UNITED NATIONS, July 12 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday named former Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdes as his special representative to Haiti.
Valdes will also head the U.N. Stabilization Mission in the Caribbean nation, said Marie Okabe, a spokeswoman at U.N. World Headquarters in New York
A human rights activist, Valdes was Chile's Ambassador to the United Nations from May 2000 until June 2003 and the country's Foreign Minister from June 1999 to March 2000.
Among other diplomatic postings, he served as Chile's Ambassador to Spain from 1990 to 1994 and was a consultant to the the U.N. Development Program in Chile in 1994.
Exiled during Chile's military rule, he worked at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, with ousted President Salvador Allende's foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
