LONDON - Paddy Ashdown, who died on Saturday aged 77, was a former marine and British opposition politician who served as the top international envoy in Bosnia following the Yugoslav Wars. He joined the Foreign Office, which sent him as part of the British delegation in United Nations in Geneva. Ashdown's gritty attitude and enormous energy levels were largely responsible for transforming the Liberal Democrats from political also-rans into a viable opposition party. But Ashdown soon made some significant gains from the Conservative government and was polled in the early 1990s as the most-liked British party leader. Ashdown was staunchly pro-federalist towards Europe and favoured a common European foreign and defence policy independent of the United States.

Source: Bangkok Post December 22, 2018 21:22 UTC