Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas, 82; Diplomat for Venezuela

Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas, 82, a career diplomat who served as Venezuela’s foreign minister and ambassador to Washington, died Wednesday of a cerebral hemorrhage at a Washington, D.C., hospital. He had been hospitalized with a pulmonary infection.

Burelli served as foreign minister from 1994 to 1999, as ambassador to Washington from 1974 to 1976, and as ambassador to London in 1967-68. A one-time envoy to Colombia, he also headed the third United Nations conference on international sea rights in 1964.

In 1968, Burelli ran for president as a candidate of the now-defunct National Democratic Front. In 1994, he lost a bid for secretary general of the Organization of American States to former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria.

Burelli was a native of La Puerta in the Andean state of Trujillo. An attorney, he founded the humanities department at the University of the Andes in the western city of Merida.