On December 7, 1975, Lopes and his family fled the country to Builalu, Indonesia to escape from the Indonesian troops that invaded East Timor.

[2] Upon their return to East Timor a year later, the Lopes family discovered their village of Tapo was destroyed, and moved to Maliana.

[1] In 1985, Lopes studied law at the Udayana University in Bali,[3] after obtaining a scholarship from the governor of East Timor.

[1] While studying in Indonesia, Lopes joined the National Resistance of East Timorese Students (Portuguese: Resistência Nacional dos Estudantes de Timor-Leste (RENETIL)) in 1989.

[5] The commission lasted until 2005 and looked into cases of human rights abuse that occurred during the invasion of East Timor.