Ylva Anna Maria Lindh (19 June 1957 – 11 September 2003) was a Swedish politician, diplomat, and lawyer who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1998 until her assassination in 2003. A leading figure of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Lindh was a Member of the Riksdag representing Södermanland County from 1982 to 1985 and again from 1998 to 2003.
On 10 September 2003, four days before a referendum on replacing the Swedish krona with the euro as currency, Lindh was stabbed by Mijailo Mijailović at the NK department store in central Stockholm; she died the following morning at Karolinska University Hospital. She had been seen as a likely candidate to succeed Göran Persson as Social Democratic party leader.
Her greatest commitment was to international cooperation and solidarity, as well as to environmental issues. She worked on these issues throughout her career, serving as Environment Minister from 1994 to 1998.
Early life and education
Ylva Anna Maria Lindh was born to Staffan (1931–2017), an artist, and Nancy Lindh (1932–2005), a schoolteacher, in Enskede-Årsta, a suburb southeast of Stockholm. She grew up in Enköping. At age 12, she became involved in politics after joining a local branch of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League, becoming its district chairman when she was 13.
Lindh studied at Uppsala University, graduating in 1982 as a Candidate of Law (jur. kand.). The same year, she won election as a Member of the Riksdag (MP) for Södermanland County. In 1994, after a Social Democratic victory in the election of that year, Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson appointed her to his cabinet as Minister for the Environment. Having made influential friends around the world as president of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League, Lindh ardently supported international cooperation through the United Nations and in the European Union.
A high point in her career occurred during the Swedish presidency of the European Union in early 2001. Lindh served as chairman of the Council of the European Union, responsible for representing the official foreign policy position of the European Union. Travelling with European Union Foreign and Security Policy Spokesman Javier Solana in North Macedonia, during the Kosovo-Macedonian crisis, she negotiated an agreement which averted a civil war in the country. Persson publicly denied this claim following the book's publication. Lindh had to choose between standing up for human rights and supporting trade relations with the US. She chose the latter and was later extensively criticised for her actions. On 24 May 2004, when the committee against torture at the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the Government of Sweden had violated its obligations under the Convention against torture in the forced repatriation of Agiza, Lindh had already been murdered.
Lindh criticised the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying that:
However, Lindh praised the fall of Saddam Hussein. She advocated greater respect for international law and human rights in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, criticising Ariel Sharon's Israeli government, but also condemning Palestinian suicide bombings as "atrocities". She argued strongly for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories; in an interview shortly before her death she said: