José Júlio Pereira Gomes

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Ambassador José Júlio Pereira Gomes with the President of the Latvian Parliament Ināra Mūrniece (2015)

José Júlio Pereira Gomes (* 1952 ) is a diplomat from Portugal . He was ambassador for his country several times . He is also the author of two non-fiction books on the independence of East Timor, which he accompanied in the country in 1999 as an official Portuguese observer and advisor.

Career

Gomes completed a law degree at the University of Lisbon from. He later worked in the European Commission on Human Rights before joining the diplomatic service in 1984 .

Gomes held various functions in the administration and government of the then Portuguese overseas property Macau , including from 1986 to 1989 he was diplomatic assessor for the last Portuguese governor of Macau .

From 1995 to 1997 he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense. Between 2002 and 2005 he represented Portugal in EU organizations , in particular in the Political and Security Committee .

In 2008 he was appointed Ambassador of Portugal to the Czech Republic .

On February 16, 2015, Gomes was awarded the Grand Cross of the Portuguese Order of Merit.

In 2015 Gomes moved from Prague to Stockholm , where he was the Portuguese ambassador to Sweden until 2017 . Latvia also belonged to his district.

In May 2017, Gomes was proposed for the post of Secretary General of his country's intelligence services , succeeding Júlio Pereira, who headed the Portuguese intelligence services for 12 years . Pedro Passos Coelho , party leader of the opposition party PSD and prime minister until 2015, supported the nomination.

At first Gomes accepted the task, but after controversial debates in the Portuguese parliament and media objections from political and diplomatic circles in Portugal against his selection, he declared that he was no longer available for the post. Prime Minister António Costa accepted his statement and said that he still had no doubts about Gome's reliability, and that Costa highlighted the honorable nature of both the rejection and the behavior of the opposition parties on the matter.

Events surrounding the end of the Portuguese advisory mission in East Timor in 1999

In 1999 Gomes went to East Timor , which was a Portuguese colony from 1586 to 1975 as Portuguese Timor and was then annexed by Indonesia . Gomes headed the Portuguese observer mission for the 1999 independence referendum . He worked closely with Ana Gomes , the Portuguese ambassador to Indonesia , who had recommended him, not least because of his experience as State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense.

On September 4, 1999, the final result of the referendum was announced, in which a majority of East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia. When the attacks by Indonesian forces erupted in massive violence and the missions of the UN and Portugal were attacked, Gomes evacuated the Portuguese mission on September 5th and finally returned to Portugal on September 10th with the last of the mission workers.

Ana Gomes and others criticized the action as a hasty escape that left the partners in East Timor alone, and the evacuation was a sign of Pereira Gomes' lack of resilience. Ana Gomes had urgently advised him to stay, and the state instructions from Lisbon had provided for a stay. East Timorese employees of the Portuguese were then not brought to safety in Portugal by the mission leadership, but only through the use of other mission workers and Portuguese journalists from the Indonesian attacks. Journalists confirm this view and nowadays occasionally call Pereira Gomes a liar, given his statements to the contrary.

In contrast, Pereira Gomes himself has since referred to his decision, taken in agreement with state organs, which followed an urgent recommendation by the Portuguese government . Within the three-man mission head, the decision was made after a vote in favor of the evacuation, with two votes for (from Pereira Gomes and António Gamito ) and one against ( Francisco Duarte Alegre ). At 5:45 a.m., the competent department in the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave permission to abort the mission . In addition, his mission and behavior had always been praised by East Timorese as reliable and courageous, including by the East Timorese head of state and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate José Ramos-Horta , who wrote in the foreword of the book “O referendo de 30 de agosto de 1999 em Timor-Leste “ Wrote by Pereira Gomes.

As a result of the controversies surrounding his role in the withdrawal of the Portuguese mission from East Timor in 1999, Pereira Gomes resigned from his appointment as head of the Portuguese secret services in 2017.

Works

Web links

Commons : José Júlio Pereira Gomes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b José Júlio Pereira Gomes desiste de liderar as "secretas" - "José Júlio Pereira Gomes renounces the management of the secret" , article of June 7, 2017 of the Portuguese business newspaper Jornal de Negócios , accessed on April 25, 2020
  2. ↑ Embaixador Pereira Gomes é o escolhido para liderar secretas portuguesas - “Ambassador Pereira Gomes selected to lead the Secret Portugal” , article of May 9, 2017 of the public service broadcaster RTP , accessed on April 25, 2020
  3. ↑ a b Profile of José Júlio Pereira Gomes at Wook, the online bookstore of Porto Editora , accessed on April 25, 2020
  4. ^ Website of the Order of Honor of the Portuguese Presidency , list of results after search query José Júlio Pereira Gomes , accessed on April 25, 2020
  5. ↑ José Júlio Pereira Gomes, embaixador português em Estocolmo, é o novo secretário-geral das Secretas - "José Júlio Pereira Gomes, Portuguese ambassador in Stockholm, is the new general secretary of the secret" , article from May 9, 2017 in the online newspaper Observador, accessed on April 25, 2020
  6. ↑ a b Pereira Gomes renuncia ao cargo de secretário-geral das "secretas" portuguesas - "Pereira Gomes renounces the post of secretary general of the secret" Portugal , article of June 7, 2017 of the public service broadcaster RTP, accessed on April 25, 2020
  7. ↑ a b “Chefe das secretas nicht inspira confiança”, acusa Ana Gomes - “The secret service chief does not inspire confidence”, warns Ana Gomes , article of May 31, 2017 in the newspaper Diário de Notícias . accessed on April 25, 2020
  8. ↑ O novo chefe das “secretas” está a mentir - “The new boss of the“ secret people ”is lying” , comment from May 31, 2017 on the appointment of Pereira Gome as head of the secret service in the Público newspaper , accessed on April 25, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Pereira Gomes, José Júlio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 1952