Ramos-Horta: A disgrace to Nobel values!<\/p>\n
Thang D. Nguyen, Jakarta<\/p>\n
In 1996, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded one half of the
\nNobel Peace Prize to Jose Ramos-Horta, who currently serves as
\nEast Timor's senior minister for foreign affairs and cooperation.<\/p>\n
The other half of the prize went to his fellow countryman,
\nthen East Timor Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, \"for their
\nwork towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East
\nTimor\".<\/p>\n
Since he got the Nobel Prize, Horta has gained respect from
\naround the world as a champion of peace in East Timor, which
\nbecame the world's youngest nation in 2002, following a UN-
\nsanctioned referendum in 1999 that led to its independence from
\nIndonesia.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the Nobel Committee's decision to give Horta
\nthe peace prize has turned out to be a mistake: He likes war, not
\npeace!<\/p>\n
Nowhere does reveal his true colors as a war-lover than in his
\ncommentaries in which he defends the Iraq War.<\/p>\n
In one article, published in The Asian Wall Street Journal on
\nOct. 17, he argued against a U.S. withdrawal, calling U.S.
\nsoldiers \"the real heroes in Iraq\".<\/p>\n
As a student of peace studies, Mr. Ramos-Horta probably bases
\nhis defense of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on an international
\nrelations theory called \"just war\". In a nutshell, the just war
\ntheory holds that it is morally and legally acceptable to use
\narmed force, as in a war, if the cause is justifiable or just.<\/p>\n
Examples of both just and unjust wars are manifold. The war
\nwaged by the Allies against Hitler's Germany in World War II, for
\nexample, was a just war as a failure to wage war would have
\nresulted in the deaths of billions of innocent people, and
\nFascism, or totalitarianism, would have prevailed.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is an unjust war. The
\npretext on which the Bush government took America to war in Iraq
\nwas that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
\nFormer Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation before
\nthe UN to claim that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and thereby
\njustified the U.S. attack.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the presentation was based on false and
\nplagiarized information provided by British intelligence
\nauthorities; in fact, the British government later admitted that
\nthe report it had given to Mr. Powell came from a paper by an
\nAmerican academic -- Ibrahim al-Marashi, a research associate at
\nthe Center for Non-proliferation Studies in Monterey, California.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, however, the International Atomic Energy
\nAgency (IAEA) -- which was recently awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace
\nPrize jointly with its director, Mohamed El Baradei -- found that
\nSaddam Hussein had no nukes!<\/p>\n
What is more, the Bush administration tried to justify the
\nIraq War further by saying that, having taken Saddam Hussein out,
\nit had saved the Iraqi people from living under tyranny and
\ndictatorship. To be sure, Saddam was no angel, but was his
\ndictatorship enough to justify an invasion that looks
\nincreasingly like another Vietnam War?<\/p>\n
And if Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was reason enough to go
\nto war, why hasn't the U.S. gone to war with North Korea, which
\n(by the way) claims to have WMDs, and taken its dictator Kim
\nJong-Il out?<\/p>\n
And, for that matter, why hasn't the U.S. gone to war with
\nMyanmar to overthrow the junta regime, which has been oppressing
\nits people for decades, and thereby save the Nobel Peace Prize
\nlaureate and democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi?<\/p>\n
Could it be because neither North Korea nor Myanmar has oil?<\/p>\n
It is sad that the main beneficiary of the Iraq War is none
\nother than corporate America, namely the defense, energy, and
\nconstruction industries. Their profits comes at the expense of
\nboth the Americans and Iraqis who have died thus far in Iraq, as
\nwell as U.S. taxpayers back home.<\/p>\n
So, there is nothing just about the Iraq War; it is neither
\njustifiable nor justified.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Ramos-Horta defends it shamelessly.<\/p>\n
Is it, perhaps, because he is trying to please the White House
\nin the hope of financial support with which to build his newly
\nindependent country?<\/p>\n
Lest he forgets, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975
\nwith the support of and advice from -- you guessed it -- the U.S.<\/p>\n
Whatever his rationale for defending the Iraq War may be,
\nRamos-Horta has shown himself to be an undeserving Nobel
\nlaureate.<\/p>\n
The Nobel Peace Prize was established to honor those who honor
\npeace and denounce war. Unfortunately, Mr. Ramos-Horta is not
\none of them.<\/p>\n
The writer is a Jakarta-based columnist.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/ramos-horta-a-disgrace-to-nobel-values-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }