Courtesty of Fausto Belo Ximenes

Fausto Belo Ximenes experienced his first taste of activism while in junior high school in Timor-Leste.

It was at a counter-demonstration against Indonesian integrationists protesting the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, which was jointly awarded to two Timorese independence activists. He remembers the Indonesian police shooting into the crowd in an attempt to disperse the counter-protesters. 

For Ximenes, that first demonstration was eye-opening. Today, he is a 2024 World Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, a fellowship that brings leaders from across the world to Yale.

Ximenes spent his early childhood in a small village somewhat protected from the political realities of his country. It was only when he began attending junior high school at a nearby city that he was exposed to the political movement in its fullest extent.

“It was difficult,” Ximenes said. “It was challenging for me and for my family, just as it was for most Timorese living in the country then … My country’s history and the struggle of my people is part of me — it’s bad and I don’t forget it — it’s a part of my identity. But I want my story to be one of resilience, a story of undying hope.”

Timor-Leste, a small island in Southeast Asia located in the Indian Ocean, spent 450 years colonized by the Portuguese. The island later declared independence from Portugal in 1975 only to immediately be invaded by the Indonesian military and subjected to another 24 years of military occupation, during which a third of the Timorese population died. 

In 1999, after almost a quarter of a century spent fighting for independence, the people of Timor-Leste voted in a referendum and became an independent, democratic country. Ximenes was there working the poll booths.

In the years following, he worked with the United Nations to assist his newly independent country in becoming a functional, self-sufficient democracy. Ximenes emphasized the pivotal role that the support of larger countries played in both securing independence for Timor-Leste and creating a foundation for the country to grow. The impact of international organizations Ximenes witnessed while working with the United Nations largely shaped his future pursuits in international development.

“I think it laid the foundation for my career and my academic choices,” Ximenes said. “Not only the right violations that occurred to me and to my family and to thousands of Timorese people during the occupation, but also my first job with the United Nations Timorese office, that really helped me in determining what I wanted to do and what I wanted to study.”

With the United Nations, Ximenes held a host of responsibilities, ranging from welcoming refugees back to the country to supporting colleagues in resolving disputes within the young government as well as monitoring prisons to ensure fair treatment of the incarcerated. 

Ximenes shared one profoundly impactful experience he had while handling rights violations and providing legal aid to prisoners — speaking with a woman who had been arrested for a crime and illegally detained for months without being given a trial before a court.

“In a new Timor-Leste that is meant to be democratic, is meant to be different from when it was under occupation, still seeing a woman who had not seen her family for three months, that had not been brought to the court — it just reaffirmed my passion for human rights, for defending the weakest, the most vulnerable, that we oftentimes forget,” Ximenes said.

A new world of opportunity

After spending a number of years post-referendum doing humanitarian work in Timor-Leste, Ximenes went abroad to pursue higher education. 

He was given a scholarship to study in the United States and speaks fondly of his time as an undergraduate student at Stony Brook University in New York, where he studied political science and international relations and graduated cum laude. He later went on to receive master’s degrees in human rights and public policy. 

Ximenes described Stony Brook University as his first “proper school.” He stressed that the education system run by Indonesian authorities was not meant to educate students, and he was never taught to think critically or ask questions about the world around him. He felt that, growing up, the education he received was a tool for indoctrination rather than an opportunity to learn.

It was at Stony Brook that Ximenes met Charles Scheiner, who at the time was serving as the National Coordinator of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network. Scheiner had been working in Timor-Leste for years by then and was a friendly face for Ximenes and other Timorese scholarship recipients — an American who knew more about the situation in Timor-Leste than most others. 

Scheiner said that Ximenes was “enthusiastic and energetic and eager to learn” as an undergraduate student.

“I knew what I was capable of doing, now that the universe was open to the Timorese. Now that we were no longer isolated from the rest of the world,” Ximenes said. 

Empowering local communities 

Ximenes returned to Timor-Leste to continue doing humanitarian work with his newfound expertise in international relations and human rights. He served as an international policy advocate and advisor for Timor-Leste, working with the United Nations Development Programme to build a framework for growth in the country. In 2021, he began to serve as the country director for Oxfam International, a non-profit mobilizing against poverty on a global scale.

Scheiner said that Ximenes was the first and, so far, the only Timor-Leste native to serve as a country director for an international non-governmental organization.

Many Timorese who studied abroad and returned home work for embassies or international agencies, like the World Bank.

“[Ximenes] is one of about two or three that came back and worked for local civil society,” Scheiner said. “I think that that shows that he’s really committed to his country.”

Ximenes mentioned that he works directly with many communities, creating spaces for people to share challenges and seek their own solutions and then using his expertise to support their solutions. 

He expressed his disdain for the traditional approach to international development, where the global north dictates the best solutions for the global south without listening to the voices of those actually affected. Departing from the typical international practice of charity, Ximenes believes that outside nations can better support smaller countries by uplifting their citizens into places that allow them to hold positions of power within their own countries.

Ximenes worked with over 20 civil society organizations in Timor-Leste, including community-based organizations, youth groups, women’s groups and LGBTQ+ groups. He strove to empower the members of those civil societies by providing them with the resources and tools necessary to forge their own paths for change as the people closest to the front line and best situated to understand the intricacies of their own problems.

Now, as a World Fellow at the Yale International Leadership Center, Ximenes is sharing his knowledge and experience with the other fellows in the program, as well as the broader Yale community.

“We are so lucky to have [Ximenes] as our first Yale World Fellow from Timor-Leste,” Yuval Ben-David, Chief Strategy Officer of the International Leadership Center, which houses the World Fellows program, wrote in an email to the News. “An articulate and experienced development professional with an easy laugh, he draws wisdom from his experience working in a post-conflict society and is able to steer difficult conversations towards a place of hope.”

Ximenes acknowledged his unique position as the only leader of an international humanitarian organization focused on Timor-Leste to be from his country. When asked about what he aims to achieve in the future with this standing, he said that he hoped to shift the focus of powerful organizations to investing in the future of disenfranchised people — by divesting in wars and investing in education, development and young people.

Ultimately Ximenes said that he hopes to represent not just Timor-Leste but all communities with histories of conflict and show that, despite the tragedies they’ve endured, they are more than just their histories.

“Whatever context that you’re brought up on that is beyond your control should not determine the trajectory of your future life,” he said. “They can take everything they can. They can tear the buildings down. They can drop bombs on infrastructure, but one thing that they can’t take away is your hope. As long as you’re alive, you’ll always be hopeful.”

Ximenes is hosting a discussion on his work in Timor-Leste with the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association on Tuesday.