José Ramos-Horta

Who is José Ramos-Horta?

José Manuel Ramos-Horta was born on 26 December 1949 in Dili, Portuguese Timor, to a Portuguese father and a Timorese mother. Exiled as a young man for criticising Portuguese colonial rule, he became a founding member of Fretilin and, after the Indonesian invasion of 1975, served for nearly two decades as the exiled international spokesman and foreign minister of the Timorese resistance, travelling the world and appealing repeatedly to the United Nations on behalf of his people. In 1996 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor. Following independence he held senior government roles, becoming prime minister in July 2006 and then president from 2007 to 2012, a period during which he survived a serious assassination attempt in February 2008. He was elected to the presidency again in 2022, becoming the country's seventh president. Ramos-Horta remains one of the most internationally recognised figures to have emerged from Timor-Leste's long struggle for self-determination.

Sources: NobelPrize.org, José Ramos-Horta — Facts and Biographical (1996) · Wikipedia, José Ramos-Horta · Britannica, "Jose Ramos-Horta"