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12 October, 2000
After the decision to award President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea the prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace, I would suggest that the honourable Royal Academy of Norway change its rules.
If the rules were amended, maybe the selection would also be easier. This year, no fewer than 150 candidates were on the list for consideration.
Let's make no mistake. What Mr. Kim has done in terms of reconciliation with North Korea is great.
However, in my opinion, the Royal Academy decided to select probably one of the less deserving of the candidates.
What is most scandalous are some of the motivations for awarding the Prize to the South Korean president. "Kim Dae-jung is a central defender of universal human rights," said the chairman of the Committee, Mr. Gunnar Berge, when he announced the decision this morning in Oslo.
The Committee should have asked the South Korean trade unions about that and checked on what Mr. Kim has been doing since he was elected president of the country.
The police have jailed hundreds and hundreds of trade union leaders. Strikes have been repressed. Companies have, together with government complicity, started campaigns against trade unions. All this under the benevolent supervision of the president of the country, Kim Dae-jung.
No president of South Korea has ever put as many freedom fighters in jail as Mr. Kim - and this in less than 2 years!
The short memory of politicians - and Mr. Kim is one of them - should be refreshed from time to time. It was not so long ago when Mr. Kim returned to South Korea from his exile in both Japan and the USA. In the airplane which was carrying him back home, he had asked representatives of the American trade unions to join him to protect him from attacks from the regime which was ruling the country then.
Now Mr. Kim does not need the unions anymore.
Among the millions of South Koreans who have been fighting for democracy and freedom, there are many metalworkers, teachers, hospital workers, public transport workers, both women and men who deserve this Award much more than Kim Dae-jung.
I thought that mistakes made in past choices, such as Menachem Begin in 1978, or Frederik de Klerk in 1993, were just accidents.
But I was wrong.
If the rules were amended, maybe the selection would also be easier. This year, no fewer than 150 candidates were on the list for consideration.
Let's make no mistake. What Mr. Kim has done in terms of reconciliation with North Korea is great.
However, in my opinion, the Royal Academy decided to select probably one of the less deserving of the candidates.
What is most scandalous are some of the motivations for awarding the Prize to the South Korean president. "Kim Dae-jung is a central defender of universal human rights," said the chairman of the Committee, Mr. Gunnar Berge, when he announced the decision this morning in Oslo.
The Committee should have asked the South Korean trade unions about that and checked on what Mr. Kim has been doing since he was elected president of the country.
The police have jailed hundreds and hundreds of trade union leaders. Strikes have been repressed. Companies have, together with government complicity, started campaigns against trade unions. All this under the benevolent supervision of the president of the country, Kim Dae-jung.
No president of South Korea has ever put as many freedom fighters in jail as Mr. Kim - and this in less than 2 years!
The short memory of politicians - and Mr. Kim is one of them - should be refreshed from time to time. It was not so long ago when Mr. Kim returned to South Korea from his exile in both Japan and the USA. In the airplane which was carrying him back home, he had asked representatives of the American trade unions to join him to protect him from attacks from the regime which was ruling the country then.
Now Mr. Kim does not need the unions anymore.
Among the millions of South Koreans who have been fighting for democracy and freedom, there are many metalworkers, teachers, hospital workers, public transport workers, both women and men who deserve this Award much more than Kim Dae-jung.
I thought that mistakes made in past choices, such as Menachem Begin in 1978, or Frederik de Klerk in 1993, were just accidents.
But I was wrong.