CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington has expressed profound sadness on the passing of Angela King, a distinguished Jamaican who was a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women.
According to a press release from the CARICOM Secretariat on Friday, Carrington noted that “with her appointment to the post of UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, by then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in March 1997, Angela King became one of the highest ranking Caribbean women in an international organization.”
Later that year, he added, she was made a Commander of the Order of Distinction of Jamaica.
Carrington, recalling some of her notable landmarks, referred to
her role from 1992-1994 as Chief of the UN Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA), where she focused on preventive diplomacy through the resumption of constitutional negotiations between the parties, the reduction of violence and the peaceful holding of democratic, non-racial elections in 1994.
In addition he pointed to her leading the United Nations inter-agency mission on the situation of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban, as well as her diplomacy and advocacy with the United Nations Security Council, in collaboration with UN entities and with non-governmental organizations, which led to the adoption of the Council’s landmark Resolution 1325 (2000), Women, Peace and Security. This, Carrington observed, marked the Council’s first acknowledgement of women’s essential role in peace building, peace making and peace negotiations.
With the passing of Angela King, Carrington added, the Caribbean has lost a distinguished daughter, and the world a peerless advocate, adviser and champion on development issues; in particular those relating to the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and gender equality.