Anoushka -
It was an honour to hear His Excellency, President Jose Ramos Horta speak at the Warwick Economic Summit earlier this year. From being appointed as Foreign Minister at the age of 25 to being re-elected President in 2022, his political career is nothing short of an inspiration. The excitement of hearing from a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, especially one as outspoken as him was slightly dampened by his anodyne statement of Timor Leste’s foreign policy. On the atrocities occurring in Palestine, his “neutral” non-answer was so at odds with the man who addressed the United Nations some 14 years ago stating outright that, “The only people still paying for Holocaust are the Palestinians”. On Timor- Leste’s diplomatic ties with Australia, President Ramos signalled that they were “great” and that every friendship had some tensions. On the flipside, listening to anecdotes from a man of His Excellency’s experience was an absolute treat! He dispelled the wikipedia rumour of him having first arrived in the U.S with just $25 in his pocket for his first UNSC meeting, candidly saying that it was “more”. Stressing the importance of regional cooperation and integration, President Horta enthusiastically announced Timor-Leste’s admission to ASEAN in 2025. He left us with several nuggets of wisdom, one of which that stuck, “ The lesson is one persists, one has faith, one does not surrender to extremists.”
Bibliography:
unwatch. 2010. “East Timor President Tells UN: ‘Only People Still Paying for Holocaust Are the Palestinians.’” UN Watch. March 12, 2010. https://unwatch.org/timor-leste-pres-tells-un-only-people-still-paying-for-holocaust-not-of-thei r-making-are-the-palestinians/.
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