Kumar Rupesinghe
Encyclopedia
Kumar Rupesingheis an academic and activist involved in social issues, particularly
Human Rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, development issues, processes of globalisation, conflict prevention, conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
and conflict transformation in the light of peacekeeping and peacebuilding for a harmonious coexistence among all peoples in the world.
He gained fame as coleader, with his then wife, Sunethra Bandaranaike
Sunethra Bandaranaike
Sunethra Bandaranaike is a Sri Lankan philanthropist and a socialite.She is the eldest daughter of former Prime Ministers Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike and Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike and sister of former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and former Speaker Anura...
(the daughter of then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is the functional head of the Cabinet of Sri Lanka. However, the President is both head of state and head of government in Sri Lanka...
, Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was a Sri Lankan politician and the world's first female head of government...
) of the Maoist Janavegaya group, a faction of the then ruling United Front
United Front (Sri Lanka)
The United Front was a political alliance in Sri Lanka, formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party , the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka in 1968...
.
He has been a former Secretary General of International Alert, and an advisor to the Reconciliation programme of the Triple R. Rupesinghe has experience in mediation
Mediation
Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...
and conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
work. http://www.kumarrupesinghe.org
Biography
Rupesinghe obtained his first degree from the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and his Ph.D. from the City University London. He has contributed towards building new organizations and networks on human rights and peace.http://www.kumarrupesinghe.org
At sixteen he went to Europe to study philosophy in Europe for eight years. His guide and mentor in those formative years was Hungarian philosopher Alfred Reynolds - Reinhold Alfréd, whose insightful and enlightening discussions on philosophy ensured that the young Rupesinghe earned a solid grounding in Western an Indian Philosophy. This timely exposure to the Western culture at a very early age armed him with muchneeded subjectivity of his own Sri Lankan culture. Gaining an insight into different schools of thought allowed him to perceive transparently the shortcomings in his native land.
In the meanwhile, he continued his academic growth by obtaining a Degree at the London School of Economics and received his Doctorate from the City University London. Over time, he went on to become a Research Fellow at the Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo, (1971–1973) and was appointed Director of the National Youth Service Council.
It was but natural that one of Rupesinghe’s core concerns was human dignity, or the lack of it, which he witnessed during the ethnic riots of 1958 in Sri Lanka, where a close Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
friend and his family were killed brutally. Little did he know that this experience would shape the trajectory of his entire life as his philosophic bent of mind grappled with the injustice and the discrimination of minorities in the north and east of the island.
PeaceLoving Revolutionary
During 1973-1977, under the patronage of the Sri Lanka Freedom PartySri Lanka Freedom Party
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is one of the major political parties in Sri Lanka. It was founded by S.W.R.D Bandaranaike in 1951 and, since then, has been one of the two largest parties in the Sri Lankan political arena. It first came to power in 1956 and since then has been the predominant party in...
, Dr. Rupesinghe formed two major weekly newspapers, Janavegaya and Janavegam (both meaning 'people's power'), which embodied a social movement for change in Sri Lanka. The Janavegaya social movement had wide popularity and a presence in all parts of the country. One of his unique achievements at that time was to visit prisons where 20,000 political prisoners were held as a result of the abortive 1971 JVP Insurrection. Eventually, through the efforts of Janavegaya, the then Prime Minister was persuaded to release all prisoners held in connection to the insurrection, except for the key figures of the insurgency.
Through the newspaper Janavegam, a Tamil weekly, he had access to Tamil opinion in the north and became aware of the deeprooted grievances of Tamil youth. Janavegam agitated for their rights and called for power sharing arrangement for the North and East provinces. One positive outcome of this agitation was that the government established the University of Jaffna
University of Jaffna
Jaffna University is a public university in the city of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.- Overview :Jaffna University has four campuses; Thirunelveli, Marathanamadam, Kaithady and Vavuniya...
. The weekly newspaper predicted that unless there was a clear policy to alleviate the suffering of the people in the North and address the grievances of the youth, civil war would be an eventual reality.
