JOSE RAMOS-HORTA

November 13, 1996
		Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, an exiled resistance leader and a key international spokesman for the East Timorese Independence Movement.

Online NewsHour Special Report: East Timor Independence Oct. 25, 1996: Online Forum: Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta responds to viewer qestions. July 8, 1999: A discussion on Indonesia's election process. June 2, 1998: Indonesia attempts to form a democratic government. May 22, 1998: A discussion on changes in the Indonesian government. May 21, 1998: Indonesia in the wake of Suharto's resignation. May 20, 1998: Should Suharto resign? May 19, 1998: Suharto announces plans to step down. May 15, 1998: A report on the riots in Jakarta. May 14, 1998: Students protest against Suharto. March 10, 1998: A discussion on Indonesia's economic importance. Feb. 27, 1998: Can Indonesia restore confidence in its currency? Jan. 9, 1998: Indonesia's stock markets take a tumble. Oct. 11, 1996: Two East Timorese dissidents win the Nobel Peace Prize. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Asia.   United Nations Mission in East Timor Indonesian Embassy in Washington East Timor Action Network U.S. Embassy in Jakarta Carter Center	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This year's award went to two people who have been part of the struggle for independence in East Timor since Indonesia took over the Portuguese colony 21 years ago. The Nobel committee chose them in hopes of calling attention to what it views as an under-reported conflict.
	Behind the East Timor situation
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: East Timor makes up one half of the island of Timor in the remote Southeastern corner of the vast Indonesian Archipelago. The world's fourth largest country, Indonesia is a nation of almost 200 million people scattered across more than 13,000 islands. It's a strategic crossroads with vast oil reserves, and it's also a top trading partner for the United States. Since Indonesia gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1949, and throughout the Cold War, the United States has courted Indonesian leaders to make sure that the country stayed out of Communist control, the U.S. looked the other way in 1975, when Indonesia seized and occupied East Timor. According to the Nobel committee, up to one third of the population of East Timor, as many as 200,000 people, have lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war, and terror during Indonesian occupation. Events like this--an Indonesian army massacre of unarmed demonstrators in a cemetery in the capital city, Dili, have been denounced by the U.N. and human rights groups around the world. The Nobel peace price winners are Carlos Ximenes Belo, the Roman Catholic bishop of East Timor and Jose Ramos-Horta, an exiled resistance leader and now the key international spokesman for the Timorese Independence Movement. When the Nobel committee announced the awards, the Indonesian government was immediately critical. ALI ALATAS, Foreign Minister, Indonesia: I'm quite astounded at the choice of the Nobel committee this time, and I wonder what the criteria are for such a choice. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In response to continued Indonesian criticism of the Nobel laureates, students in East Timor staged protests yesterday on the fifth anniversary of the Dili Cemetery massacre. Ramos-Horta, who frequently travels to promote the cause of East Timor, is in Washington for several speaking engagements.
	Shining a spotlight on East Timor
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Ramos-Horta is with us now. Thank you for being with us. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA, Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Thank you for inviting me. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Nobel Committee said they hoped to shine a spotlight on your struggle by giving you this award. Have you gotten a lot more attention because of it? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Oh, yes, definitely, and we are profoundly grateful to the Nobel Committee for having thought about among so many other worthy individuals like Richard Holbrooke, Jimmy Carter, Wei Jingzhen of China, Layla Zana of Kurdistan, in jail in Turkey, for having thought of us for this year; we are extremely grateful for them. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Have there been any bad consequences because of it? Has there been a crackdown? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes, there has been a major crackdown, particularly directed at a person who should not have done it, and that is Bishop Belo, the head of Catholic Church in East Timor. He is a most peaceful man, the only disagreement I always had with him over the years, you know--we like each other, I respect him enormously--the only thing we disagree is very simple--he's always against demonstrations, and I know that if I ever ask him whether he would authorize me telling the people to demonstrate, he would say, no. Sometimes when people demonstrate in East Timor it is because we go behind his back, and that is our only disagreement, and--so he's the most peaceful person, but even demonstrations he does not approve. He goes to Indonesia the other day to the--on invitation of the National Council of Bishops in Indonesia. He was met with 3,000 demonstrators orchestrated by the Indonesian government, insulting him, kick his car, spitting at the car. There have been so much threat on him--just a few days ago I was in Lisbon when I got an urgent message from him to give him a call, so I did, and he came on the phone, and he said in the beginning--referring to the Nobel Peace Prize announcement--they wanted to eat you alive--referring to the attacks on me by the Indonesia army--now they want to eat me alive. He was referring to the attacks on him. It started because of an interview in a German magazine, he criticized rightly the human rights situation in East Timor, and that's how they reacted, so, so out of proportion.
