Managua, June 9 (RHC)-- Former Nicaraguan diplomat, priest and intellectual Miguel D’Escoto died Thursday in Managua, several months after suffering a stroke. 

A longtime leader within the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the FSLN, Miguel D'Escoto was 84 years old.  He served as foreign minister of Nicaragua from 1979–1990.  He was also the president of the United Nations General Assembly from 2008 to 2009. 

News of his death was released by Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo.  She said that D'Escoto "was an unyielding brother, a brother who fought with the people, for the people, together with the people, for all of our just causes.” 

Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann was born in the United States because his father was a diplomat for former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia.  In the 1970s, however, after being ordained a priest, he embraced socialism and liberation theology, eventually joining the FSLN in its armed struggle against Somoza. 

Upon taking state power in 1979, the FSLN appointed Father D'Escoto as their top diplomat, building relations with a number of other Latin American countries — most notably with Cuba. 

When FSLN leader and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007, Miguel D'Escoto was asked to move to New York City to serve as Nicaragua's representative before the United Nations. 

Although Pope John Paul II banned Father D'Escoto from celebrating Mass in 1984 because of his leftist political ideology, he was later allowed to partake in the ceremony in 2014 once Pope Francis ended the prohibition. 

Rosario Murillo said that Miguel D'Escoto's motto was: “A better world, a world of love, is possible."