Human Rights Diplomat and Nobel Laureate to Discuss Non-Violent Peacemaking in Talk at Smith

Jose Ramos-Horta, winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace prize for his work to restore independence to the disputed territory of East Timor, will speak at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 15, in Smith College's Wright Hall Auditorium.

Ramos-Horta's address, "Peacemaking: The Power of Non-Violence," is free and open to the public. Sponsored by Smith's Amnesty International chapter, his visit will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

An island of 800,000 people, East Timor is a former Portuguese colony seized by Indonesia in a violent military invasion in 1975. Despite world condemnation of Indonesia's annexation, East Timor remains, according to Human Rights Watch/Asia, "a place where arbitrary detention and torture are routine and where basic freedoms of expression, association, and assembly are non-existent." More than 200,000 East Timorese have died in the conflict with Indonesia.

Ramos-Horta, the son of a Timorese mother and a Portuguese father, has long been involved in the development of political awareness in East Timor and is credited as a moderating influence in the emerging Timorese nationalism. Exiled by the Indonesian government, he was mandated in 1975 by East Timor's pro-independence parties to represent their cause abroad, a responsibility he carried out for ten years as a permanent representative to the United Nations. He has denounced the invasion and annexation and defended the rights of the East Timorese people to self-determination. The Nobel committee recognized Ramos-Horta as the "leading international spokesman for East Timor's cause since 1975."

In his Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, Ramos-Horta said that "the preservation of the territorial integrity of a country can be achieved only if those in power are sensitive to the basic demands of the many indigenous peoples and nationalities that make up the country."

"Brute force might silence and keep dormant the dreams and aspirations of a people but the anger simmering for decades will inevitably resurface and break up the country."

In addition to his work in East Timor, Ramos-Horta has championed and negotiated human rights issues around the world, in places such as Burma, Tibet, Colombia, and Guatemala.

For more information call (413) 585-6883.