Nobel Peace Winner Speaks at Tufts Monday

East Timor President Featured Speaker for Leadership Class

Story Updated 7:51PM Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Nobel laureate and President of Timor-Leste Dr. José Ramos-Horta spoke at Tufts University Monday as the featured speaker for a course on the role of leadership in conflict transformation.

Dr. Ramos-Horta delivered a speech entitled “A Journey from Activist to President” and will receive the Institute of Global Leadership’s Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award.

According to the Tufts Daily, Dr. Ramos-Horta talked about how he helped achieve a “fragile” peace in his country by being a compassionate leader.

“The greatest quality of a leader is to be compassionate, is to be humble. When leaders do not have [the] sensitivity to come down from their ivory tower and talk to the common people, they lose touch.”

Dr. Ramos-Horta is the second president of Timor-Leste. He was the co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts to bring world attention to the plight of the East Timorese people under Indonesian rule from 1975 to 1999. President Ramos-Horta has had an impressive career as a diplomat and journalist and has served as prime minister and foreign minister of Timor-Leste since 1999. He was the founder and a former member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN).

According to information released by Tufts, the leadership course will also cover Nicaragua, Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Columbia, Sri Lanka and Israel/Palestine.

– InsideMedford.com