José Ramos-Horta was made President of the Republic on May 20, 2007 replacing Xanana Gusmão, who was the first President of the independent Republic of East Timor.

        Previously, Ramos-Horta was prime minister, a role which he took on after a political and military crisis that led to the standing down of the previous head of the government, Mari Alkatiri, and to intervention from Australian, New Zealand, Malaysian and Portuguese troops at the request of the East Timorese president.

        Ramos-Horta, who had up to that point been Foreign and Cooperation Minister of East Timor, prefers the countryside and small town to big cities, but occupation of his country by Indonesian troops forced him to live in cities such as New York and visit the world’s big capitals in search of support for his cause – the independence of East Timor.

        Born in Dili, in December 1949, to a Timorese mother and Portuguese father, Ramos-Horta was one of the founders of the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ADST), at 24 years of age, in 1974. His previous political activity, when the colonising power, Portugal, was governed by a dictatorship, took him to be exiled in Mozambique.

        Ramos-Horta left Timor, just before the Indonesian invasion, for New York, where, as the head of a Fretilin delegation, met with the United Nations Security Council. While abroad he studied International Relations, Politics and Law in the United States. Dedicated to his country’s cause he travelled the world in the name of the peace and freedom of the Maubere people, through political and diplomatic means.

        Four of his eleven brothers died at the hands of the Indonesian military.

        In 1996, together with Dom Ximenes Belo, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

        Xanana Gusmão - Prime Minister

        From press secretary for Fretilin to the president of East Timor and now Prime Minister, the life of Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, born José Alexandre Gusmão in June 1946, it was note easy to spend over ten years in the jungle organizing a guerrilla war against invading Indonesian troops until he was condemned to life in prison in a trial in which the Indonesian government denied him his right to a defense.

        Held in Cipinang prison, in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, Xanana 
        Gusmão was visited by representatives of the United Nations and by people such as Nelson Mandela. He was set free at the end of 1999 after a United Nations international peacekeeping force went into East Timor. On August 30 a referendum was held in Timor. The population voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. Indonesian troops launched a terror campaign the shocked the world.

        With UN forces on the ground Xanana Gusmão returned to Timor and became de facto leader of the new nation. The presidential elections of April 2002 gave him victory and he became the first president of the republic of East Timor on May 20, 2002.

        Born at a time when East Timor was a Portuguese colony, after finishing his military service, Xanana Gusmão became involved in a nationalist organization headed by José Ramos-Horta. In 1974 the Revolution of the Flowers took place in Portugal. After many conflicts between FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) and the UDT (Timorese Democratic Union), the former won control of the country and on November 28, 1975 declared the independence of Portuguese Timor.

        Nine days later Jakarta troops invaded Timor, later considered to be the 27th province of Indonesia. When they finally left, in 1999, they left an estimated 200,000 dead behind them.