In conferring the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize to two East Timorese peace activists, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Committee sent a fundamental message to the world: the value and importance of respect for human rights is not measured by the numerical or political strength of an oppressed people.

East Timor forms part of one of the easternmost islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Located 300 miles north of Australia and some 900 miles east of Jakarta, this tiny territory has been the victim of Indonesian aggression, as well as general interna tional acquiescence in the blatant violations of human rights and international law that have been perpetrated by the Indonesian government since its 1975 invasion of East Timor. In the years following that invasion, an estimated 230,000 East Timorese (on e-third of an original population of 690,000) have lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war, and terror. Economic and strategic ties to the Indonesian government have led most of the world’s major powers to cooperate with Jakarta without re gard to the serious legal and human rights issues raised by the situation in East Timor.

East Timor was first settled by Portuguese traders in 1520, while the western half of the island was settled in 1619 by the Dutch; an 1859 treaty established the current borders. West Timor, administered as part of the Dutch East Indies, became part of Indonesia in 1946, while East Timor, with a different language, religion, and customs from its island neighbor, remained part of the Portuguese colonial empire. Unlike Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim nation in the world with more than 190 mi llion people, East Timor is populated primarily by Roman Catholics.

Following the 1974 collapse of the Portuguese colonial system, the Portuguese withdrew from East Timor while retaining sovereignty over the former colony. Two political parties then vied for power, the leftist Fretilin party and the conservative Timore se Democratic Union (UDT). An initial alliance between the two parties dissolved in May 1975, and in August 1975 the UDT launched a coup. Within three weeks, the Fretilin forces completely defeated those of the UDT, and for a period of about three months, the Fretilin party controlled an independent East Timorese government. The foreign minister and United Nations representative for the fledgling government was the 25-year-old José Ramos-Horta.

Two days after a December 5, 1975, state visit in Jakarta with President Suharto in which President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pledged U.S. support and military aid, Indonesia invaded East Timor. The Indonesian government formally anne xed East Timor in July 1976 as the 27^th Indonesian province.

The United Nations never recognized Indonesia’s sovereignty over East Timor, in part because the annexation violated the Indonesian national constitution. In its independence settlement with its former Dutch colonial masters, Indonesia renounced a ny claims to territories not controlled in 1942 by the Netherlands-Indies government. Despite the important principles at stake–the right of self-determination, the sanctity of international borders, and the authority of the U.N. Security Council 0;international reaction to the Indonesian invasion has been muted or non-existent.

Born in 1949 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta came by his activism naturally. His father, a native of Portugal, had been deported to East Timor by the Portuguese government for protesting its military dictatorship.

In 1970, José Ramos-Horta was exiled for two years to Mozambique by the Portuguese government for his outspoken advocacy of East Timorese independence. In 1975, he fled the country only days before the Indonesian invasion. In the years since, he became the principal spokesman for his country’s cause, pleading its case before the United Nations, the European Union, and other diplomatic and political bodies.

In his award presentation speech, Francis Sejersted, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, noted that since the invasion, Ramos-Horta has lived abroad, "unceasingly and with great personal sacrifice collecting and communicating information on the repression, torture, and killing in his home country, and acting as East Timor’s principal international spokesman. At the same time, he has successfully kept up his efforts to unite the various East Timorese groups in a single national front, w hile constantly seeking opportunities for a peaceful solution to the conflict with Indonesia, based on respect for the integrity of the East Timorese people."

He praised both Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo for their "work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor" and for their "sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people.& quot; On behalf of the Nobel Committee, he added his hopes that the award would "spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in East Timor based on the people’s right to self-determination."

Since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ramos-Horta has called for a three-phase peace plan for East Timor, similar to the Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The plan would start with demilitarization and self-rule, and lead to a referendum and a final deci sion on the territory in five to 10 years. He has also called for the release of political prisoners, including Xanana Gusmao, the Fretilin resistance leader, captured by Indonesian troops in 1992 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize to Belos and Ramos-Horta served to re-direct international attention to the conflict in East Timor. Recent political developments in Indonesia promise a relaxation of the previously hard-line attitude taken by the govern ment in Jakarta. In May 1998, President Suharto resigned following massive protests and was replaced by former Prime Minister B.J. Habibie. On June 10, 1998, Habibie proposed a plan of limited autonomy for East Timor, linked to international recognition o f Indonesian sovereignty over the territory.

At a June 29 news conference held at the United Nations, Ramos-Horta said that he would accept an offer of limited autonomy now and a five-year delay on a referendum on the territory’s permanent status, but that there could be no possibility of ag reeing to a recognition of Indonesian sovereignty. The U.N. negotiations on East Timorese sovereignty continue.