José Manuel Ramos-Horta (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ mɐˈnwɛɫ ˈʁɐ̃muz ˈɔɾtɐ]; born 26 December 1949) is an East Timorese politician who has been the seventh president of Timor-Leste since 2022, having previously been the fourth president from 2007 to 2012. He was a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor".
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.
After Timor-Leste (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 Timor-Leste. 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.
Ramos-Horta was born in 1949 in Dili, the capital of East Timor. He is of Mestiço ethnicity, born to a Portuguese father and Portuguese-Timorese mother. Both his 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. 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.
He has been 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.
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.
Ramos-Horta was actively involved in the development of political awareness in Portuguese Timor, which caused him to be exiled for two years in 1970–1971 to Portuguese East Africa. His grandfather, before him, had also been exiled, from Portugal to the Azores Islands, then Cape Verde, Portuguese Guinea and finally to Portuguese Timor.
A moderate in the emerging Timorese nationalist leadership, Ramos-Horta was appointed Foreign Minister in the "Democratic Republic of East Timor" government proclaimed by the pro-independence parties in November 1975. When appointed minister, Ramos-Horta was only 25 years old. Three days before the Indonesian troops invaded, Ramos-Horta left East Timor to plead the Timorese case before the UN.
Ramos-Horta arrived in New York to address the UN Security Council and urge them to take action in the face of the Indonesian occupation during which an estimated 102,000 East Timorese would die. Ramos-Horta was the Permanent Representative of Fretilin to the UN for the next ten years. His friends at that time mentioned that he arrived in the United States with a total of $25 in his pocket. His financial situation was often precarious during that period. He survived partly by the grace of Americans who admired his politics and his determination. Furthermore, he was obliged to travel worldwide to explain his party's position.
In 1993, the Rafto Prize was awarded to the people of East Timor. Foreign-minister-in-exile Ramos-Horta represented his nation at the prize ceremony. In May 1994, Philippine President Fidel Ramos (no relation), bowing to pressure from Jakarta, tried to ban an international conference on East Timor in Manila and blacklisted Ramos-Horta, with the Thai government following suit later that year by declaring him persona non grata.
In December 1996, Ramos-Horta shared the Nobel Peace Prize with fellow Timorese Bishop 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". On The InnerView, Ramos-Horta said that he utilises the Nobel Peace Prize as a vehicle to advocate on behalf of his country, as well as for the Palestinians and the people of Myanmar.
The Committee considered Ramos-Horta "the leading international spokesman for East Timor's cause since 1975".
Ramos-Horta played a leading role in negotiating the institutional foundations for independence. He led the Timorese delegation at an important joint workshop with UNTAET on 1 March 2000 to tease out a new strategy, and identify institutional needs. The outcome was an agreed blueprint for a joint administration with executive powers, including leaders of the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT). Further details were worked out in a conference in May 2000. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in East Timor, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, presented the new blueprint to a donor conference in Lisbon, on 22 June 2000, and to the UN Security Council on 27 June 2000. On 12 July 2000, the NCC adopted a regulation establishing a Transitional Cabinet composed of four East Timorese and four UNTAET representatives. A further conference on the building of a new nation state was held in April 2001, organised by the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden and the Platform for Asian Studies in Amsterdam, in The Hague in the Netherlands. He attended with diplomat Pascoela Barreto. The revamped joint administration successfully laid the institutional foundations for independence, and on 27 September 2002, Timor-Leste joined the United Nations. Ramos-Horta was its first Foreign Minister.
On 3 June 2006, Ramos-Horta added the post of interim minister of defense to his portfolio as foreign minister, in the wake of the resignations of the previous minister. He resigned as both Foreign and Defence Minister on 25 June 2006, announcing, "I do not wish to be associated with the present government or with any government involving Alkatiri." Prime Minister Alkatiri had been under pressure to resign his position in place of President Xanana Gusmão, but in a 25 June meeting, leaders of the Fretilin party agreed to keep Alkatiri as prime minister; Ramos-Horta resigned immediately following this decision. Foreign Minister of Australia Alexander Downer expressed his personal disappointment at Ramos-Horta's resignation. Following Alkatiri's resignation on 26 June, Ramos-Horta withdrew his resignation to contest the prime ministership and served in the position on a temporary basis until a successor to Alkatiri was named. On 8 July 2006, Ramos-Horta himself was appointed prime minister by President Gusmão. He was sworn in on 10 July.
Before his appointment as prime minister, Ramos-Horta was considered a possible candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as United Nations Secretary-General. He dropped out of the race in order to serve as Timor-Leste's prime minister, but he has indicated that he might run for the UN position at some time in the future: "I can wait five years if I am really interested in the job in 2012. I would be interested in that."