Sri Lanka Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Commonwealth Oral History Project

Interview with The Hon Gareth Evans

by chrismoffat | Jun 15, 2015 | Apartheid, Australia, CHOGM, Commonwealth Secretariat, Development, Queen, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka

Download Interview Transcript. Biography: Evans, Gareth John. 1944- . Born in Melbourne, Australia. Educated at the University of Melbourne (1962-67) and Magdalen College, Oxford (1968-70). Lecturer in Law at the University of Melbourne, 1971-76. Barrister, 1976-78....

Interview with Hugh Segal

by chrismoffat | Jun 15, 2015 | Apartheid, Canada, CHOGM, Commonwealth Secretariat, Eminent Persons Group, Human Rights, Queen, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom

Download interview transcripts: Part One (18 March 2013); Part Two (22 May 2015) Biography: Segal, Hugh. 1950- . Educated at the University of Ottawa. Senior Aide to Ontario Premier Bill Davis in the 1970s and 80s. Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney,...

Interview with Sir Don McKinnon

by chrismoffat | Jun 9, 2015 | CHOGM, Commonwealth Secretariat, Decolonisation, India, Kenya, Maldives, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nuclear, Pakistan, Queen, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe (see also Rhodesia)

Download Interview Transcripts: Part One (27th February 2013); Part Two (8th April 2014). Biography: McKinnon, Donald Charles. 1939- . Born in London, United Kingdom. Educated at Lincoln Agricultural College, New Zealand. Elected as Member of Parliament for Albany,...

Interview with Carolyn McAskie

by chrismoffat | Jun 8, 2015 | Canada, Commonwealth Secretariat, Development, Diplomacy, India, Kenya, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Technical Assistance, Uganda, United Nations

Download Interview Transcript. Biography: McAskie, Carolyn. Born in Glasgow, Scotland. Joined the Canadian civil service in 1968. Assistant Director of Finance and Personnel, Commonwealth Secretariat, 1975-80. Canadian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives,...

Interview with Vijay Krishnarayan

by chrismoffat | Jun 1, 2015 | CHOGM, Civil Society, Commonwealth Foundation, Commonwealth Secretariat, Development, Fiji, Good Governance, Human Rights, Sri Lanka, Trade and Investment, West Indies/ West Indies Federation, Zimbabwe (see also Rhodesia)

Download Interview Transcript. Biography: Krishnarayan, Vijay. Born in Trinidad and Tobago. Educated at Oxford Polytechnic in Town and Country Planning. Volunteer with Voluntary Service Overseas in Belize, with the Belize Enterprise for Sustainable Technology....

Interview with K Shankar Bajpai

by chrismoffat | May 8, 2015 | CHOGM, Constitutional Change, Decolonisation, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, India, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom

Download Interview Transcript. Biography: Bajpai, K Shankar. 1928- . Born in Jaipur, India. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, and Ecole des Hautes Etudes Universitaire, Geneva. Joined Indian Foreign Service in 1952, serving in Germany, Turkey and Pakistan. Consul...

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Definitioner

Azim Hussain

Azim Hussain (1914-2007) was an Indian diplomat who served as Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early 1960s and Ambassador to Egypt and Lebanon in the 1960s. From 1970 to 1978, he was Deputy Secretary General of the Commonwealth, managing the transition from Arnold Smith to Shridath Ramphal as Secretaries General in this period.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000) was a Canadian academic who acted as Director of the Harvard University Centre for the Study of World Religions from 1964 to 1973. Throughout his career he was associated with Forman Christian College, Lahore; the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University; the Department of Religion, Dalhousie University; and the Faculty of Divinity, University of Toronto. Smith is the younger brother of Arnold Smith, the first Commonwealth Secretary General.

Rann of Kutch

The Rann of Kutch is a large region of salt marshes located between Sindh, Pakistan, and the Western tip of Gujarat, India. The territory is disputed between the two countries, with arguments over the border leading, notably, to a series of skirmishes during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war.

