Jose Ramos-Horta life and biography

José Ramos-Horta is the President of East Timor, the second since independence from Indonesia, taking office on 20 May 2007. He is a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and a former Prime Minister, having served from 2006 until his inauguration as President after winning the 2007 East Timorese presidential election. As a founder and former member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), Ramos-Horta served as the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the years of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). While he has continued to work with FRETILIN, Ramos-Horta resigned from the party in 1988, and has since remained an independent politician.

After East Timor achieved independence in 2002, Ramos-Horta was appointed as the country's first Foreign Minister. He served in this position until his resignation on 25 June 2006, amidst political turmoil. On 26 June, following the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Ramos-Horta was appointed acting Prime Minister by the President, Xanana Gusmão. Two weeks later, on 10 July 2006, he was officially sworn in as the second Prime Minister of East Timor. On 11 February 2008, Ramos-Horta was injured when he was shot during an assassination attempt.

He was born in Dili, the capital of East Timor, to a Timorese mother and Portuguese father who had been exiled to East Timor by the Salazar dictatorship. He was educated in a Catholic mission in the small village of Soibada, later chosen by Fretilin as headquarters after the Indonesian invasion. Of his eleven brothers and sisters, four were killed by the Indonesian military.

He was actively involved in the development of political awareness in what was then Portuguese Timor which caused him to be exiled for two years in 1970 - 1971 to Portuguese East Africa. It was a family tradition as his grandfather had also suffered exile, from Portugal to the Azores Islands, then Cape Verde, Portuguese Guinea and finally to Portuguese Timor.

A moderate in the emerging Timorese nationalist leadership, he was appointed Foreign Minister in the "Democratic Republic of East Timor" government proclaimed by the pro-independence parties in November 1975. Ramos Horta left East Timor three days before the Indonesian troops invaded to plead the Timorese case before the United Nations.

Ramos Horta arrived in New York to address the UN Security Council and urge them to take action in the face of the Indonesian military onslaught which would result in over 200. 000 East Timorese deaths between 1976 and 1981. José Ramos Horta was the Permanent Representative of Fretilin to the UN for the ensuing ten years.

In December 1996, José Ramos Horta shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his fellow countryman, Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo. The Nobel Committee chose to honour the two laureates for their 'sustained efforts to hinder the oppression of a small people', hoping that 'this award will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict of East Timor based on the people's right to self- determination. The Committee considers José Ramos Horta 'the leading international spokesman for East Timor's cause since 1975.

José Ramos Horta studied Public International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law (1983) and at Antioch University where he completed an MA in Peace Studies (1984). He was trained in Human Rights Law at the International Institute of Human Rights In Strasbourg, France (1983). He attended Post-Graduate courses in American Foreign Policy at Columbia University, New York (1983). He is a Senior Associate Member of St Anthony's College, Oxford, England (1987).

Awards and honors:

Nobel Peace Prize 1996, with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
President of East Timor (2007-)
Shot stomach (11-Feb-2008)
Assassination Attempt (11-Feb-2008)
Coma induced (11-Feb-2008)
Hague Appeal for Peace Honorary Committee

Read more