Martin Khor: A tireless defender of the third world Kanaga Raja

I had known and worked with Martin Khor for more than 20 years and was deeply saddened when I heard of his passing away.

When I joined Third World Network (TWN) back in 1994, I had some basic understanding of the issues that TWN was working on, such as trade and development, environment, money and finance etc.

However, I developed a much deeper understanding of these issues from the articles and papers that Martin used to write for TWN as well as hearing him talk passionately about these issues.

It was Martin who asked me in 1996-97 to take on the task of editing TWN’s fortnightly, the Third World Economics (TWE), when its previous editor left TWN.

It was through editing TWE, that I had the opportunity of reading the articles written by Mr Chakravarthi Raghavan, then Editor-in-Chief of the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), and these gave me even greater insights into the workings of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as other issues.

It was also Martin who arranged for me to go to Geneva, first in 1995 and numerous times later on, to help out Mr Raghavan with the production of the SUNS.

Later, in 2001, I came to Geneva and began working full-time with Mr Raghavan, eventually taking on the editorship of the SUNS in 2008 from Martin, to whom Mr Raghavan had handed over responsibility in 2005 when he retired.

Some of my best recollections of working with Martin was when the both of us were covering various WTO meetings from 2005 until 2008. We would frequently hold discussions on what meetings to cover and who would write the article on any particular meeting, and I greatly valued his insights and suggestions.

Martin was a tireless defender of the Third World and he will be sorely missed.

(Kanaga Raja is Editor of the SUNS.)