Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Carter With Criticism of Bush By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/international/11CND-NOBE.html The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to former President Jimmy Carter. Noting that Mr. Carter had devoted decades of his life to the peaceful resolution of international conflicts, the chairman of the committee that awards the prize said that Mr. Carter's selection "must be interpreted as a criticism of the present U.S. administration." Advertisement Mr. Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt and has been involved in efforts to ease conflicts from North Korea to Haiti since leaving the White House, was chosen from a record field of 156 candidates that were said to have included President Bush, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Carter for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development," the committee said in its announcement. "In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development." But comments by the committee's chairman, Gunnar Berge, were expected to generate as much interest as Mr. Carter's selection. In remarks to reporters after the announcement, Mr. Berge said that Mr. Carter had been nominated for the peace prize "many, many times" but that a major reason that he was finally selected was that he represented a counterpoint to the militancy of President Bush. "I hope it will help strengthen what Carter has to say," said Mr. Berge. "He has a more moderate point of view than the sitting administration." Mr. Berge said the Bush administration seemed all too willing to act unilaterally against Iraq. "They should be sticking more to principles of mediation and international cooperation," he said. Another member of the prize committee, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, challenged Mr. Berge's observations. "The way I see it, that was not the intention of the committee," she said in an interview with NRK radio. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, declined to comment this morning on Berge's statement. He said that President Bush had congratulated Mr. Carter during a two-minute telephone conversation today. The Nobel Peace Prize often has political overtones, but rarely does the committee chairman, in announcing the award, enunciate so clearly the five-member committee's view of current events. Indeed, according to a statement on the Nobel Committee's Web site: "There must be no mention in the minutes of any Nobel Committee meetings of the contents of discussions relating to choices of candidates for the various awards, nor must any differences of opinion in committees be divulged in other ways. For that reason, committee members take no part in the public debates which follow the announcement of decisions." Mr. Carter said in a statement that he was "deeply grateful" for the honor. "I hope this award reflects a universal acceptance and even embrace of this broad-based concept of human rights," he said. "This honor serves as an inspiration not only to us, but also to suffering people around the world, and I accept it on their behalf." He did not address Mr. Berge's comments about President Bush. In an interview this morning on CNN, Mr. Carter said: "I don't want to comment specifically on President Bush's policies, but I do think that in every way before we go into a war of any kind we should exhaust all other alternatives including negotiation, mediation or, if that's not possible in the case of Iraq, working through the United Nations." Mr. Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981, now heads the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which advocates human rights and peaceful resolutions of conflicts and promotes public health issues. Mr. Berge said he called Mr. Carter at home in Atlanta at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time, a half-hour before the announcement in Oslo, to notify him. Mr. Berge said the committee had also recognized that Mr. Carter should have shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, which was largely meant to honor the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt that Mr. Carter had brokered. The 1978 prize was awarded to Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt, who jointly began the peace process in 1977 that culminated in the accords at Camp David in September 1978. Mr. Carter was excluded because he was not nominated by the Feb. 1 deadline that is strictly enforced by the Norwegian Nobel Institute. "He should have had the prize in 1978," said Mr. Berge. "But he couldn't because he wasn't nominated in time. That was a mistake that we now have the opportunity to set straight." Mr. Carter is the third United States president to be given the Peace Prize, after Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow T. Wilson. Nominations may be submitted by members of national assemblies and governments, university professors, international court judges, past and present Nobel committee members and former peace prize winners. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
