Sir Shridath Ramphal passes away

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — Guyana’s former Attorney General and Foreign Minister Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal died on Friday at the age of 95. Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal once wrote that his life “cannot be described as entirely a model of cultivating goals and pursuing ambitions (but) more of following instincts”.

In a statement announcing his “peaceful” death, his family said he was surrounded by his children and described him as “a towering figure in international diplomacy and a beloved elder statesman in the Commonwealth and the Caribbean.”

In his CV, titled “My CV – and the journey of my life”, Sir Shridas said it covered “a period of about 75 years starting in 1946 when I was 18” and that while he was happy with its contents, he was also “a little embarrassed… because I had never taken credit for all the praiseworthy things in it”.

He describes his teenage years as “happy and carefree” and while school was not boring, “I wasn’t a star…

“As I prepared to pursue a scholarship in British Guiana that would have secured me professional training abroad, I realised that I could not possibly be top of my year, so I gave up trying. Instead, I contented myself with gaining a university qualification, editing the University Magazine and helping to stage (and act in) a joint university production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“I never thought about the future. This meant that I never set goals. My father, a pioneering educator in British Guiana, set me the goal of law very early on. I fully accepted that that would be my life’s path. I later realized that it was his own life’s ambition; an ambition he was to fulfill when I started university in London,” he wrote.

Sir Shridath, a graduate of King’s College London and Gray’s Inn in London, had a “distinguished career spanning a number of key positions,” including Assistant Attorney General of the Commonwealth of the West Indies, Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana, and Secretary General of the Commonwealth, according to a family statement. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, the University of the West Indies and the University of Warwick.

“Inevitably, a lot of my CV has to do with serving in the Federation that my BG (British Guiana) chose to withdraw from and that West Indies politicians failed to save – accepting Eric Williams’ false arithmetic that ‘10 minus 1 equals 0’. A lot has to do with building and caring for CARICOM. Their roots go back to the early days, to those who made that era fertile.

“The moment of the Federation’s collapse, and my life thereafter, was sustained by the spontaneous magnanimity of Xavi da Costa. I did not know until we were both in the Federation Civil Service that they were the only West Indians to have gone through the colonial legal probation scheme.

“When Eric Williams thwarted Philip sherlock’s desire for me to study law at the University of the West Indies, Harvey rescued me from uncertainty by inviting me to come to Jamaica and join his newly formed ‘Chambers’ – the first law firm in Jamaica. Without his kind and spontaneous intervention in my life, who knows what path I would have taken. My CV would certainly have been very different,” Sr Shridath wrote.

He was the only individual to serve on all global commissions between 1980 and 1995 and to have published landmark reports on the environment, development and disarmament, his family said in a statement.

As Chairman of the West Indies Commission, his 1992 report, “Time for Action,” remains a seminal blueprint for development in the Caribbean.

Sir Shridas was a global figure who served in many capacities, including as President of the World Conservation Union, Special Advisor to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Chief Negotiator for External Economic Relations for the Caribbean, and a mediator and facilitator in electoral and constitutional crises.

Sir Shridas was the longest serving Secretary General of the Commonwealth from 1975 to 1990. He played a major role in the fight against institutional racism in southern Africa and played a key role in ending apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela once said of him: “He is one of those men who, in the fight for human justice, choose the whole world as their stage.”

Sir Shridas said his 15 years as Commonwealth Secretary-General had “opened many doors for me and many people had contributed to opening those doors – some were simply inspired – like Nelson Mandela.

“But I owe many of the important paths I have taken in the eight international committees I have participated in to one of the great men of my generation, Willy Brandt (German politician and statesman). I owe a lot of my CV to him.”

Sir Shridath continued to serve with distinction in his later years. At the age of 92 and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he was the first lawyer to appear virtually before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), representing Guyana in a major border dispute with Venezuela.

Sir Shridas has received many prestigious honours including the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC), Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG), Guyana Order of Excellence (OE), Jamaica Order of Merit (OM), South Africa’s Companion of Oliver Tambo, Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), and New Zealand’s highest civilian honour, the Order of New Zealand.

In 2005, Sir Shridath donated all his official papers covering his service to the Federation of the West Indies, the Government of Guyana, the Commonwealth, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the international committees on which he served and the international bodies on which he chaired, to the Cave Hill Library at the University of the West Indies, Barbados.

Sir Shridath’s wife, Ms. Lois Ramphal, died on September 20, 2019 at the age of 67. He is survived by his children, Susan, Ian, Mark, Amanda, and his son-in-law, Sir Ronald Sanders, Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and the Organization of American States (OAS).