1998 – John Hume, Northern Irish peacemaker
Eloquent, humorous and passionate in his conviction, John Hume became a leading figure in the Irish civil rights movement in the late 1960s, and an independent member of the Northern Ireland Parliament in 1969. The following year, he and his associates founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party, whose moderate...
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1998 – David Trimble, Northern Ireland peacemaker
David Trimble was an apparent Protestant “hard liner” when he was elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, the mainstream Protestant party in Northern Ireland, in 1995. He surprised both his followers and his opponents when he agreed to meet with John Hume and other leaders of the major parties...
(continue)1997 – Jody Williams, International Campaign to Ban Landmines
As its founding coordinator, Jody Williams brought the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) from a coalition of six non-governmental organizations in 1992 to include more than 1300 groups from over 85 countries. In September 1997 at a diplomatic conference in Oslo, working with governments, UN bodies, and the International...
(continue)1996 Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor independence leader
In 1975 Indonesia took control of East Timor, known today as Timor Leste, a small island at the bottom of the Indonesian archipelago that had been a Portuguese colony for 400 years. In the period that followed, a twenty four year reign of terror, approximately one-third of the country’s citizens...
(continue)1996 – Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, East Timor leader
Beginning at the age of three when his father died as a result of severe wartime beating inflicted by the Japanese, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo has seen more tragedy than most of us will ever even read about. In 1975, when the Indonesian invasion of East Timor began, Carlos...
(continue)1994 – Shimon Peres, architect of the Oslo Accords
Born in Poland in 1923, Shimon Peres immigrated wtih his family to Palestine in 1934. He became an activist while living on a kibbutz as a youth. At age twenty-four, when Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, appointed him head of the new state’s navy. Peres went on to serve...
(continue)1993 – Nelson Mandela, defeated hatred in South Africa
The son of a tribal chief, Nelson Mandela began his opposition to South Africa’s government policies while attending college. He went on to become a lawyer and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944. For two decades he led the fight against apartheid’s racist policies, until he was sentenced...
(continue)1993 – F. W. de Klerk, helped end Apartheid
An attorney who held a number of South African ministerial posts, F.W. de Klerk became both the leader of South Africa’s National Party and the country’s president in 1989. Upon becoming President, de Klerk, a conservative, shocked many when he lifted the ban on the African National Congress and other...
(continue)1992 – Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Indigenous Rights leader
After losing her mother and brother to Guatemalan death squads in the late 1970s, Rigoberta Menchu Tum followed in her father’s footsteps to become a human rights activist and leader in her country. A Mayan Indian, she publicly protested human rights abuses against Guatemala’s indigenous peoples by the country’s repressive...
(continue)1991 – Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese opposition leader
The daughter of Burma’s former democratic leader, and a non-violent defender of human rights and freedom, Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong Son Su She) was elected to the Presidency of Burma in 1990 by more than 80% of the popular vote. A military junta refused to allow the elected...
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