José Ramos-Horta

As a founder and former member of Fretilin, Ramos-Horta served as the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975–1999). While he continued to work with Fretilin, he resigned from the party in 1988, becoming an independent politician.^[3]


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 2006, following the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Ramos-Horta was appointed as acting Prime Minister by President Xanana Gusmão. Two weeks later, on 10 July 2006, he was sworn in as the second Prime Minister of East Timor. He was elected as President in 2007. On 11 February 2008, he was shot during an assassination attempt.


After leaving office as President in 2012, Ramos-Horta was appointed as the United Nations' Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) on 2 January 2013. He was re-elected to the presidency in 2022.

Early history and family[edit]

Ramos-Horta was born in 1949 in Dili, capital of East Timor. He is of Mestiço ethnicity,^[4] born to Portuguese father and Portuguese-Timorese mother. Both father (Francisco Horta) and maternal grandfather (Arsénio José Filipe) were deported to Timor by Portuguese authorities. He was educated in a Catholic mission in the small village of Soibada, later chosen by Fretilin as its headquarters after the Indonesian invasion. Of his eleven brothers and sisters, four were killed by the Indonesian military.


Ramos-Horta studied public international law at The Hague Academy of International Law in 1983 and at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he completed an Individualized Master of Arts degree in Peace Studies with the major area of study being Public International Law and International Relations, awarded in December 1984.^[5] He was trained in human rights law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 1983. He completed post-graduate courses in American foreign policy at Columbia University in 1983.^[6][7] He is a Senior Associate Member of the University of Oxford's St Antony's College since 1987 and speaks five languages fluently: Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, and the most commonly spoken East Timorese language, Tetum.^[8]


Ramos-Horta is divorced from Ana Pessoa Pinto, East Timor's Minister for State and Internal Administration, with whom he has a son, Loro Horta, who was born in exile in Mozambique.^[9]