Friends and foes share Nobel Peace Prize

Friends and foes share Nobel Peace Prize

JAKARTA (JP): Commoners and presidents, humanitarians as well
as revolutionaries, a baroness and a nun are among those who have
been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Political adversaries have also shared the prize: North
Vietnamese Le Duc Tho shared the prize in 1973 with U.S. Henry A.
Kissinger; Egypt's president Mohammad Anwar Sadat shared it with
Israel prime minister Menachem Begin in 1978; ANC leader Nelson
Mandela with South Africa's president Frederik Willem de Klerk in
1993; and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat with Israel foreign minister
Shimon Peres and Israel prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.

The disparate backgrounds of the individuals and organizations
who have won the prize reflects the shift in the meaning of peace
since the day Alfred Nobel announced his plan in 1893 to set up a
prize to be awarded to "him or her who would have brought about
the greatest step toward advancing the pacification of Europe".

In the first year of the prize, up to World War I, it was
awarded to pioneers of organized peace work. Many were
parliamentarians and leaders of associations committed in
particular to international arbitration.

Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner of Austria, the
first of nine women to receive the award, for example, won the
prize in 1905 for her peace efforts in one of the most
militaristic countries in Europe.

In the following year U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt won
the price for drawing up the 1905 peace treaty between Russia and
Japan. He was also the first of six presidents to be awarded the
prize.

Since World War II, the range of laureates has been broader.
The protection of human rights has been widely recognized as
serving the cause of peace, hence the inclusion of more human
rights activists in the list of winners. Since the 1960s, many
campaigners for human rights have been awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize, though politicians, humanitarians and other promoters of
peace still number among the winners.

The first human rights advocate to win the prize was Ferdinand
Edouard Buisson, former professor at the Sorbonne, Paris, and
founder and president of the League of Human Rights (Sorbonne des
Droits de l'Homme). He shared the 1927 prize with Ludwig Quidde,
historian, professor honoris causa, member of the Bavarian
parliament, member of Germany's constituent assembly 1919 and
delegate to numerous peace conferences.

Martin Luther King, Jr. of the U.S. was the first post-World
War II human rights activist to win the award in 1964.

Until 1960, the peace prize was, almost without exception,
awarded to persons or organizations in North America and western
Europe. It has since become more global in scope, and each
continent can now claim a number of winners.

The first non-American/non-Western European to win the prize
was Albert John Lutuli of South Africa. Lutuli, president of the
South African liberation movement, the African National Congress,
won the prize in 1961.

Ironically, Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, the first Asian to
win the prize in 1973, declined it.

So far, Americans rank first in the number of recipients,
followed by France and Great Britain in second and third places
respectively. (lem)

Following is the list of nationals who have made it to the
list of winners:

Nationality Number
_______________________
Alsatian 1
American 17
Argentinean 2
Austrian 2
Belgian 3
British 7
Canadian 1
Costa Rican 1
Danish 1
Dutch 1
Egyptian 1
French 8
German 4
Guatemalan 1
Indian 1
Irish 1
Israeli 1
Italian 1
Japanese 1
Mexican 1
Myanmarese 1
N. Irish 2
N. Vietnamese 1
Norwegian 2
Polish 1
Russian 2
South African 3
Swedish 5
Swiss 3
Tibetan 1