Nobel prize, peace and politics: Reasons for naming recipients
Aboeprijadi Santoso , Jakarta | The Jakarta Post - Fri, 10/24/2008 1:36
PM | Opinion
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Two years ago I argued that it was not surprising that the 2006 Nobel
Peace Prize was not awarded to key figures in the Aceh peace process --
contrary to the expectation that it should have partly gone to
Indonesia's leaders. What has changed since Helsinki's mediator Martti
Ahtisaari has now received the prize?
In 2006 it was widely expected that it would be given to those involved
in brokering the peace in Aceh which had been achieved just a year
earlier. However, Nobel Peace Prize winners are not necessarily those
whom we believe have done the greatest service for peace. Surely they
must have made a significant contribution, but the traditional way the
prizes were bestowed in the name of Alfred Nobel suggests that it should
carry -- as it did in the recent past -- a clear moral and political
message.
Instead of focusing on the peace process at state level as they
traditionally did, the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2006 opened a new
horizon by giving the award to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. War
against poverty is a significant element of world peace.
Peace thus no longer concerns efforts at diplomatic levels only. The
situation on the ground matters much, and this is certainly true for
Aceh. However, since the implementation of Aceh's peace deal until late
2006 was widely considered successful, why should the prize be given for
these efforts rather than pointing to a more critical issue?
The Nobel Peace Prize is intended to strengthen values related to the
cause the winners pursued, and in so doing encourage them and the world
toward the enhancement of peace, human rights and democracy. Since the
nature of conflicts varies, the resolutions obviously cannot be expected
to be readily credible. There is no simple panacea. It follows, even if
the issues have been settled, that one has to judge whether the
solutions still need to be pushed forward.
This, it seems, is most critical: It is the ongoing process toward
terminating conflicts with a greater, not lesser, degree of
difficulties, rather than some definite peace deals, that seem to fit
the Nobel's mission.
A number of cases demonstrate the importance of this pattern. In the
1990s, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta went
through much pain and trouble to campaign for the East Timorese right to
self-determination. This aim was considered urgent, but still far from
being feasible. Hence, by 1996, they received the prize.
Similarly, Nelson Mandela and Fredrik de Klerk were heavily pressurized
from inside and outside during their negotiations to democratize South
Africa when they were awarded the prize in 1993 -- one long and critical
year before Mandela was finally released from prison.
The Northern Ireland parties (John Hume and David Trimble), too, needed
a strong push by being awarded the prize in 1998 as peace talks gained
momentum but the decommissioning was hard to implement -- as it turned
out, it indeed took years before it materialized.
Likewise, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the prize for his role in ending
the Cold War in 1990 when the crisis in the former Soviet Union
intensified. The assumption that this was a critical year was
demonstrated by the pro-communist and Yeltsin coups in that year.
In 1991 Aung San Syu Kyii received the prize. Being imprisoned by
Myanmar's brutal junta, she was unable to fight for her cause the way
Belo and Ramos-Horta did for East Timor. She won the 1988 elections, and
as international support grew, it was awarded to her.
Another clear example of a peace effort in a critical moment being
decisive was when it was given to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and
Yitzhak Rabin in 1994. Never before had a better chance emerged for a
settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Yet at the same time it was
feared the situation could remain precarious -- which proved correct as
the talks later failed. Hence, the Nobel pushed then.
In short, Nobel Peace Prizes in the last 15 years or so were not about
conflicts that have been settled as Aceh was in late 2006. Instead, it
was consistently decided to push ongoing efforts which were at a
critical moment or facing a stumbling block. Timing is important.
As early as late 2006, the implementation of the Helsinki deal in Aceh
was applauded even by those who had been skeptical at the outset. No
other conflict had been resolved, with its crucial parts implemented, in
less than two years. Hence, the Committee chose to encourage other peace
efforts rather than award the prize to any figure working on peace in
Aceh.
This is not to say that mediator Martti Ahtisaari didn't deserve the
prize then or now. He has been widely acknowledged as both exceptionally
capable and authoritative ("like a father" said one GAM negotiator),
hence, instrumental in the Aceh peace process.
The fact, however, that he is now awarded the prize means the Committee
has returned to its traditional pattern of considering world politics at
regional and diplomatic levels, and took the most obvious among several
candidates. It's possible that (post-) conflict issues in which
Ahtisaari was involved needed more urgent attention.
Ahtisaari has brought peace in Asia, Africa and Europe over three
decades, but his greatest success was on the Namibia issue in the late
1980s when he was able to move South Africa to accept Namibia's
independence.
Post-conflict conditions, including Aceh's peace, cannot be taken for
granted. But it was Kosovo that proved most difficult and delicate since
Ahtisaari's solution, supported by the West, gave Kosovo independence
and angered other key players notably the Serbs, who were supported by
Russia. Moreover, recent trouble with Russia and Georgia has invoked
global fear of a new cold war, which could become aggravated if Kosovo
becomes a new hot spot in the Balkans; such, in any case, was one of the
most recent anxieties in the European capitals.
The choice of Martti Ahtisaari, therefore, seems the more imperative
given the Committee's mission to convey its message when some conflicts
need greater attention than others.
The writer is journalist.
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