Preceded by Alfonso Gomez Mendez | Preceded by Noemi Sanin Posada Spouse Maria Perez President Ernesto Samper Pizano Name Carlos Simmonds Resigned August 7, 1998 | |
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Preceded by Humberto de la Calle Lombana Died July 30, 2003, Bogota, Colombia Succeeded by Rodrigo Hernan Lloreda Caicedo | ||
Reconocimiento carlos lemos simmonds
Carlos Apolinar Lemos Simmonds (October 23, 1933 – July 30, 2003) was the 6th Vice President of Colombia.
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Political career
After graduating Lemos worked as a Municipal Judge in the town of Piendamó, Cauca. He later transferred to Bogotá where he was elected councilman in the early 1970s for three consecutive terms. He then ran for the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia. During the government of President Julio César Turbay Lemos was appointed as Secretary General of the Presidency of Colombia. In the same administration he was promoted to minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after that he was shifted to different ministries, Ministry of Government, Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Colombia).
Lemos served later as Ambassador of Colombia to the Organization of American States (OAS), drafter of the Colombian Constitution of 1991, Ambassador of Colombia to Austria, Ambassador of Colombia to Great Britain, senator, vice president and president of Colombia temporarily.
As a member of the Colombian Foreign Affairs Commission he contributed towards resolving the dispute over San Andrés y Providencia Islands in the Caribbean sea between Colombia and Nicaragua for territorial waters. He also negotiated the peace process with the M-19 guerrilla.
Personal life
Carlos Apolinar was born on 23 October 1933 in Popayán, Cauca to Antonio José Lemos Guzmán and María Antonia Simmonds Pardo. He married María Victoria Perez y Soto Bohorquez, with whom he had four children: María Eugenia, Carlos José, María Victoria, and Adriana. He later divorced Perez y Soto, and in 1985 married Martha Blanco Guauque.
Lemos died on 30 July 2003 in Bogotá, D.C. after a fight with lung cancer. In accordance with his last will and testament, he was mourned and buried privately, and did not receive a state funeral as he would have been entitled.