Accordance of the Personal Rank of Ambassador to Armando Valladares While Serving as Head of the Delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

The President today accorded Armando Valladares the personal rank of Ambassador in his capacity as Head of the United States Delegation to the 44th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting February 2-March 12, 1988, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mr. Valladares was appointed by the President as Representative of the United States on the Human Rights Commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on November 30, 1987. Since 1984 he has been president of the European Coalition for Human Rights in Cuba. He spent 20 years as a political prisoner in Cuba. Mr. Valladares is an author and poet, and among several books he has written are "From My Wheelchair" and "Against All Hope." He was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.

Mr. Valladares graduated from the Instituto de Segunda Ensenanza de Marianano in Havana, Cuba (B.A., 1954). He was born May 30, 1937, in Pinar Del Rio, Cuba. He is married, has two children, and resides in Alexandria, VA. Mr. Valladares became a naturalized United States citizen in January 1987.