Taur Matan Ruak, son of Antonio Vasconcelos and Albertina Amaral, was born on 10 October 1956 near the town of Baguia in the region on Baucau in the mountainous far eastern end of Timor. He was the eldest son of eight children, five girls and three boys, In 1960 he moved to Dili as a young boy with his uncle. In 1963 he began his primary studies, finishing five years later in 1968. He drifted as a young man and became disenchanted with the difficulties of life.

He eventually obtained employment at the Pousada, or Hotel in the second largest town, Baucau, at the beginning of the 1971, After one year and a half the injustice he saw in his workplace led him to organizing the first strike of the employees, demanding a raise of salaries, better food and conditions and respect for the dignity of the employees. The desired outcome was not achieved with Ruak suspecting partiality on the part of the judicial institutions at the time, particularly the Dili court where the case was heard.

At he beginning of 1973 he obtained another position at he Hotel Resende in Dili, buat again unfair condition drove him to action. Toward the end of 1974 he organized a second strike demanding similar rights. The case was again submitted to the Dili Court but it ended once again without a satisfactory solution. There was a movement in Timor at the time for labour rights, Ramos Horta and Xanana too organizing strikes around this time.

The Portuguese colonial administration of Timor began a lion over-due process of decolonization in May 1974 and political parties were encouraged to register. After a brief civil war in August 1975 the left-wing political organization FRETILIN, Revolutionary Front for an independent East Timor, emerged as the interim administration of a fledging nation Ruak began to support this new administration.

On December 1975, Indoensia invaded East Timor and Ruak, still in Dili, took to the hills with the recently formed FRETILIN army, FALINTIL. The next three years of war took a huge toll on the Timorese people with an estimated 100,000 dead. As a combatant Ruak participated in battles against the Indonesian military in Dili, Aileu, Maubisse, Ossu, Venilale, Uatulari and finally Laga, on the north-eastern coast, where he eventually stayed.

Around this time FRETILIN forces reported that they controlled just over 80 per cent of the territory. From 1976 to 1979 Ruak rose through FALINTIL ranks in the two eastern military sectors, the Central East Sector and the Eastern Point or the Ponta Leste Sector. His position during this time were :

• Assistant to the Laga Command;
• Commander of Central East Sector Company One;
• Commander of Central East Sector Intervention Forces Company
• Assistant to the Central East Sector Operational Command
• Commander of Ponta Leste Sector Company One;
• Commandant of the Intervention Company of the Matebian Base, and
• Assistant to the Sector RC Commander

In late 1977 the Indonesia Campign of Annihilation commenced which was to decimate the resistance forces. Over the next year 80 % of resistance forces and their bases were destroyed by Indonesian forces. On the 22 November 1978 at Mountain Matebian, the last resistance base in the mountain fell. Xanana Gusmao, Ruak and others regrouped the following day at the base of Mountain Legumau and assumed guerrilla formations. The deaths of President Nicolao Lobato, in December 1978, Vicente Sahe, leader ot the Eastern region, in January 1979, and others signified the end of the initial resistance leadership.

During 1979 and 1980, while the majority of the resistance forces were relocating to the Central Sectors to consolidate and reorganize resistance structures under the direction of the emerging resistance Commander Xanana Gusmao, Ruak was ordered to carry out guerrilla activitird in the east. He was part of military grouping under the direction of the well-respected FALINTIL political cadre Mau Hodu Ran Kadalak.

At the beginning of 1979 Ruak was ordered by Command of the Ponta Leste Sector to organize a mission to locate any survivors of the Annihilation Campaign. He and his men were betrayed and captured at Mountain Bibileo in Viqueque, including, he says, our beloved Political commissar, Sera Key (Juvenal Inácio), commandant who was at that time in coma! They were surrounded by ABRI forces and surrendered on 31 March 1979. He adds that they ‘were cowardly betrayed and had to witness the last surrenders led by Domingos Pinto and Afonso rangel and others’, the remains forces of the Centre East Sector. Sera Key was killed by Indonesian captors. After twenty-three days Ruak managed to escape and rejoin other Falintil forces in the mountains.

