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The Hollywood Humanitarian Awards are bestowed on individuals for their dedication to fighting injustices and/or creating social change
for the improvement of humanity.
East Timor President -
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Dr. José Ramos Horta
01 Hollywood Humanitarian Awards Recipient
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.
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HOLLYWOOD HUMANITARIAN AWARDS TO HONOR
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE JODY WILLIAMS
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- The Hollywood Film Festival's Board of Advisors is proud to announce that Nobel Laureate for Peace JODY WILLIAMS will be this year's recipient of the festival's "Hollywood Humanitarian Awards," and Academy Award-winning songwriter CAROLE BAYER SAGER will be honored with the "Hollywood Outstanding Achievement in Songwriting Award." Carlos de Abreu, Executive Director of the festival, formally made the announcement today.
The awards will be bestowed upon Ms. Williams and Ms. Sager as part of the Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony on Monday evening, October 7, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Other festival honorees include MPAA president Jack Valenti, actress Jodie Foster, director Martin Scorsese, actress Naomi Watts, director McG, screenwriter Robert Towne, producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, editor Pietro Scalia, composer Marc Shaiman, production designer Harold Michelson, and casting director Marcia Ross.
Regarding the announcement, Mr. de Abreu said, "Ms. Williams's proven historic humanitarian achievements have been demonstrated by her efforts campaigning to get the international community to adopt and sign a treaty to ban antipersonnel landmines, which became international law faster than any other major international treaty in history. And Carole Bayer Sager, throughout her songwriting career, has made an extraordinary contribution to the music of our times, a great achievement worthy of recognition and honors."
JODY WILLIAMS and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Ms. Williams and the ICBL were cited by the Nobel Committee for turning a "utopian dream" of a treaty to ban antipersonnel landmines into a virtual reality. The treaty marked the first time in history that a conventional weapon in widespread use for a century by all fighting forces in the world was to be removed from their arsenals. Ms. Williams is only the 3rd woman from the United States and the 10th globally to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently, Ms. Williams serves as campaign ambassador for the ICBL.
A Vermont native, Ms. Williams's work has demonstrated that ordinary people can bring about extraordinary change in the world. As founding coordinator of the ICBL, which was formally launched by six non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in October 1992, she and the campaign captured the public conscience globally in support of the elimination of landmines. After only five short years, governments from around the world came together in Oslo, Norway, to negotiate a ban treaty in September 1997. On December 3, 1997, some 122 countries signed the treaty in Ottawa, Canada, and on December 10, Ms. Williams and the ICBL were honored at the Nobel Ceremony in Oslo.
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, Ms. Williams taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Washington, D.C., and has a B.A. from the University of Vermont, as well as an M.A. from the School of International Training and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Ms. Williams has written extensively and speaks around the world about the problem of landmines, the movement to ban them, and the role of individuals and civil society in creating a more peaceful and secure world. For the first time, Ms. Williams traveled with the ICBL to Afghanistan in July 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. For further information on the ICBL, visit http://www.icbl.org .
CAROLE BAYER SAGER'S contribution to feature films includes the Oscar®-winning "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" from the 1981 film "Arthur," and the Academy Award-nominated songs "Nobody Does It Better" from "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Through the Eyes of Love" from "Ice Castles," "The Day I Fall in Love" from "Beethoven's 2nd," "Look What Love Has Done" from "Junior" and "The Prayer" from "Quest for Camelot." Ms. Sager co-wrote her first hit, "A Groovy Kind of Love," in the mid-sixties for The Mindbenders. Others include such hit songs as "Don't Cry Out Loud," "That's What Friends Are For," and "On My Own," to name a few. Ms. Sager has collaborated with such artists as Peter Allen, Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond, Kenneth Edmonds, David Foster, Marvin Hamlisch, Albert Hammond, James Ingram, Carole King, Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, Neil Sedaka, Dave Stewart, and Toni Wine, among others. Ms. Sager was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame in
1987.
The sponsors of the Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Humanitarian Awards include the American Cinema Editors, ArcLight Cinemas, Art Directors Guild, Casting Society of America, Daily Variety, ETOnline.com, European Union, FilmMaker Magazine, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood Network, International Cinematographers Guild, International Documentary Association, Motion Picture Editors Guild, Paramount Studios, and YAHOO! Movies, Inc., among others.
ArcLight Cinemas, which includes the historic Cinerama Dome, on Sunset Boulevard, offers guests a variety of movie-going experiences, from big screen presentations to special exhibits and film festivals, and it provides guaranteed reserved seats, online and on-site ticketing, an elegant bar/cafe and gift shop.
For more information on the Hollywood Humanitarian Awards contact:
310.288.1882
Hollywood Humanitarian Awards
433 N. Camden Drive, Suite 600
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
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