UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has tapped Jose Ramos-Horta, a former East Timor president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, as his new special representative to coup-stricken Guinea-Bissau.
The man who helped bring independence to East Timor will also head up the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office (UNIOGBIS) in Guinea-Bissau.
He replaces Rwandan diplomat Joseph Mutaboba, whose term in the troubled west African nation ends on January 31.
Ramos-Horta, 63, “brings with him more than three decades of a diplomatic and political career in the service of peace and stability in Timor-Leste and beyond,” a UN statement said.
Mutaboba, appointed in 2009, left the country in early December. Guinea-Bissau demanded he be replaced, accusing Mutaboba of favouring the government that lost power in an April coup that interrupted a presidential election.
An interim civilian administration plans to hold elections next year. Guinea-Bissau has suffered chronic instability due to conflict between the army and state since independence from Portugal in 1974.