new internationalist
1999 AWARDS The (Alternative) Nobel Prizes |
| The last Nobel Peace Prizewinner of the century was thankfully
not one of the more dubious – previous winners have included Henry
Kissinger and Menachem Begin – but one worth celebrating: the humanitarian
charity Mèdecins sans Frontières. Set up
by two French doctors in 1971, the Brussels-based organization now sends
2,500 volunteers each year to countries afflicted by conflict, natural disasters
or political oppression. The award is in part a recognition of the increasing
importance of humanitarian agencies, most of whom have a much lower profile.
The Right Livelihood Award – also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize – was established to recognize the kind of unsung work for a better world that the Nobel Prize usually ignores. The 1999 winners are... Juan Garces is the Spanish lawyer who prepared the legal case for the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998. Once an adviser to Chile’s murdered President Allende, Garces not only helped submit the criminal suit against Pinochet, but also filed a civil suit on behalf of the families of victims of Pinochet’s regime, directing their lawyers. He receives no pay for his work and has spent $120,000 of his own money prosecuting the case; he has also had death threats. But the suit has had effects well beyond Chile: Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam Hussein’s deputy, had to flee his Vienna hospital to avoid arrest warrants; while Indonesian dictator Suharto did not dare to go to Germany for medical treatment. The message is finally out: there is no hiding place for people who commit crimes against humanity. The Grupo de Agricultura Orgánica was founded in 1993 at a time when Cuba was facing its most serious food crisis since the Revolution. The collapse of the Soviet Union spelled the end of favorable sugar prices and cheap imports just as the US intensified its economic blockade. Cuba had to produce twice as much food with half the fertilizer and pesticides. It had to fall back on organic methods. The Cuban Government saw this as a stopgap. But the Grupo has proved that organic farming systems can be superior in terms of food security as well as environmental sustainability. It has created exemplary organic farms, runs courses and has a nationwide membership. It has brought organic agriculture to the heart of the Cuban food system. In Colombia the Programme for the Consolidation of the Amazon Region (COAMA) is a unique alliance between environmental groups and indigenous peoples. Between 1986 and 1990 the Colombian Government legally recognized 20 million hectares of Amazon rainforest (an area the size of Britain) as ‘collective indigenous territory’. Through its network of field officers COAMA helps indigenous communities to manage their rainforest ecosystem according to their own cultural priorities and make informed decisions about their own development. Hermann Scheer is founder of EUROSOLAR – the European Association for Solar Energy – which aims to replace nuclear and fossil fuels by solar energy. Scheer believes solar energy is ‘the most important necessity for upholding the natural foundations of life, as well as for new and lasting economic and development politics’. EUROSOLAR now has more than 20,000 members and offices in 12 countries. |
