointed head of UNTAES . At the end of October 1998 he was appointed head of the Kosovo Verification Mission , which was under the supervision of the OSCE . After the Račak massacre , in which 45 Kosovar Albanian civilians were killed, he blamed Serbian-Yugoslav police and military units after an inspection of the crime scene. The then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević then expelled him from the country , a decision that was later reversed. After the beginning of the war in Kosovo, the mission ceased operations and was disbanded on June 8, 1999.

After the end of his missions, Walker commented several times on political issues in their countries. In 2010, before the elections in Kosovo, he supported the Vetëvendosje party , which advocated complete independence for Kosovo and an end to UN and EU missions. In a 2014 article in the New York Times , he recommended that the US should not be afraid of a possible election victory for the left-wing FMLN in El Salvador and not threaten to deteriorate relations in this case.

Walker is married with four children and speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Honors

Walker has received numerous awards for his work from the US State Department, the Foreign Service, and the US President . In 1992 he received the order of Jose Matias Delgado from the government of El Salvador . The Republic of Kosovo honored him with a postage stamp in 2009. In Reçak , the site of the massacre he reported, a statue created by the Albanian sculptor Idriz Balani was inaugurated in 2016.

Statements and opinions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Secretary-General Appoints William G. Walker as Head of UNTAES , United Nations, Press Release SG / A / 642, July 25, 1997 (Eng.)
  2. ↑ Who's Who in the Balkans , Washington Post, archive
  3. ↑ 45 civiles ejecutados en Kosovo en la peor matanza de la tregua. La OSCE acusa a los serbios de "crimen contra la humanidad" , El País , January 17, 1999 (span.)
  4. ^ Pre-election overview from Kosovo, 2010 , Gergely Nagy, December 14, 2010, Foreign Policy Journal.
  5. ↑ Kosovo's Vetevendosje Makes Leap From Street to Parliament , Petrit Çollaku, Balkan Insight , December 15, 2010 (Eng.)
  6. ↑ Kosovos Marks Racak Massacre Anniversary , Balkan Insight, January 16, 2009 (Eng.)
  7. ↑ Kosovo Massacre Village Honors OSCE Chief With Statue , Die Morina, Balkan Insight, December 23, 2016 (Eng.)
personal data
SURNAME Walker, William Graham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walker, William G.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Kearny , New Jersey