Fidelis Manuel
Leite Magalhães hails from Maliana, the capital district of Bobonaro. He is the
second child of Manuel Magalhães and Regina Cardoso Gouveia Leita. Fidelis has
three brothers and five sisters. He spent much of his childhood in Maliana. He
joined resistance activities from quite a young age. At age 13 became a member
of Sagrada Familia and became active in the youth movement opposing the
indonesian occupation.
After the
independence and following the death of his father, Fidelis quit school and
began to work for the Jesuit Refugee Services as a driver to support his family.
He was then promoted to become an officer. It was under the guidance of Fr.
Frank Brennan that Fidelis began to work in the area of human rights. At the
end of 2000 Fidelis was promoted to be a Human Rights and Refugee and Returnee
officer. In early 2001 he was chosen to represent Timor Leste’s civil society
at the UN Session on Human Rights in Geneva. It was his first international
experience. In his own words, Fidelis described the experience as “surreal”. It
was his first international travel and was asked to take part in a series of
meetings when it had only been a year since
he began to self-thought english. Throughout the years, Fidelis continued to
play an active role in peace and reconciliation efforts.
From mid 2001 to
2002 Fidelis worked for various organizations including a short stint with the
UNHCR as its Spokesperson and External Relations Assistant. In the same year he
also served as the president of the Maliana Youth Committee. A committee
consisted of all the youth organizations in the district.
In late 2002 he was
awarded an East-West Center managed, US State Department scholarship to study
at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. While
in Hawaii he majored in Political Science and minored in Literature. His main
concentration was on political, social and literary theories. He claims that it
was at the East West Center that he “grew academically. It was a privillege live
with many academics from many countries at Hale Manoa”. He became an
active member of the Polisci department
at UH-Manoa and graduated With Distinction. He was also a top student in Latin
American and Iberian literature.
Under the same
arrangement he went to study at the University of Massachussets-Amherst.
Although initially he intended to stay on, Fidelis decided to return to Hawaii
citing insufficient funding to live on the US mainland.
Since 2006 Fidelis
has worked in different capacities. In 2007 he worked with GTZ-IS as its
Participation Expert in Timor-Leste on the national dialogue. Then in the same
year he was appointed head of the Post-Transitional Dialogue funded by Norway.
He then served as the team leader on a
number of initiatives and became the principal adviser on development and
political issues.
In 2008 he,
together with Bishop Gunnar Stallsett, Norway’s Special Envoy to Timor Leste
and member of the Nobel Prize Committee, founded the High Level National
Consensus Dialogue initiative to “provide a platform throughwhich the nation’s leaders
can adress past human rights violations and find ways forward”.
Some months later, Fidelis received a
scholarship from the British Chevening scheme to study Political Economy at the
London School of Economics. After
completing his studies in London he was awarded a Gulbenkian fellowship to read
International Political Economy in Lisbon, Portugal. While in Lisbon he also attended
post-graduate courses in International Relations at the Advanced School of
Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP-UTL). He maintained the reputation of
being a high achiever.
In October 2011
Fidelis returned to Timor Leste. He joined President Matan Ruak’s Ekipa da
Vitoria (Success Team) in the presidential campaign as vice-president for Socio-Political Research and Communication.
He was then appointed by President Taur Matan Ruak as his spokesperson.
After the announcement
of the outcome of the presidential election, President Ruak appointed Fidelis as
his representative to ensure a smooth transition to start his mandate. On May
20, 2012 President Taur Matan Ruak nominated Fidelis to be his Chief of Staff.
As such, Fidelis is presently the youngest person to hold a ministerial level
position in Timor-Leste. His appointment demonstrates President Taur Matan
Ruak’s committment to generational change and opens up the way for young people
to actively participate in the running of the state.
