NGO movement was an outcome of inability and inefficiency in implementing many social and community projects by the respective Governments. These organizations are not funded by Governments and are suppose to work without any ideological, racial or ethnic biases. They are typically funded by charities and trusts. This is a very simplistic definition and funding and functioning of NGO’s is a very complex issue. Most of the effective NGO’s are located in USA and other European nations. Typically NGO’s work in the area of education, poverty related social issues, rural development, environment and women issues. However, NGO’s are working in every imaginable area from animal welfare to Ebola eradication. Most of these Western NGO’s are active in African and Asian countries. Like Nobel award there are many such awards conferred on people working in such social activities in the developing countries. ‘Human right’ movement is another such global activity. All these activities are inter related and totally hijacked by American, Russian and other European intelligent organizations. After the end of Cold war most of these organizations are dominated by Christian missions and covertly funded by American intelligence agencies. Their names are very misguiding and do not give any information of their funding source. India always remained a soft target for such NGO activities.
Kalyanaraman
Satyarthi, the latest addition to the American-built anti-national assets in India
Ravindranath
There is nothing noble about the Nobel Prize any more, especially in granting the Nobel award for peace. Many eminent personalities who deserved this award, were ignored in the past, where as several others who did not at all deserve it, like Palestinian Terrorist Yasser Arafat, American State Secretary and a master manipulator Henry Kissinger and his counterpart Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, and Michael Gorbachev of Russia, won the award. It is another matter that Le Duc Tho declined to accept the award. The award of Nobel Peace Prize was always mired in controversies. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in China, the Nobel Committee announced the Nobel Peace Prize for 1989 to Beijing’s nemesis, the Dalai Lama, for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet, which however was viewed as treason by the Chinese authorities.
Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year old Pakistani Muslim girl and Kailash Satyiarthi, a 60-year old Indian Hindu were declared as joint winners of Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2014 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on October 10, 2014. While Malala is a child rights activist engaged in promoting girl child’s education in Pakistan, Satyarthi is a child rights activist and a crusader against child labour, who however remains largely unknown within India.
Malala shot into prominence when she was shot in the head by Taliban militants on October 9, 2012, while she was travelling in a bus. Malala who was flown to London for treatment soon made a remarkable recovery and now continues her studies in London. Her family members also shifted to London soon to be with Malala, with the help of British authorities.
As in the previous years, the Nobel Peace award announced for 2014 also had invited fair amount of criticism for both the winners. Many critics felt that Malala was too young to have made any major contribution for world peace as a child rights activist and concluded that she became a serious contender for the award only because she was shot by the Talibani militants. The criticism against Satyarthi was even more intense. Many of his critics alleged that he was groomed by certain western agencies to protect their business interests, by granting several international awards to him for promoting child rights activism especially against the child labour in the carpet industry in India so as to deprive the carpet industry in India of its competitive edge in the world market.
Kailash Satyarthi, who hails from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, shifted to New Delhi in 1977 after taking a degree in electrical engineering and teaching in a Bhopal college for two years. In Delhi, he started working with Bharatendra Nath, a publisher of Arya Samaj literature. Soon he came into contact with Swami Agnivesh, an Arya Samaj leader and head of an organization called Bandhua Mukthi Morcha (BMM) which was fighting against social evils like bonded labour and child labour, prevalent among the contractual workers in carpet industry, brick kilns, etc. Satyarthi also joined the Agnivesh’s movement and started working in areas around Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. They were particularly active in the carpet industry of UP’s Mirzapur that employed a large number of child labourers. In late -1980s, Satyarthi started an organization called Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) for focusing his attention exclusively on child labour while continuing his association with Swami Agnivesh’s BMM. He also soon started getting a lot of support from some western countries like Germany, USA and UK, for his crusade against child labour in the carpet industry in India.
Satyarthi, in association with Anti-Slavery International, London, convened the first South Asian Seminar on Child Servitude in New Delhi in 1989, which was attended by several NGOs and human rights organizations from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. This meeting culminated in the formation of South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) which now claims to have a network of 750 NGOs, trade unions and human rights organizations.
