President Lula da Silva of Brazil peruses Dr. Jayatilleka’s book Fidel’s Ethics of Violence: the Moral Dimension of the Political Thoughts of Fidel Castro. Ambassador Jayatilleka and Ambassador Maria Nazareth Farani Azevedo of Brazil were also present.

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka will return to Colombo this weekend, having served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, since June 1st 2007. Thursday, August 20th 2009 was his last day of service in that post.

During his tenure, he served as Chairman of the Governing body of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Vice President of the UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC), Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, Coordinator of an agenda item of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), Facilitator/ negotiator for the Asian Region at the Durban Review Conference against Racism and Coordinator of the Asian Group of the UN HRC as well as the UNCTAD.