Kumar Rupesinghe (1943–2022) passed away in Colombo in his native Sri Lanka on 19 February.
He was educated mainly in England, with a PhD from the City University of London and had an international career as a scholar and an organizer. He worked at PRIO as a researcher from 1982 to 1992. During this period, he also served for several years as our Research Director.
As a member of the institute’s leadership ‘troika’ in the early 1980s, he played an important part in the revision of the institute’s governance. As a researcher he was primarily concerned with ethnic conflict, early warning, and conflict resolution and published a number of articles, monographs, and edited volumes. He had a wide international network and used his social skills to bring PRIO in touch with many leading scholars in the field. He also organized several conferences under the auspices of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), where he chaired the commission on internal conflict. He left PRIO to head International Alert, an international NGO working for nonviolent conflict resolution.
A list of his PRIO publications can be found by following this link.
