Sir Shridath Ramphal obituary

Shridath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal in 1992. He was seriously unloved in the upper echelons of the British government, but this was a burden he bore with equanimity. It came with the territory. Photograph: Simon Burt/Shutterstock

The central focus of the long international career of Sonny (Shridath) Ramphal, who has died aged 95, was undoubtedly his time as secretary general of the Commonwealth. It was in this period, from 1975 to 1990, that the reputation of the Commonwealth as a proactive postcolonial institution that could play a mediating role between developed and developing world was formed.

This was particularly due to the central part Ramphal played in helping to broker the decolonisation of Rhodesia into Zimbabwe in 1980, and in furthering the ending of apartheid in South Africa 10 years later.