Once Headed OAS : Ex-Ecuador Leader Galo Plaza Dies at 81; Served as Diplomat

QUITO, Ecuador —  Former Ecuador President Galo Plaza, who once served as secretary general of the Organization of American States, died late Wednesday of heart failure. He was 81.

Plaza had a heart pacemaker for six months, and when his health failed this week, an unsuccessful attempt was made to insert a second pacemaker, said Wellington Sandoval, his physician.

Known as the patriarch of democracy in his nation, Plaza recently offered to mediate between conflicting parties during the crisis sparked by the kidnaping of President Leon Febres Cordero earlier this month.

Renegade air force commandos kidnaped Febres Cordero and about 25 others Jan. 16, later exchanging them for former air force chief Frank Vargas Pazzos, who had been held after a rebellion last March.

Plaza, a moderate of the center-left, was president of Ecuador from 1948 to 1952 and OAS secretary general from 1968 to 1975. He also had been a U.N. diplomat and mediator, and Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States and defense minister.

“He did honor to the country, and he promoted peace in Latin America and in the world,” the government said in its mourning decree.

At the OAS, “He put special emphasis on peace issues and on programs for economic and social development,” the newspaper, El Comercio, said Thursday.

The government declared three days of official mourning.