In March 1981 the Frist National Conference on the Reorganization formed the Conselho Nacional da Resistência Revolucionaria, National Council for Revolutionary Resistance (CRRN) and Xanana Gusmão was appointed President of this organization and Commander of FALINTIL. Ruak attending this conference became a member of CRRN and was appointed Assistant Chief-of-Staff of FALINTIL responsible for the operational command of the eastern Sectors. Later he was transferred to the Central Sector as Assistant Chief-of-Staff.

In 1983 war-weary Indonesian troops negotiated localized cease-fires with FALINTIL commanders and in March Commanders Xanana Gusmão and Indonesian military representatives agreed upon a regional cease-fire. But in August the Kraras massacre signaled the end of theses agreements. In September a state of emergency was declared and a new Indonesian offensive, Operation Unity, was launched. Later that year Ruak was promoted and made responsible for strategic planning of commando operations in the Ponta Leste Sector, the far Eastern sector.

Between 1984 and 1986 he was transferred and served as military adviser for commando operations in the Western Sector (bounded by Baucau, Viqueque and Ainaro). After nearly 10 years of operational experience he was promoted to Deputy Chief-of-Staff.

Between 1986 and 1993 he was responsible for all commando operations throughout East Timor.

In November 1992 Commander-in-Chief Xanana Gusmão was captured in Dili and was initially relieved of his title to negate anything he might say under duress; the rank was reinstated the following year. In this situation Ruak was promoted from Deputy Chief-of-Staff to Chief-of-Staff while Gusmão was held in prison in Jakarta. Commander Lere and Commander David Alex Daitula were appointed as Deputies. After the arrest of Commander Mau Huno (FALINTIL Operational Commanders after Xanana Gusmão was captured), on 5 April 1993, Commisar Nino Konis Santana was appointed FALINTIL commander. Daitula was captured and killed by Indonesian troops on 25 June 1997 and the accidental death of Konis Santana less that a year later on 11th March 1998 left the leadership once again diminished Commander Taur Matan Ruak became the Operational Commander of FALINTIL.

After the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, in January 1999, the new Indonesian President, Jusuf Habibie, proposed an UN-sponsored popular consultation for East Timor, something the East Timorese had been demanding for over ten years. On 30 August 1999 the Timorese people voted overwhelmingly for their independence. Falintil was confined to cantonments and Ruak’s responsibility was to keep the armed FALINTIL guerillas from engaging with their enemy. A period of intense violence followed the ballot which was finally stopped by the intervention of a UN-auspice Australian-led peace enforcement force. This period severely tested the discipline of FALINTIL as they were forced to remain powerless in cantonment while the population begged for protection against rampaging pro-Indonesia forces. Commander Ruak and the FALINTIL guerrillas obeyed the difficult orders from their commander, knowing that to engage these enemy forces would have meant the continuation of the war and the loss of the outcomes of the ballot.

Considering his military mission complete and to concentrate on the transitional process to independence Xanana Gusmao resigned from FALINTIL on the 25th anniversary of FALINTIL, 20th of August 2000, and Taur Matan Ruak was appointed the Commander-in-Chief of FALINTIL.

On the occasion of the Transition Ceremony from FALNTIL to the East Timor Defense Force held in Aileu on the 1st February 2001 the new Brigadier General stated:

“I now wish to address all those, both Commanders and Soldiers, who have been selected to begin the training. I know personally that many of you wanted so much to return home and resume your civilian lives. After so many years of sacrifice we ask you to continue to give up what is an individual right of each one of you the right to live in harmony and peace your most loved ones. We know, it will not easy for you to commence upon this new phase. Once again you have been called upon to perform your duty to your homeland. Yet you will continue because you are conscious that your mission has not yet ended. The stabilization of our country is not yet guaranteed and the threats to our homeland continue. This situation demand that we perform the supreme duty to defend our country and our people, to enable the establishment of the new national and the sovereign state of East Timor.”