Roque Rodrigues

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roque Rodrigues (2020)

Roque Félix de Jesus Rodrigues (born May 28, 1949 in Dili , Portuguese Timor ) is an East Timorese politician. From 2001 to 2006 he was the country's first defense minister after the Indonesian occupation.

Life

Roque Rodrigues has a brother and a sister. His parents immigrated to Portuguese Timor from Goa before World War II . The father became a well-known lawyer in the Portuguese colony. The family later moved to Lisbon to enable the three children to study at the university, as this was not yet possible in Dili at the time.

1972 closed Rodrigues graduated in psychology at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Lisbon from. He was one of the East Timorese students from the Casa dos Timores in Lisbon . Here he got to know freedom fighters from the previous Portuguese colonies in Africa. Rodrigues completed his military service as a military psychologist after graduating. Shortly afterwards, in April 1974, the Carnation Revolution took place in Portugal , overthrowing the dictatorship. East Timor should then be prepared for independence. Rodrigues was transferred to East Timor for the remainder of his military service. The then Portuguese governor of the colony Mário Lemos Pires appointed him to a working group that was supposed to work out a reform of the education system. In this position he traveled to Portugal in mid-1975 to get textbooks for the new schools.

Since Indonesia occupied the enclave of Oe-Cusse Ambeno and later other border areas of the Portuguese colony at the beginning of June , Nicolau dos Reis Lobato , the then vice-president of the largest East Timorese party FRETILIN , traveled to Africa and Portugal to receive international support for East Timor. Lobato accepted Rodrigues into the delegation that took part in the Mozambique independence ceremony on June 25, 1975 . Rodrigues initially stayed in Mozambique, while Lobato returned to East Timor. On November 28th, FRETILIN also declared East Timor's independence, but only nine days later Indonesia began to invade the rest of the country and occupy the country.

Rodrigues became the official representative of FRETILIN in Mozambique, where other party members, such as the future Prime Minister of East Timor, Marí Alkatiri , also found refuge. From February 1979 Rodrigues moved to Angola as a FRETILIN representative . Since Angola had recognized East Timor's declaration of independence, Rodrigues became his country's ambassador here in 1984. On August 12, 1988, Rodrigues was a member of an East Timorese delegation that was allowed to audition before the United Nations. In 1995 Rodrigues became a representative of the resistance movement in Portugal and in 1998, after the founding of the umbrella organization, the representative of the Conselho Nacional de Resistência Timorense .

In 1999 the people of East Timor voted in a referendum for independence from Indonesia. The United Nations took over the administration until 2002. The National Consultative Council (NCC) was set up as a transitional parliament. Xanana Gusmão was elected as its spokesman . Rodrigues returned to East Timor in January 2000 and was given the post of Chief of Staff of his office at Gusmão. In September 2000, Rodrigues moved to the post of bureau chief for the development of the defense forces . In addition, he was appointed Deputy Minister for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport in September 2001 . At that time, Rodrigues was no longer a member of FRETILIN, but an independent member of the government. On April 30, 2002, Rodrigues was appointed State Secretary in the interim government's defense portfolio. He held both posts until May 20, 2002. Just a few hours after East Timor's independence was proclaimed, Rodrigues was sworn in as the first Secretary of State for Defense of the new republic. There was no defense minister . It was not until July 26, 2005 that Rodrigues was appointed Minister of Defense for East Timor.

In 2006 there was massive unrest in East Timor , which was also directed against the Alkatiri government. The trigger was the desertion of 600 soldiers from the country's armed forces. On June 1, the Alkatiri confidants, Rodrigues and Interior Minister Rogério Lobato had to resign. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Alkatiri also had to resign. Rodrigues and Lobato were accused by a UN commission of armed civilians in order to use them against the mutineers. However, only Lobato was convicted of this, while Rodrigues got away without penalty. Protests rose in May 2008 because the United Nations hired Rodrigues as a security advisor to the president . Sources close to the UN claimed that President José Ramos-Horta himself proposed Rodrigues. Prime Minister Gusmão had also given his approval. Rodrigues was eventually released by Atul Khare , head of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste .

Rodrigues later worked as a consultant in the East Timorese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2019, Rodrigues represented East Timor at the Solidarity Conference for the Western Sahara of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Pretoria . In 2020, Rodrigues will be named Chief Advisor for International Affairs to President Francisco Guterres .

Awards

supporting documents

Web links

Commons : Roque Rodrigues  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Nassrine De Rham Azimi, Li Lin Chang: The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET): Debriefing and Lessons: Report of the 2002 Tokyo Conference , Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore., 2003
  2. ^ David Hicks: Rhetoric and the Decolonization and Recolonization of East Timor. Routledge, 2015, limited preview in Google Book Search.
  3. ^ The Special Committee on decolonization on the morning of 12 August considered the question of Gibraltar and East Timor. ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / amrtimor.org
  4. ↑ a b Website of the government of Timor-Leste: II UNTAET Transitional Government (English)
  5. ↑ Business Guide to East Timor, Northern Territory Department of Business, Industry & Resource Development 2001 (PDF; 1.2 MB). (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved August 15, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / finntrack.co.uk
  6. ^ Website of the government of Timor-Leste: I Constitutional Government (English)
  7. ↑ ABC, June 1, 2006, Two ministers resign over E Timor crisis ( Memento of January 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ ABC Radio Australia, May 14, 2008, UN in East Timor lambasted over controversial appointment
  9. ↑ ETAN, June 12, 2008, UN forces sack Timor adviser Roque Rodrigues
  10. ^ Government portal of Equatorial Guinea: The Minister of Foreign Affairs receives a delegation from East Timor , August 10, 2013 , accessed on November 27, 2018.
  11. ↑ President of East Timor: PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC SUPPORTS THE SAHRAWI PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION , March 29, 2019 , accessed on March 31, 2019.
  12. ↑ Hurlele: Lisan in Liberal Democracy: A setback in Timor-Leste and the need for radical politics , February 13, 2020. , accessed on February 13, 2020.
  13. ↑ Jornal da República: Decreto do Presidente da República nº 50/2012 de 19 de Maio , accessed on April 29, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Rodrigues, Roque
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rodriguez, Roque Félix (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Timorese politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Dili , Portuguese Timor