Swedish parliament honors Munir with 'alternative Nobel'

Swedish parliament honors Munir with 'alternative Nobel'

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP): Scientists and activists from four
different continents were honored Friday as this year's winners
of the Right Livelihood awards - known as the "alternative
Nobels" - for their human rights and environmental initiatives.

The awards - this year each worth 500,000 kronor (US$51,000) -
were founded in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, a stamp dealer who
sold his collection to fund a program to recognize work that he
believes is ignored by the prestigious Nobel prizes, which will
be handed out on Sunday.

American plant geneticist Wes Jackson, Ethiopia's chief
environmental official Tewolde Gebre Egziabher, Indonesian human
rights activist Munir, a founder of the private Commission on
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), and Turkish
environmentalist Birsel Lemke remembered the help they got at
home in speeches during the awards ceremony at the Swedish
parliament.

"I accept this award on behalf of all those past and present
who have brought the Land Institute to this moment," said
Jackson, who co-founded the institute in Salina, Kansas. "Their
contributions this past quarter-century represent a belief in the
long-term necessity - and now the possibility - of solving the
10,000-year-old problem of agriculture."

Jackson was cited for his vision of a natural farming system
based on perennial crops.

Lemke was named for her fight against cyanide-based gold
mining.

"It's a great honor for me to be able to accept this award for
a resistance movement, a movement that would not have been
possible without the support of my friends," Lemke said.

The awards committee recognized Munir for his promotion of
civilian control of the military in Indonesia, while Egziabher
was honored for leading negotiations for a biosafety protocol to
set rules governing trade in genetically engineered products.

"The fact that I am from the remotest of reaches, and that I
am being honored on the basis of rural thought, adds awkwardness
to the weight I feel," Egziabher said in his prepared speech.

Von Uexkull and the audience joined in a minute of silence to
honor the lives and work of 1984 winner Imane Khalifeh of Lebanon
and 1997 recipient Jinzaburo Takagi of Japan, who died in the
past year.