The ignoble Nobel

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 is mired in controversy. The reason being the choice of China’s convicted prisoner Liu Xiaobo for the award.

It is difficult for anyone to understand how the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize could be compatible with such a choice. According to the last will of Alfred Nobel the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who “shall have done the most work for fraternity between nations for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of Peace Congresses”.

Liu Xiaobo has never been a peace activist but an agent of US imperialism who was involved in subverting the State and social order in China. He was convicted for subverting the State in December 2009 and sentenced to prison for 11 years. It is a sad reflection on the Nobel Prize Committee that they found no one other than an agent provacateur and a convicted criminal to award this year’s peace prize. Having being a not much known University lecturer in China he had later spent several years in Norway and the United States.

In this context it is clear that the Nobel Prize Committee had been driven by political considerations that are alien to the founder’s will. This is not the first time such political awards have been made by the Nobel Prize Committee. For example, it awarded the prize to the United States President Barack Obama last year. Strangely it was awarded not for what he has done but for what he would do in future.

More controversial was the peace award to Henry Kissinger the US Secretary of State and Security Advisor to the President in 1973. Kissinger was in the forefront in leading the aggressive war in Vietnam and other Indo-Chinese countries. He is particularly accused of war crimes in Cambodia during that period. He was also implicated in the ouster of democratically elected Government of President Allende in September 11,1971. Further, he was also alleged to have been involved in the assassination of Chilean General Rene Schneider following the coup in which Pinochet came to power.

The award to Liu Xiaobo is nothing but an undue intervention in the internal affairs of the People’s Republic of China. It is part of a conspiracy to subvert the State and the social system in that country. There is no way it could enhance ‘fraternity between nations’ as the Nobel Prize founder expected.

The Nobel Prize Committee should have known that their choice would strain relations between nations rather than enhancing fraternity between them. Obviously the Committee seems to be hand in glove with the neo-conservatives in the US who being frustrated at the growing economical and political power of the PRC want to lower its international standing and prestige.

It is no wonder that nearly 20-odd countries have boycotted the Nobel award ceremony. They include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan among others.

Sri Lanka has also decided to boycott the ceremony in solidarity with China as announced by the External Affairs Ministry. This is a wise decision. China was in the forefront of nations that supported Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council in Geneva when the Western powers attempted to bring a motion to censure the country over alleged human rights violations during the last phase of the humanitarian operation.

China is a true friend of Sri Lanka. She has assisted us throughout and specially when we were facing difficulties. It is nothing but right that we reciprocate this goodwill and assistance by boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony which is to be used as a new launching pad to censure China.

Today human rights has been made a political issue. West’s double standards in this respect are well known. It is immoral for the mass scale violators of human rights in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan and a host of countries around the world to pontificate the developing countries and censure them in the name of human rights.

Besides, human rights are several-fold, namely political and economic and cultural. The developed countries that point an accusing finger at developing countries have very unsatisfactory records in ensuring the economic rights of their citizens. Even in the case of political rights they do no have a clean record. Most recently the Wikileaks episode exposed them bare. As we commented on an earlier occasion the Empire stands stripped.