Interview with Indrajit Coomaraswamy
QIndrajit, please, could I ask, with reference to Sri Lanka, was the politics and the civil war environment in Sri Lanka in the 1990s and your own nationality in any way problematic to your work in ComSec?
IC: No, not at all. You know, I’m an ethnic Tamil, but all the different governments in Sri Lanka were very supportive while I was in the Secretariat. The problems at the UN Human Rights Council and the accountability issues, as well as the controversy regarding the hosting of CHOGM, came to the fore after I left ComSec. I left EAD in October 2008 and the war ended in May 2009. There was no backwash effect, even though I came back to serve as Interim Director of the Social Transformation Programmes Division for six months in 2010.
( July 3, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Interview with Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, conducted 23rd September 2014 in London as part of the Commonwealth Oral History Project. The project aims to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965 through sixty oral history interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. Biography: Coomaraswamy, Dr Indrajit. 1950- . Educated at Cambridge University and the University of Sussex. Staff Officer, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 1973-89, serving in Economic Research, Statistics and Bank Supervision Divisions, with a period of secondment to the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Joined the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1990 as Chief Officer, Economics, in the International Finance and Markets Section, later becoming Director of the Economic Affairs Division and Deputy Director, Secretary General’s Office, before leaving ComSec in 2008. Returned as Interim Director, Social Transformation Programmes Division, Commonwealth Secretariat, in 2010. Special Advisor, Galleon Group.