The carpet industry in India is spinning an annual foreign exchange of Rs1500 crore mainly from the US, UK, Germany and countries in the European Union. In the eighties, there was growing concern among the carpet manufacturers in the US, Germany and other western countries over the cheaper Indian carpets flooding the western countries threatening the survival of their own carpet industries. Their study found that the cheap labour available in India was made further cheaper because of the widely prevalent use of child labour by the carpet manufacturers in India. It was the carpet mafia of the west that first launched a war against child labour in India so as to curb the competitive edge enjoyed by Indian carpets in the world market. They used the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) led by Kailash Satyarthi to launch a big consumer awareness campaign in 1993 in the US and EU countries highlighting the inhuman conditions in the carpet industry in countries like India so as to discourage the consumers in the West from buying the Indian carpets. The SACCS alleged that instead of allowing the children to enjoy a healthy and joyous childhood, the children were denied their basic primary education and lured into the darkness of carpet loom units to work as chained bonded child labourers who are too young and mute to raise their voice against the oppressive atmosphere in which they were forced to work. It alleged that, separated from their parents and denied nutritious food, these children were forced to work for 14 to 16 hours a day in poorly ventilated work places. It further charged that the children were often subjected to beating and torture, while their nimble fingers spun the carpets without seeing the daylight and without even getting proper payment. It even charged that children as young as five or six-year old also worked in India’s carpet industry.
The SACCS highlighted these inhuman practices to convince the West to know how these carpets are made in India employing child labour, and under what miserable conditions these chilren worked. This awareness campaign was carried out by the SACCS with the whole-hearted support and help from the German Export Promotion Council, UNICEF and various NGOs and human rights organizations in the western countries. With the awareness about the involvement of child labor in carpet making in India spreading, the consumers started demanding child labor-free carpets. In September 1994, Satyarthi in association with the German NGO ‘Bread for the World’ and friends like Tom Harkin (senator) and Lea VanderVelde (a university law professor) founded Rugmark, a labeling system to combat child labour in hand-knotted carpet industry in India. The ‘Bread for the World’ is an initiative launched by the Protestant Church in Germany to give aid to the poor in the third world countries. The campaign started by the SACCS and other agencies against the child labour culminated in a UN resolution to move towards a labeling system to ensure that no child labour is used in manufacturing a given product. After the publication of the resolution, objectives and criteria of the organization were formulated by the Indo-German Export Promotion group (IGEP). The trademark was initially called RugMark Foundation ,which is now known as GoodWeave International. The SACCS wanted child labour to be replaced by adult labour and advocated affixing labels after scientific and independent inspection and monitoring. If all the certification criteria are fulfilled by the carpet manufacturers and loom owners, and the inspection is carried out by the Rugmark officials to state that it is free of child labour, then only the carpet manufacturers would be licensed to use the Rugmark\ GoodWeave label for the carpets. (http://www1.american.edu/TED/rugmark.htm)
Criticism against Satyarthi
Satyarthi had worked with Swami Agnivesh’s Bandhua Mukthi morcha (BMM) as his assistant for many years before he fell out with Swami Agnivesh in 1995. It was Agnivash who initiated Satyarthi into social activism. In fact it was Bandhua Mukthi Morcha (BMM) which initially took the campaign against child labour abroad and made all the ground work for the foreign importers to look for RugMark certification. When Swami Agnivesh and Kailash Satyarthi had made a presentation at a UN conference against the child labour in the carpet industry in India, Indian representative Muchkund Dubey had condemned them both as anti-nationals as their presentation was against the interests of the Indian carpet industry. However, after winning the Nobel Peace Award, Satyarthi never mentioned a word about the role played by Agnivesh in guiding and shaping him up as a social activist in the initial days. This is because, his parting with Agnivesh was not that cordial. In fact, the Mukthi Pratistan, the parent organization of Bandhua Mukthi Morcha had filed a criminal case against Satyarthi in 1996 for defalcation of accounts, usurping its property and working against the organization when he was employed with it. This case is still pending in a Delhi court.
