Jose Ramos-Horta Quotes
We are calling for a ban on weapons deliveries to countries listed as human rights violators, to governments that are engaged in wars of aggression, military occupation, and annexation and spend more money on weapons than on education and health care.
Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor Journalist, Nobel Peace Laureate, The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Reflections on Working Toward Peace
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
After the First World War, the United States and other countries were very conscious of the possibility of foreign arms sales encouraging and facilitating war and aggression. Therefore, arms shipments were very limited. The exception allowed tyrannical governments often to suppress, and often kill, their own citizens. By the end of the 20th century, the United States would sell arms to almost anyone and was the largest arms supplier in the world. Much of the flip flop of position on arms exports was caused by the fact that other nations were shipping arms and getting the jobs and profits associated with those exports and almost anyone in the world with money could buy arms. So the United States allowed its arms manufacturers to compete in this lucrative business to all but a few arms embargoed nations with whom we were having international difficulty.
José Manuel Ramos-Horta GColIH GCL is an East Timorese politician who was the President of East Timor from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2006 and Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007. He is a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize along with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor".
