NOBEL Peace Prize sends rebuke to Bush
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Peace Prize sends rebuke to Bush
In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to former US President Jimmy Carter, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is making clear that it doesn't like the current US president's policies in the Middle East.
Gunnar Berge, the longtime Labour Party politician who heads Norway's Nobel Committee, answered with an "unconditional yes" when asked whether the choice of Carter should send a message to Washington.
Berge lauded Carter's consistent urging that mediation, not confrontation, be used when trying to resolve conflicts. Current US President George Bush, in the Nobel Committee's eyes, has dismissed mediation in its war against terrorism and its position on Iraq, and instead wants to launch an attack against Iraq's leadership. Bush has just won authority to make a military strike from the US Congress.
Berge later told reporters that the current hostilities between the US and Iraq make awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Carter relevant. Berge noted that Carter "has taken another position" than the Bush administration, and the Nobel Peace Prize is in part aimed at rewarding that position.
Mostly, however, Berge acknowledged that Carter had been nominated almost every year for his "longtime contributions" to world peace. It was simply time to give Carter the recognition he deserved, Berge said.
Carter is a veteran on the international scene who made his biggest breakthrough in world peace when he brokered the Camp David accords between then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin. They won the Peace Prize in 1978, and many thought Carter should have shared the award at the time. Berge explained away the oversight by noting that Carter hadn't been formally nominated at the time.
While Carter's presidency from 1977 to 1981 was generally viewed otherwise as lackluster, Carter went on to become a traveling statesman and respected peace broker the world over.
Carter has been engaged in peace efforts in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. He founded the Carter Center, a peace insitute in his home state of Georgia, and recently was in Cuba, in defiance of official Washington policy. He was in Jamaica working as an election observer on Friday when the Peace Prize announcement came.
Carter also has been in Norway several times and Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said he was pleased Carter finally won. The prize carries a cash award of SEK 8 million, more than USD 1 million at current exchange rates.
Bondevik echoed a host of other Norwegian political leaders in calling the prize "very well-deserved," adding that he'd "hoped for a long time that Jimmy Carter would win."
Bondevik said he looks forward to welcome Carter to Oslo in December for the annual Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. It's held every year in the Oslo City Hall on December 10, the anniversary of benefactor industrialist Alfred Nobel's death. |
