Monday morning, in Havana, Dr. Miguel J. Alfonso
Martínez, an outstanding diplomat, jurist and Cuban academic,
with a long record of service to the Revolution and in defense
of the Homeland, died after a long illness, at 74 years of age.
Miguel Alfonso was born in Havana May, 1935, and
graduated in Law in 1961. In that same year he began to work in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which he dedicated an
important part of his professional life.
As a diplomat he carried out diverse functions
in the overseas service. He was spokesman for the Foreign Office
between 1994 and 1997, an expert on Human Rights and represented
the government of Cuba at many meetings and international
conferences, mainly within the United Nations.
He was, also, a jurist and academic of great
prestige both in Cuba and internationally. Founder of the Union
of Jurists of Cuba, he worked for many years as a professor of
the University of Havana and at the Higher Institute of
International Relations, an institution in which he worked from
its foundation.
At the time of his death he held many
educational responsibilities and was President of the Cuban
Society of International Law and President of the Advisory
Committee of the Council on Human Rights According to his will,
his remains will be cremated.