Ramos Horta shocks many observers when he comes out in support of the US intervention in Iraq. " If you can oersuade a dictator to give up power, as did happen in Haiti, so much the better.But there are times in our humanity when the use force is the only way to stop genocide," he explains.Look at what happened in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Does any body have the moral right to tell Vietnamese 'you were wrong in intervening Cambodia in 1979 ? ' i applauded it Vietnam was the only country in the world with the guts to do it.
"Can we tell the Great african statesman, one of my favourite leaders in the world, Julius Nyrere of Tanzania,'sorry, you were wrong in intervening in Uganda to get rid of Idi Amin.' when he was the only African leader with the moral courage to do it.
" We say that the Security Council is the only source of international legitimacy for intervention. So when the Security council said no to intervention in Rwanda even when genocide was going on, was that right? The Seurity Council was wrong in cambodia,Uganda and rwanda. I am happy the Saddam Hussein is out. The situation is far better thanit was three months ago in Iraq. People are demonstrating for everything -against America, against the British, against each other. that's great. Yes, there were casualities- but far lessthan anticipated and far less than the more than two million deaths caused by saddam.
"I never accept being locked in an ideological straightjacket . I see good and bad in all sides. The left cannot claim to have all the virtues. The left has failed miserably over the decades and the right don't have a monopoly on virtues, or on evil."
In July, Ramos Horta speaks out against the detention of Aung san Suu Kyi by Burma's military dictatorship. " the recent attacks on Suu Kyi, leader of the National league for Democracy (NLD) and her supporters are orchestratedby hard liners in Burma's military regimewho fear her enduring popularity and the national reconciliation process supported by other,more tolerant, members of the ruling junta," he said.
He said, " nation building cannot be undertaken with short cut methods. It cannot be based on the Security Council wanting to save money from East Timor and then diverting it to Iraq, or Afganistanor or the Middle East."
Australia and East Timor 's Mariti Boundary,2005
After 400 years of colonisation and a quarter century of military occupation, East Timor gets
in 2002.Tens of billion of dollars worth of Timor sea between East Timor and Australia, aboundary is essential.
