East Timorese President José Ramos-Horta yesterday talked about the role of compassion and human contact in obtaining a fragile peace in his country.
"The greatest quality of a leader is to be compassionate, is to be humble," he told a crowd in Sophia Gordon Hall. "When leaders do not have [the] sensitivity to come down from their ivory tower and talk to the common people, they lose touch."
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel laureate, spoke as part of the Experimental College class "The Role of Leadership in Conflict Transformation."
While on campus, he also received the Institute for Global Leadership's Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award.
Ramos-Horta ascended to the position of prime minister in 2006, seven years after the conflict-ridden country declared an end to a bloody occupation by Indonesia, which started in the '70s.
Since winning the presidential election in 2007, Ramos-Horta has faced a number of challenges, including an assassination attempt and a national food crisis.
Still, he has managed to steer East Timor toward recovery and made international headlines earlier this month after predicting double-digit economic growth for 2009.
But even as the country moves forward, reminders of the past are ever-present, particularly in the United Nations' peacekeeping mission there, which involves around 1,500 international police officers.
As the country emerges from dark times, Ramos-Horta said its citizens must not become complacent.
"Until such a time that we are able to say that we have healed the wounds of violence and humiliation, peace will always be fragile," he said. "I plead with the people not to be too overjoyed with the good news of today and not to forget the recent lessons of the past."
In particular, Ramos-Horta, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for advocating political rights in East Timor, highlighted the need for traditional enemies to cooperate with each other and engage in dialogue.
"It is not normal to talk to those whom we consider our enemies, but these are the ones we must talk to," he said.
This attitude was particularly necessary after the nascent state separated from Indonesia in 1999.
"Not taking care of the soul and heart of the people — especially those who are in an institution with weapons — is very dangerous," Ramos-Horta said. "And I set out to do that for many months."
The event's organizers said they selected Ramos-Horta for his tireless attempts to quell conflicts in East Timor.
"He is the paradigm of a transformational leader," Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) Director Sherman Teichman told the Daily. "The direction in which he has taken his country is laudable."
Junior Kelsi Stine, an IGL Synaptic Scholar, also applauded Ramos-Horta. "President Ramos-Horta has demonstrated a dedication to ethical leadership in addition to his accomplishments as a remarkable scholar, freedom fighter and peacemaker," she said during opening remarks.
Ramos-Horta's speech was sponsored by the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, the IGL, the Peace and Justice Studies Program and the class "The Role of Leadership in Conflict Transformation."
