Our Daily Dead

from the NY Times
Pierre Clostermann, an ace fighter pilot who flew for de Gaulle’s Free French forces in World War II, engaging in fierce combat in the Battle of Britain and over Normandy on D-Day, died March 22 at his home in Montesquieu des Albères in southwestern France. He was 85.

After the war, Mr. Clostermann became a pillar of Gaullist politics.

French newspapers, from the national Le Monde and Le Figaro to the regional press, registered his death as the passing of one the country’s last true war heroes. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin eulogized him as a “legend and an example” to all citizens.

After France fell to the Germans in 1940, Mr. Clostermann heeded de Gaulle’s call for the French to continue the fight on the side of the Allies. He trained with the Royal Air Force and fought in the Battle of Britain and over Continental Europe. In three years he flew more than 420 combat sorties, shot down 33 enemy aircraft and possibly more, and rose to command a fighter wing.

After the war, he worked as an aeronautical engineer and became a vice president of the Cessna Aircraft Company. He also entered politics and spent 23 years as a high-profile Gaullist in the French legislature until giving up his seat in 1969.

Technorati Tags: Pierre Clostermann, ace fighter pilot, de Gaulle, Free French forces, World War II, war hero

from the Independent Online
Lennart Meri, who in 1992 became the first president of Estonia after the country regained its independence from the Soviet Union, said, as he handed over the presidency to his successor Arnold Rüütel in 2001, “Estonia is now a normal, boring country.”

As with any remark made by an intellectual brought up in the Soviet Union, this could be taken not only at face value. While it was a positive review of what Estonia had achieved in the previous decade, it was also a none-too-subtle dig at the failings Meri perceived in his successor. Earlier in the same speech, he had said that “every country must have a face, a voice and a way of making jokes”. Meri was certainly that face and that voice and the jokes would come thick and fast, often at the expense of his political opponents.

Being 6ft 4in and fluent in six languages, he could not fail to stand out at any international function. Whether he talked in English, French, German or Finnish, few would have realised how much of his background knowledge had come from books hidden during Soviet occupation or from listening illegally to short-wave radio stations.

He won the 1992 presidential election convincingly, but not overwhelmingly. Pressing the flesh around the country was never Meri’s strong point, nor was small talk, so his opponents such as Rüütel eagerly exploited this weakness. It would never be possible to regard Meri as a “bloke” and he realised that attempts to cultivate such an image would probably have lost him more support than he would have gained.

Technorati Tags: Lennart Meri, president, Estonia

from the NY Times
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded ‘’the butcher of the Balkans’’ and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death.

He had been examined by doctors following his frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when he last underwent a medical checkup. All detainees at the center in Scheveningen are checked by a guard every half hour.

The tribunal said Milosevic’s family had been informed of his death, which came nearly five years after he was arrested, then extradited to The Hague.

His wife, Mirjana Markovic, who was often accused of being the power behind the scenes during her husband’s autocratic rule, has been in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. His son, Marko, also lives in Russia, and his daughter, Marija, lives in Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.

Technorati Tags: Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav, the butcher of the Balkans’