On 20 February 2013, my son Kamal, was on the platform just outside the front door of the offices of Cameron & Shepherd in Avenue of the Republic on the western side of the Victoria Law Courts. This is how he described the occasion. “I was standing on my office platform just before lunch when I turned to my left and saw no less a personage than Sir Shridath Ramphal standing next to me in a pink polo shirt. He had come up quietly behind me after paying one of his regular courtesy visits to my father and, like me, was awaiting a ride. He was without bodyguards, or entourage, or umbrella-carrier or anyone else accompanying him for that matter. I introduced myself, thanked him for his service to Guyana, the Caribbean, South Africa and the Commonwealth, and then asked if he would facilitate a photograph. He happily obliged.”
Sonny Ramphal was a modest, unassuming, man but with a sophisticated intelligence. He knew where he wanted to go and how to get there. He mostly succeeded but the position of UN Secretary-General eluded him, not because he was not qualified or lacked ability, but because he was too far “left.” That was a joke to those who followed his career because he was always of moderate political views, although identified with progressive causes. A political label was never attached to him but his work to end European domination and exploitation of developing countries that ended in the formation of the ACP and the Lome Convention, his stand against UDI in Southern Rhodesia and apartheid in South Africa were causes that the major powers at that time saw as antagonistic to their interests. As a person of the Third World, the interests of the Third World were his primary focus.