SIHL is Deeply saddened to hear the news of passing away of Prof. Johan Galtung
Deeply saddened to hear the news of passing away of Prof. Johan Galtung, a near and dear friend of Sarvodaya, me and my father.
Prof. Galtung is considered the father of peace studies. He is the founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its first director until 1970. He also established the Journal of Peace Research in 1984. I had the great privilege and honour of working very closely with Prof. Galtung in the 2000s, during the height of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict and he made several visits to Sri Lanka. Also, he was one of the key resource persons for the conflict resolution training for Sri Lankan multiparty, multistakeholder group at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR). He was also the attesting witness when my dear friends Gudrun Kramer and Wilfried Graf got married in Sri Lanka. Prof. Galtung once publicly stated “Sarvodaya is Sri Lanka’s beautiful gift to the world”. At Sarvodaya Institute of Higher Learning (SIHL), Bandaragama, we have established a Peace Library where the full set of Collective Works of Prof. Galtung are made available for students and trainees in peace and conflict resolution. May his soul rest in peace!