Gorbachev and Clinton lead deluge of tributes to Thatcher

AFP/London

Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Kohl and Bill Clinton were among the former friends and foes who paid tribute yesterday to Margaret Thatcher, praising the fearlessness and determination of an “iconic” leader.

The “Iron Lady” was a polarising figure in Britain and beyond during her time in office, but foreign leaders were unanimous in acknowledging her place in 20th-century history, with Barack Obama mourning a “true friend of America”.

Germany’s ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl, considered the father of Germany’s 1990 reunification, said he “greatly valued Margaret Thatcher for her love of freedom, her incomparable openness, honesty and straightforwardness”.

Flowers from admirers began piling up outside her London home soon after her death was announced, but left-wingers quickly began planning jubilant parties, proving that the late premier was as divisive in death as she was in life.

France’s Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault paid tribute to “a great head of state” but also had some harsh words for the policies she enacted while in power from 1979 to 1990.

“It was another time, a time that was called the Thatcher years, the Reagan years, which caused significant economic and social damage, and excessive liberalisation,” he said.

For his part, former French president Jacques Chirac said: “It’s known that we had disagreements in the past ... But I must add that these differences in views never prevented mutual respect.”

Right-wingers have hailed Thatcher as having hauled Britain out of the economic doldrums, but the left accuses her of dismantling traditional industry, claiming her reforms helped unpick the fabric of society.

But yesterday most reaction to her death - at least from abroad - was positive.

In Brussels, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso paid tribute to Thatcher’s “contributions” to the growth of the European Union, despite her deep scepticism over increasing ties with Europe.

Among her contemporaries, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who held frequent meetings with Thatcher in the 1980s as the Cold War drew to a close, said she would go down in history for her commitment and resolve.

“Margaret Thatcher was a great politician and a bright individual. She will go down in our memory and in history,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a statement released by his foundation.

Thatcher, who once famously said of Gorbachev that “this is a man I can do business with”, died of stroke earlier yesterday aged 87.

Fellow Cold War hero Lech Walesa, the Polish dockyard worker whose pro-democracy Solidarity movement helped create the first cracks in the Soviet system in the 1980s, said Thatcher helped bring down communism in his own country.

Her US colleagues of the time also called the baroness a towering figure who helped changed the course of the last century.

US former president George H W Bush, who served as both vice president and White House chief when Thatcher was in power, called her “a leader of rare character ... whose principles in the end helped shape a better, freer world”.

Nancy Reagan, the wife of the late US president Ronald Reagan, said that “Ronnie and Margaret were political soulmates, committed to freedom and resolved to end communism”.

And US former president Bill Clinton hailed her as an “iconic stateswoman” who lived a “remarkable life as she broke barriers, defied expectations, and led her country”.  Pages 16, 28