General McNaughton

General Andrew GL McNaughton (1887-1966) was a Canadian diplomat and soldier. A distinguished army officer in both the First and Second World Wars, McNaughton later chaired the UN Atomic Energy Commission (1946-58) and was Canada’s Ambassador to the UN (1948-49). He chaired the Canadian Section of the International Joint Commission from 1950 to 1962.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit (1990-1990) was an Indian political figure and diplomat who served as India’s ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947-49), United States and Mexico (1949-51), Ireland (1955-61) and Spain (1958-61). She was High Commissioner to the UK from 1955 to 1961 and headed the Indian delegation to the United Nations from 1946 to 1968. A member of the influential Nehru family, she was the sister of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

India International Centre

The India International Centre (IIC) is a prominent cultural and intellectual institution in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1960 to encourage dialogue between statesmen, diplomats, policymakers, scientists, writers, artists and others in India, and hosts a wide range of events open to the public.

David Gore-Booth

Sir David Alwyn Gore-Booth (1943-2004) was a British diplomat who served as Britain’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1993-96) and High Commissioner to India (1996-98).

Commonwealth Lawyers Association

The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) was established in 1986 in Jamaica, emerging from the Commonwealth Legal Bureau (established in 1968) and linked to the Commonwealth & Empire Law Conferences first organised in London in 1955. The CLA aims to facilitate exchange between legal professionals, academics and students across the Commonwealth on issues of legal education, professional ethics and approaches to the rule of law.

David Malone

Dr David M Malone (b.1954) is a Canadian diplomat and writer who served as Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations (1992-94) and High Commissioner to India (2006-08). He has also held influential positions in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (1994-98, 2004-06), and was President of the New York-based International Peace Academy (1998-2004).

Patrick Gordon Walker

Patrick Gordon Walker, Baron Gordon-Walker, (1907-1980) was a British political figure who served as Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1947-50) and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1950-51). He was later Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1964-65) in the government of Harold Wilson.

Olaf Caroe

Sir Olaf Caroe (1892-1981) was a British colonial administrator who served as Chief Commissioner of Balochistan (1937-38) and Governor of the North-West Frontier Province (1946-47).

Owen Dixon

Sir Owen Dixon (1886-1972) was an Australian diplomat and judge. From 1952 to 1964 he was Chief Justice of Australia, having served on the High Court since 1929.

Lord Lothian

Philip Henry Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, (1882-1940) was a British political figure and diplomat. From 1905 to 1910, Kerr served in the South African government and was part of Lord Milner’s ‘kindergarten’, a group of reformist civil servants advocating an Imperial Federation. In 1910, he founded the Round Table Journal. Kerr served as private secretary to Prime Minister David Lloyd George between 1916 and 1921, and was later Britain’s Ambassador to the United States (1939-40).

Lionel Curtis

Lionel George Curtis (1875-1955) was a British political thinker and official, working as secretary to colonial administrator Lord Milner following the Second Boer War. Curtis was a key figure in ‘Milner’s Kindergarten’, an informal group of South African civil servants working toward a South African union and an Imperial Federation of the British Empire. In 1912 Curtis was appointed Beit Lecturer in Colonial History at the University of Oxford and, in 1919, established the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Lord Tweedsmuir

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, (1875-1940) was a Scottish politician who served as Governor General of Canada from 1935 to 1940. Lord Tweedsmuir was previously an administrator in Britain's southern African colonies and had a successful career as a writer and adventure novelist.

Girija Shankar Bajpai

Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai (1891-1954) was an Indian diplomat and civil servant, holding influential positions in both the British colonial and post-independence administrations. Appointed to the Viceroy’s Executive Council in 1940, he became India’s First Secretary General, Ministry of External Affairs, following the transfer of power in 1947, holding this position until 1952.

Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is an international sporting event that takes place every four years and brings together athletes from across the Commonwealth of Nations. It began in 1930 as the British Empire Games, and is overseen today by the Commonwealth Games Federation.