	Ramos-Horta's path to exile
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us how this all began with you. You grew up in a family in East Timor. And how did you get involved, just briefly, how did you get involved in the liberation movement? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Well, nothing extraordinary about it because I'm an East Timorese, so my country's invaded. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Excuse me. Your father is--was Portuguese, right? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And your mother was Timorese. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes. My father was a Portuguese. He was in the Portuguese navy in the 30's--a sergeant in the Portuguese navy. There was a civil war in Spain, pitting Republicans against Franco, and my father belonged to that class of people in the navy at the time that were very revolutionary in the sense that they were against the dictatorship, so he and other fellow sergeants decide to take two war ships from the Portuguese navy to go to Spain to fight against Franco-- ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you come by this naturally. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Well, maybe that's so. My mother is an East Timorese, an extraordinary woman of enormous courage, she survived World War II, lost every single person in her family--on her family's side--in the hands of the Japanese, because they sheltered the Australians. You know, during World War II, the East Timorese sided with the allies against the Japanese--and my mother lost every single relative, with the exception of one sister, who she met 40 years later--remind me so much about the Jewish Holocaust--you know, and the families that were split and met 40/50 years later. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But just briefly, how did you get involved, and how did you get exiled? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Well, I got involved because I dreamed of independence, freedom for East Timor, and then I was given the job, the assignment of diplomacy. I was never involved in any of the armed resistance or anything. I was a journalist by training. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This was with the resistance movement, though. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes. Yes, in the 70's. Then the invasion was approaching. You know, we knew that sooner or later within days, the Indonesia army was going to invade the country, so I was assigned by the leadership of the movement to lead a delegation to get out of East Timor and go to the United Nations in New York, and so I left. I had never been to United States--New York. I had never been to a big city in my whole life. I had never seen snow in my life. And so I was thrust into Manhattan into the hands of the Security Council, and I probably was the youngest person ever to address the U.N. Security Council in December ‘75. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you've been in exile ever since ‘75, haven't you? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes.
	East Timor: Present tense
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What is your--what have you been trying to do? And what is your goal now? Are you working for a negotiated solution to this conflict? Is that your goal? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Oh, yes, and that's what I have done since ‘74. You know, I was only 24 years old. I was the founding member of the Social Democratic Party of East Timor, which also claimed independence at the time--I traveled to Indonesia on my own and met with the Indonesian foreign minister, in Jakarta, in his home residence three times, and I said, the people of East Timor want independence, but an independent East Timor does not mean necessarily that it will be on the wrong side of Indonesia--it would be in the interest of Indonesia--and that we would apply to join ASEAN within days of our independence. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Association of Southeastern Nations. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes. The Association of Southeastern Asian Nations. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Southeastern Asian Nations. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Of which Indonesia is the largest partner, and I said our people--much could be trained by you--by Indonesia. Our security force could be trained in Indonesia, and I was a great admirer of Indonesia--in fact, the founding father of the republic, President Sukarno, whose daughter today is a leader of the opposition was--I was a great admirer of him. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you now think that a negotiated solution can be arrived at under the auspices of the U.N., is it closer, or is it as far away as ever? This has been going on for so many years. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Oh, no, it's much closer than ever, and I must commend the U.N. for what they have done, in spite of the lack of support from so many countries--from the international community--the secretary general, with a lot of patience, determination, at least one positive side of the negotiations, it has kept the issue on the agenda, and for that we are grateful to the U.N. And I believe as the dust settles, as the Indonesians recover from the shell shock--shock therapy provided by the Nobel Committee--in the next few months from now, they'll wake up to reality, and the reality we know today is different from 1975, of the Cold War, of the Communist witch hunt, and so on, and so they have no choice but come to terms with reality and negotiate much more seriously an honorable, durable solution to the East Timor conflict. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What is your specific solution? What do you want to have happen? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: For us, it is sacred, the right to self-determination, to make a choice freely by the people of East Timor, and I believe the people of East Timor will choose independence if there is a referendum under U.N. supervision, but, at the same time, we are prepared to move step by step gradually, without Indonesia losing face, and we put forward a proposal just a few years ago--it's very similar to the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli agreement--whereby they move step by step towards a final settlement in a few years from now, and that's exactly what we--we have proposed. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And just in the last couple of seconds we have left, what should the U.S. be doing? Has the Clinton administration done what you think it should do? JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Oh, he has been good to East Timor. His administration did some very good things like stopping the arms deliveries--like M-16's--criticizing Indonesia, voting with us at the Commission of Human Rights in Geneva, but he can build on this in his second term to exert considerable pressure on Indonesia behind the scenes, discreetly, for Indonesia to withdraw from East Timor to stop torture, stop the killings, and allow the people of East Timor a free choice to exercise the right to self-determination; he can do that, and Clinton would be received in East Timor by the end of his mandate as a hero of an independent East Timor--if he does something good now. I believe he's a very good man, and I believe he will help us. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Ramos-Horta, congratulations on your award, and thank you for being with us. JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Thank you.