We must return to the Kadirgamar doctrine

20th Death Anniversary of Lakshman Kadirgamar

- By Dr. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

[Remarks at a panel discussion on the late Lakshman Kadirgamar at a charity event in aid of the Peter Weerasekara Children’s Home, Yakkala, held at the International Women's Club Auditorium, Colombo 7. Other panellists were Prof Rajiva Wijesinha and Dr Sakuntala Kadirgamar. The event was organized by Ms Mala Weerasekara.]

Lakshman Kadirgamar befriended me after the death of his friend, my father Mervyn de Silva, in 1999. At some event he had suddenly turned around - he told me - because he heard a laugh just like Mervyn’s. He knew Mervyn had died and he did not know who it was. It happened to be me. So that’s how we got to know each other personally.

My father Mervyn, and Lakshman Kadirgamar had been students at university. Dr. Gamani Corea and Mervyn de Silva commenced the Foreign Affairs Study Group (FASG) to review and restructure Sri Lanka’s foreign relations after the debacle of the late-eighties, the airdrop and so on, The FASG was then approached by President Premadasa who appointed Bradman Weerakoon, his Senior Advisor on Foreign Affairs, to be a member of that Group and to liaise with it. Mervyn invited his old friend, Lakshman Kadirgamar, who had come back to Sri Lanka after his stint at WIPO, to join, and inducted him into the FASG. That was Kadirgamar’s transition from international law to international relations and international politics proper.