CHOGRM

Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meetings (CHOGRMs) had their origins in a series of talks between the Australian and Indian Governments under the Prime Minsisters Malcolm Fraser, Moraji Desai, and Indira Gandhi.

Statute of Westminster

The 1931 Statute of Westminster was an Act of British Parliament recognising the legislative independence of the self-governing Dominions of the British Empire. After it was passed, the British government could no longer make ordinary laws for its Dominions – Canada, the Irish Free State, the Union of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland – other than at the Dominion’s request. Click here to view the original document in full.

Ratu Mara

Sir Kamisese Mara (1920-2004). Fijian politician. He was Prime Minister of Fiji, 1970-92. Though defeated in the election of 1987, he headed an interim administration following a military coup, until 1992. He was then President of Fiji, 1993-2000.

United Nations. Major international organisation, founded in 1945.

Kris Srinivasan

Khrishnan Srinivasan (b.1937). Indian politician and diplomat, Foreign Secretary (1994-1995), Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (1995-2002).

Arnold Smith

Arnold Smith (1915 –1994). Canadian diplomat, the first Commonwealth Secretary-General (1965–1975).

Security Council

A body, part of the United Nations organisation, charged with upholding of global peace and security.

Sonny Ramphal (Shridath Ramphal)

Shridath Surendranath 'Sonny' Ramphal (b. 1928). Guyanese politician, second Commonwealth Secretary-General (1975-1990).

Lester Pearson

Lester Bowles 'Mike' Pearson (1897-1972) was a Canadian diplomat and politician, serving as Secretary of State for External Affairs (1948-1957) and Prime Minister (1963-1968). In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for organising a UN Emergency Force to respond to the Suez Canal Crisis, an initiative now considered the beginning of modern peacekeeping.

Mike Pearson (Lester Pearson)

Non-aligned movement

An international organisation of countries that are not aligned with any manjor world power, founded in 1961.

Non-alignment

A national foreign policy position of avowed neutrality towards major powers.

Nehru (Jawaharlal Nehru)

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was an Indian politician and prominent leader in the Indian National Congress-led movement for independence from colonial rule. He served as India's first Prime Minister from 1947 to his death in 1964. Nehru was also a key figure in the Non-Aligned Movement, present at its founding in Belgrade in 1961.

Krishna Menon

VK Krishna Menon (1896-1974) was an Indian politician and diplomat, who served as India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1947 to 1952 and Ambassador to the United Nations in New York from 1952 to 1962. He was also Defence Minister of India from 1957 to 1962.

Moni Malhoutra (Manmohan Malhoutra)

Manmohan Malhoutra (b. 1937). Indian diplomat, served in the Secretariat of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1966 to 1973 then joined the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, in 1974, to run the International Affairs Division.

Kenneth Kaunda

Kenneth Kaunda (b.1924). Zambian politician and President (1964-1991).

Bob Hawke

Bob Hawke (b. 1929). Australian Prime Minister (1983-1991).

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991). Indian politician, served as Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989.

Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi (1917-1984). Indian politician who served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984.

Malcolm Fraser

Malcolm Fraser (b. 1930). Prime Minister of Australia (1975-1983). Fraser also served as Co-Chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group on South Africa.

Dominions

States that were under British sovereignty, but which became increasingly autonomous, especially from the 1930s, and are now independent nations. Former dominions include Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

CHOGM

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Every two years Commonwealth heads of government meet to discuss global and Commonwealth issues, with the aim of promoting common initiatives.

British Commonwealth

The term used to describe the Commonwealth until 1949, reflecting British pre-eminence within it.

Mrs Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher)

Margaret Thatcher (1926-2013). British politician and Prime Minister (1979-1990).

Interview with The Hon Gareth Evans

Interview with Hugh Segal

Interview with Sir Don McKinnon

Interview with Carolyn McAskie

Interview with Vijay Krishnarayan

Interview with K Shankar Bajpai

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