University of Peradeniya
After the 1977 defeat of the SLFPled United Front government, he served as Lecturer at the Department of Sociology. University of PeradeniyaUniversity of Peradeniya
The University of Peradeniya is a world renowned state university in Sri Lanka, funded by the University Grants Commission...
(1977 1981). At this time he was also a member of the Social Scientists Association, a Sri Lankan research body.
International Peace Research Institute
He was invited to join the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, as a Research Fellow in 1982. At this juncture, ethnic polarisation in Sri Lanka had increased, and after 1977, relations between the Tamils and the Government of Sri Lanka had deteriorated. Against this backdrop, he singlemindedly dedicated himself to finding solutions to the ethnic conflict and studied means by which further damage could be prevented. This quest led to his early attempt to advocate an early warning system to prevent conflict.
He was later appointed Deputy Director and the Director of PRIO’s programme on ethnic conflict and conflict resolution. His research programme was now honed and unveiled as an early attempt to warn the international community of impending ethnic and national conflicts and to engage in debate with the international community on the importance of focusing on internal conflicts, early warning and conflict prevention.
During his tenure, Dr. Rupesinghe was appointed as the Co¬ordinator to the Programme on Governance and Conflict Resolution at the United Nations University, Tokyo, where he edited two volumes and commissioned several monographs on identity conflict. He was also Chair of the Commission on Internal Conflicts of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), where he concluded his chairmanship by publishing four volumes on ‘Early Warning and Conflict Resolution’.
International Alert
From 19921998 Dr. Rupesinghe was Secretary General of International Alert (IA), an International NonGovernmental Organisation (INGO) dedicated to the prevention and mitigation of violent internal conflict, based in London, succeeding the world renowned human rights advocate, the first secretary General of Amnesty International, Martin Ennals, who received the Nobel Prize. During his tenure, Dr. Rupesinghe was in the august company of IA Board members like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureates and other distinguished citizens of the global human rights community.
Under the leadership of Dr. Rupesinghe , International Alert became one of the largest international nongovernmental organisations in the world, with a budget of approximately UK£5 million a year, a staff of 80 and field programmes in over 15 countries in conflict. Many organisations adopted International Alert’s mandate of conflict prevention. In his capacity, Dr. Rupesinghe engaged in capacity building of local organisations and collaborated with over 50 organisations mainly in the regions of conflict.
International Alert has been involved in mediation and conflict resolution in Sri Lanka, Philippines Fiji, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Rwanda, the Caucuses region, and the Russian Federation. International Alert made a decisive intervention in the conflict in Sierra Leone, and cofacilitated the mediation process together with the Foreign Minister of the Ivory Coast, the U.N. the O.A.U and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Their efforts eventually led to the Abidjan Accords. In Liberia, at the request of President Carter, early efforts were made to encourage dialogue between the now President Charles Taylor (Liberia) and President Abacha of Nigeria.
In Sri Lanka, International Alert undertook many complimentary efforts to contribute towards the resolution of the conflict there, with many problemsolving workshops, including all the parties to the conflicts. Of special interest was a programme to take 20 MPs from all the political parties to learn from the experience from Northern Ireland, South Africa and the Philippines.
In the Caucuses, in collaboration with the then Minister of Nationalities, Professor Valery Tishkov, who was also the Director of the Institute of Ethnography, Russian Institute of Sciences, Dr. Rupesinghe initiated a programme to expand an early warning and early response network in the Russian Federation, and inaugurated a citizenbased network for peace building and conflict resolution. International Alert was asked to intervene in several conflicts in the former Soviet Union, which included Chechnya and Dagestan.
In Fiji, International Alert was involved in several workshops with decisionmakers from both sides to work towards constitutional reform.
