José Ramos-Horta, Freedom Fighter and Democracy Builder, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Sep 18, 2017

In 1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor, rounded up their political leaders and executed them on the docks of the capital. They then began a systematic extermination of the Timorese people. East Timor, known today as Timor Leste, a small island at the bottom of the...

Nelson Mandela, Defeated Hatred in South Africa, 1993 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Sep 18, 2017

The son of a tribal chief, Nelson Mandela began his opposition to South Africa’s government policies, which relegated blacks to non-voting, second-class citizens in a segregated society, while attending college. He went on to become a lawyer and joined the outlawed...

F.W. de Klerk, Helped to End Apartheid, 1993 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Sep 18, 2017

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...

Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Indigenous Rights Leader, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laueate

Sep 18, 2017

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...

Mikhail Gorbachev, Presided Over the End of the Cold War, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laueate

Sep 18, 2017

Mikhail Gorbachev was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union. He initiated his new policy of perestroika (literally “restructuring” in Russian), with radical reforms, in 1986. In 1988 his introduction of glasnost gave the Soviet people freedoms that they had...