Jose Ramos-Horta was awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, for their work to promote peaceful self-determination for East Timor, the former Portugese colony that has been fighting for its independence since Indonesian troops launched a brutal occupation in 1975, slaughtering 200,000 of the East Timorese people approximately one in every three people in this "Kosovo of the Pacific" were killed or starved to death as a result of the invasion .

East Timorese exile Jose Ramos-Horta has spent the last 29 years denouncing the illegal invasion and annexation of his homeland by Indonesia, and defending the rights of the East Timorese people to self-determination. He has presented the case of East Timor before the United Nations UN Security Council, the Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly and the UN Special Committee on De-colonization, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the European Parliament.

His active involvement in the development of political awareness in East Timor caused him to be banned from his homeland and exiled to Mozambique in 1970-71 for subversive allegations against the Portuguese regime.

A moderating influence on the emerging Timorese nationalism, Mr. Ramos-Horta was appointed by the pro-independence parties to represent East Timor abroad. He left the island three days before the Indonesian troops invaded.

In December 1975, he arrived in New York to address the UN Security Council. He urged them to take action in the face of the Indonesian military onslaught, which had resulted in nearly one-third of the small nation's population - between 1976 and 1981. For the next ten years, Mr. Ramos-Horta was the Permanent Representative to the UN for FRETILIN, the nationalist movement that had wrested control of East Timor from Portugal. His experiences as a diplomat are recounted in the book "Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor" Red Sea Press, New York, 1987 .

In February 1996, Mr. Ramos-Horta was awarded the first Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization UNPO prize for his "unswerving commitment to the rights of and freedoms of threatened peoples" by the UNPO. He had previously received the Professor Thorolf Rafto Human Rights Prize in 1993, and the Gleitzman Foundation Award in 1995. In 1998, Mr. Ramos-Horta was awarded the "Order of Freedom" award, the highest honor from the Portuguese President, Jorge Sampaio, bestowed by the Portuguese government.

Mr. Ramos-Horta is now the Special Representative of the National Council of Maubere Resistance CNRM , an umbrella organization of pro-independence movements and activists inside and outside East Timor; as well as Personal Representative of imprisoned resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao. He is also currently working with Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica, on an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, and has spoken out for many years against land mines and other conventional weapon transfers to developing countries.

Jose Ramos-Horta studied Public International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law (1983), Human Rights Law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France (1983), and completed an MA in Peace Studies at Antioch University (1984). He attended post-graduate courses in American Foreign Policy at Columbia University (1983), and is a Senior Associate Member of St. Anthony's College, Oxford, England (1987).

He has been awarded three Doctorates Honoris Causa, one from the Pontifica Universidade Catolica of Campinas, Brazil in November 1996, the other from Antioch University, Yellow Springs, Ohio in February 1997, and most recently Doctor in Laws, Honoris Causa from the University of New South Wales in Sydney in May 1998.

Born on December 26, 1949, in Dili-East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta is the son of a Timorese mother and Portuguese father who had been exiled to East Timor by the Salazar dictatorship. Mr. Ramos-Horta was educated in a Catholic mission in the retired village of Soibada, later chosen by the FRETILIN as headquarters after the Indonesian invasion. Of his eleven brothers and sisters, four were killed by the Indonesian military.

Mr. Ramos-Horta's commitment to peace in East Timor has made it impossible for him to return to his homeland. After the Indonesian invasion, he lived in the United States for 15 years. He is currently based in Lisbon and Sydney.

Soka University of America's Human Rights Lecture Series presents nationally and internationally prominent speakers to address specific aspects of the worldwide struggle for peace, social justice and reform. Through its lecture series, Soka University of America reaffirms its commitment to the ideals of human rights.

Soka University of America is an independent, co-educational institution of higher learning offering a Master of Arts (MA) degree program in Second and Foreign Language Education, specializing in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The full-time MA program is approved to operate by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education.