Foundation for CoExistence
He is the Founder (and current) Chairman of the Foundation for CoExistence (FCE), a nonprofit organization promoting coexistence through Human Security in Sri Lanka. He builds on 25 years of academic scholarship, development work, policy orientation and practical organizational and mediation efforts. He has been very closely involved in developing conceptual tools and practical action for the prevention of violent conflicts and genocide. His experience ranges from academic and policy studies of several of the world’s protracted social conflicts to practical experience in mediation and conflict resolution work. He is dedicated to continuing these efforts to resolve conflict and promote coexistence amongst diverse communities. The organisation has allegedly been successful in making substantial contributions to the reduction of violence and the promotion of human security in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province.FCE has established a framework for dispute resolution and coexistence between the LTTE and the Muslim and Sinhala communities. It has made a significant impact on the land question in the North East, assisting the Muslim Rights Organisation to set up a land register for 45,000 families, and is currently pursuing mechanisms to transfer land and to address grievances of all the communities.
In the aftermath of the tsunami, FCE was able to respond to the disaster by rescuing victims and building camps for the welfare of the affected people. Today, the FCE has a dedicated staff of over 200 and has expanded its presence to Mannar, Puttalam, Nuwara Eliya and the Colombo slums. It is currently engaged in building a Centre for Coexistence, which will demonstrate the folly of war and violence in Sri Lanka.
Academic Pursuits
Through his capacity as Chairman of the FCE, Dr. Rupesinghe also seeks to provide policy support to each step of the Sri Lankan peace process writing articles and issue papers, and participating in seminars and TV opinion programmes. This role supports continued public discussion of pertinent issues and allows for the sharing of expertise with key decisionmakers, stakeholders and fellow civil society organisations.Since his return to Sri Lanka after the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the LTTE in 2002, he has also initiated the National AntiWar Front (NAWF), with a presence in all the districts of Sri Lanka. It has been engaged in public demonstrations, sitins and vigils, to call for peace and a negotiated solution to the country’s civil war.
While his nationbuilding efforts are invaluable, Dr. Rupesinghe remains open to criticism from political circles and outside, levelled by those critical of his endeavours towards peace. He has encouraged open discussions with such individuals and groups and believes that transparency and dialogue is the only way of reaching a national consensus on the issue.
One of his valuable contributions has been his theoretical and conceptual reflections on advancing early warning and conflict resolution; the role of third parties in the mediation of protracted internal conflicts; and an advanced concept of multitrack solutions to civil wars. The advocacy programme, which he created, was to persuade governments and international organisations to develop programmes for early warning, early action and develop coalitions and burden sharing in civil wars.
As part of this work in influencing policy, he contributed to the discussion and creating policy instruments on early warning systems with the European Union (EU) and the O.A.U, and sought to influence the policy debate in UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Japan. In Japan, his efforts led to the formation of the Centre for Preventive Diplomacy.
International Achievements
Dr. Rupesinghe also served as a member of the Board at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) – Project on War Torn Societies.Professional Achievements
Apart from his academic pursuits, he has contributed towards building new organisations and networks on human rights and peace. He was Chair of HURIDOCS (Human Rights Documentation Systems Exchange International) and in addition to his role as Secretary General of International Alert, he was appointed the Chair of the programme on Culture and Ethnicity of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan. This programme will publish over five volumes on Culture and Identity.He has been very closely involved in developing conceptual tools and practical action for the prevention of violent conflict and genocide. In this context, he was the Chair of the Forum for Early Warning and Early Action (FEWER), which is an ongoing initiative to establish an international early warning, early action network.
Dr. Rupesinghe was appointed a member of the Council of the International Negotiation Network based in Atlanta, USA, an initiative led by President Carter, and acted as an advisor towards President Carter’s initiatives on peace.
He also happens to be a Council Member and Commissioner on the Commission in Globalisation of the USA-based State of the World Forum headed by President Gorbachev.
Personal
Rupesinghe was married to Sunethra Bandaranaike, the daughter of Solomon Bandaranaike
Solomon Bandaranaike
Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ் பண்டாரநாயக்கா)Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ்...
and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, both prime ministers of Sri Lanka.http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lkawgw/gen1001.html
His return to Sri Lanka after extensive experience abroad with reputable international organisations was his ultimate journey fired by his desire to put this invaluable experience to good use to benefit his motherland.
Dr. Rupesinghe is married and has two daughters. His enduring value frame remains a strong personal commitment to securing human rights for all. He is also driven to ensure that all minorities are treated as equals and empowered with power sharing mechanisms in the interests of nation building.