George F. Jones, a former U.S. Ambassador to Guyana who served here during the pivotal 1992 general elections and later led an electoral observation mission for the 1997 elections, died on Monday in Fairfax, Virginia.
He was 79 years old and died as a result of a heart attack, his son George F. Jones III, said in a statement. The diplomat Jones, a specialist in Latin American affairs, served as U. S. Ambassador to Guyana from January 1992 to August 1995.
He worked closely with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to support free and fair elections in Guyana in October 1992, which resulted in the first transfer of power from an incumbent to an opposition party.
He previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile, 1985-89, and in Costa Rica, 1982-85. Jones was a member of the U.S. Government delegation to the funeral of the late President Cheddi Jagan in March 1997. He also served as a senior technical adviser to the Guyana Elections Commission during the 2001 national elections.
His career in the Foreign Service spanned almost 40 years. According to the statement, Jones was twice Senior Adviser on Latin American affairs to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. His other posts included assignments to embassies in Ecuador, Ghana, Venezuela, and Guatemala, and as political adviser to the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.
After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1995, Jones became a specialist in support for democratic election processes and election observation. From 1996 to 1999 he was Director of Programs for the Americas at the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), and in 2000-2005 he was Director of Democracy and Governance Programs for Development Associates, Inc. He chaired international observer missions to elections in Paraguay (1996), Honduras (1997), and Guyana (1997), and was a member of observer missions to Ecuador, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.
He was also active in the American Foreign Service Association, serving on its governing board for five years, including two terms as a vice president. He also served four years on the editorial board of the Foreign Service Journal.
Among his several honors was a Superior Honor Award from the State Department in 1989 for “persistence, dedication and courage in promotion of the national interests of the United States” in Chile.
Jones married Maria Rosario Correa in Quito, Ecuador, in 1960. In addition to Mrs. Jones, of Fairfax, Va., he leaves to mourn three sons, George F. Jones III, of Baltimore, Md.; Robert A. Jones, of Quito, Ecuador; and Dr. Michael A. Jones-Correa of Ithaca, N.Y.; a daughter, Mary Louise Blanton of Yorktown, Va.; and seven grandchildren.
