For most of his adult life, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate José Ramos-Horta has fought passionately and valiantly for human rights and the independence of his homeland, East Timor, crusading to bring an end to brutal oppression, and lending his voice to the voiceless.

In 1996, Dr. Ramos-Horta, along with his countryman Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee honored the laureates for their "sustained efforts to hinder the oppression of a small people," in the hope that "this will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict of East Timor based on the people's right to self-determination."

Dr. Ramos-Horta has spent more than a quarter of a century as a human rights diplomat, in exile from his homeland, denouncing the illegal invasion and annexation of East Timor by Indonesia and defending the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination. He has presented the case of East Timor, and pleaded for the respect of human rights, before the UN Security Council, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the European Parliament. Dr. Ramos-Horta has also met with diplomats and leaders around the world, including President Clinton of the U.S., President Chirac of France, President Wahid of Indonesia, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the U.K., and many others, on behalf of East Timor and human rights.

In 1999, Dr. Ramos-Horta's tireless efforts bore fruit with the historic referendum in East Timor, in which the East Timorese overwhelmingly expressed their desire for independence. Terrible violence ensued the referendum, but the people had spoken and the world heard. In December 1999, for the first time in 24 years, Dr. Ramos-Horta returned to his homeland to help with the rebuilding of the country and its transition to independence under the auspices of the United Nations Transitional Administration.

José Ramos-Horta was born on December 26, 1949, in Dili, East Timor, and he was educated in a Catholic mission in the village of Soibada. He trained as a journalist and worked in that profession in East Timor, also acting as a radio and TV correspondent from 1969 to 1974.

Dr. Ramos-Horta was actively involved in the development of political awareness in East Timor which caused him to be exiled for two years in 1970-1971 in Mozambique. A moderating influence in the emerging Timorese nationalism, he was mandated in 1974-75 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 and urge them to take action in the face of the Indonesian military onslaught which resulted in over 200,000 East Timorese deaths (estimated at one-third of the East Timorese population) between 1976 and 1981. (Four of Dr. Ramos-Horta's eleven brothers and sisters were killed by the Indonesian military.) José Ramos-Horta was the Permanent Representative of the FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) to the UN for the ensuing ten years, and he tells of his experience as a diplomat in his book "Funu: The Saga of East Timor."

In February 1996, he was awarded the first UNPO prize, given by the Unrepresented Nationals and Peoples Organization for his "unswerving commitment to the rights of and freedoms of threatened peoples." In 1998, he was awarded the Gran Cross of the Order of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed by the Portuguese government. Other awards bestowed upon him include the Gold Medal of the President of Italy, the First Hague Peace Appeal Award, the International Peace Activist Award from the Gleitsman Foundation, and the Professor Thorof Rafto Human Rights Award.

His dedication to the defense of human rights led him to set up in 1989 the Diplomacy Training Programme (DTP) in the Law Faculty of the University of New South Wales to train indigenous peoples, minorities and human rights activists from the Asia Pacific region in the UN Human Rights System.

Dr. Ramos-Horta studied Public International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law and at Antioch University where he completed an M.A. in Peace Studies. He was trained in Human Rights Law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, attended post-graduate courses in American Foreign Policy at Columbia University, New York, and is a Senior Associate Member of St. Anthony's College, Oxford, England. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates by seven universities in the U.S. and abroad.

Hollywood Humanitarian Award Recipient
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate JODY WILLIAMS

Jody Williams is the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which was formally launched by six non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in October of 1992. Because of the extraordinary contribution Ms. Williams and ICBL have made to the cause of banning and clearing anti-personnel mines worldwide, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

"There are at present probably over one hundred million anti-personnel mines scattered over large areas on several continents," stated the Norwegian Nobel Committee. "Such mines maim and kill indiscriminately and are a major threat to the civilian populations and to the social and economic development of the many countries affected. The ICBL and Jody Williams started a process which in the space of a few years changed a ban on anti-personnel mines from a vision to a feasible reality."

Ms. Williams has overseen the growth of the ICBL to more than 1,300 NGOs in over 85 countries. She has served as the chief strategist and spokesperson for the campaign, and is now Campaign Ambassador for the ICBL, speaking on its behalf all over the world. Working in an unprecedented cooperative effort with governments, UN bodies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the ICBL achieved its goal of an international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines during the diplomatic conference held in Oslo in September 1997.

Ms. Williams has written and spoken extensively on the problem of landmines and the movement to ban them. For the first time, she traveled with the ICBL to Afghanistan in July 2002 to address mine clearance needs, educating the new government in Kabul on the landmine treaty, and urging their signing, which they did on July 30. She has spoken in many forums, including the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Organization of African Unity. In recognition of her expertise on the issue, Ms. Williams was invited to serve as a technical adviser to the UN's Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, led by Ms. Graca Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique.

Ms. Williams co-authored a seminal study, After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines, based on two years of field research in four mine-affected countries, detailing the socioeconomic consequences of landmine contamination. She has written articles for journals produced by the United Nations and the ICRC, among others.

Prior to beginning the ICBL, Ms. Williams worked for eleven years to build public awareness about U.S. policy toward Central America. From 1986 to 1992, she developed and directed humanitarian relief projects as the deputy director of the Los Angeles-based Medical Aid for El Salvador. From 1984 to 1986, she was co-coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, leading fact-finding delegations to the region. Previously, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Washington, D.C.

Ms. Williams has a Master's Degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Washington, D.C., 1984), a Master's Degree in Teaching Spanish and ESL from the School for International Training (Brattleboro, Vermont, 1976), and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont (Burlington, Vermont, 1972).

Jody Williams is an eloquent and outspoken advocate for peace and human rights issues. She is one of only ten women who have received the Nobel Peace Prize and only the third woman from the U.S. to receive it. She has received honors around the world for her work, including the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Fiat Lux Award from Clark University, among others. She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Briar Cliff College, Marlboro College, the University of Vermont, and Williams College.

In his speech in 1997 regarding the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICBL and Jody Williams, Francis Sejersted, then chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said: "There are those among us who are unswerving in their faith that things can be done to make our world a better, safer, and more humane place.... You have not only dared to tackle your task, but also proved that the impossible is possible." For more information about ICBL and Jody Williams, visit www.icbl.org.

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