Satyarthi’s crusade against child labor, however had come under severe criticism from many independent observers as his awareness campaign launched in 1993 to inform the consumers about the menace of child labor prevalent in the carpet industry in India had led to a global boycott of Indian carpets which was widely supported by western countries and trade unions. It was also reported that Satyarthi had received two million dollars from German and American Foundations for his global march against child labor that was conducted in 1998. His international campaign against child labor and insistence on RugMark label for Indian carpets meant for exports had a crippling effect on India’s carpet industry which had prompted his critics to dub him as an agent promoting the interests of western countries by creating huddles against the competitiveness of Indian carpets in the export market, besides lowering the country’s image by projecting the menace of child labor in India. (http://www.firstpost.com/world/mr-foreign-hand-kailash-satyarthi-now-gets-bashed-for-nobel-peace-prize-1756039.html)
The Norwegian Nobel Committee while declaring the names of Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi as joint winners of Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 had stated that it regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism. The Nobel Committee generally do not mention the religion of the awardees. However, in this case not only the Committee mentioned the religion of the two awardees, but also presented the award declaration as part of a west-sponsored civil society programme called ‘Aman ki Asha’ to promote peace and friendship between India and Pakistan. No wonder, that the ‘Times of India’ news daily, which was one of the sponsors of the’ Aman ki Asha’ initiative along with ‘the Jung’ news daily of Pakistan, published the news report about the Nobel award for Satyarthi and Malala as part of its ‘Aman ki Asha’ campaign in India. This has however prompted many critics to comment that the declaration of Nobel Peace Prize this year was guided more by hidden motives than merit of the individuals.
Ellen Barry, a well-known American columnist, writing in New York Times had described Satyarthi as a Marxist since his college days. There is no reason to dispute this assertion as Swami Agnivesh who initiated Satyarthi into social activism and was his mentor and colleague for about a decade was an open supporter of the Maoist movement. Agnivesh was even attacked by the villagers of Chhattisgarh on two occasions in the past because of his support for the Maoists. As further proof for Agnivesh’s links with Maoists, in February 2011, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh had taken the help of swami Agnivesh to get the release of five policemen abducted and held hostage by the Maoists since January 25, 2011. More baffling is the message sent by ‘World Vision’ to Satyarthi describing him as a partner of World Vision and congratulating him for winning the coveted Nobel award. The World Vision is a well-known evangelical organization that shows no inhibitions about its Christian affiliation and agenda. In fact, the World Vision has a programme called ‘Project Rescue’ which aims to set children rescued from various centres of exploitation, on the path ‘to Jesus’. It will be worth examining as to how many children rescued by Satyarthi from carpet weaving centres were sent to the path of Jesus. http://www.niticentral.com/2014/10/12/kailash-satyarthis-nobel-prize-decoded-240562.html
It is also reported that the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a VHP leader of Odisha, in August, 2008 by the Maoists was actually masterminded by the World Vision, because of his staunch opposition to the conversion activities of the Christian missionaries. Satyarthi’s partnership with World Vision further exposes the unusual nexus between the church and left extremist elements to promote their evangelic mission in India. ( http://vicharak1.wordpress.com/).
A group of Hindu activists led by Mukesh Jain, leader of Dharma Rakshak Sree Dara Sena had staged a sit-in dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on October 27, 2014, in protest against the declaration of Nobel Peace Award to Kailash Satyarthi. They shouted slogans describing Satyarthi as an agent of Maoist Christian Terrorist Alliance and demanded confiscation of the prize money. The group owes allegiance to Ravinder Kumar Pal @ Dara Singh who is undergoing a life term in jail for burning to death the Austrian Christian missionary Graham Stain and his two sons in 1999. It is true that those who took part in this sit-in protest belonged to a Hindu extremist group. But Satyarthi’s links with Christian evangelical groups and Maoists are also a proven fact. (http://mattersindia.com/confiscate-nobel-peace-laureates-prize-money-hindu-group/)
Kailash Satyarthi, a made in America Nobel Laureate
Kailash Satyarthi is another Indian activist groomed by certain western and church agencies and used by them to act against Indian interests. Satyarthi was targeting some Indian industries in the guise of child rights activism only to thwart competition from Indian industries with the western firms. Satyarthi may have remained as a non-entity in India until he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. However, for the westerners, he was already a much acclaimed celebrity for his brave fight to end the child labour in some of the industries in India. In recognition of his fight against child labour in India, he was given many international awards by some prestigious institutions in the West, especially from countries like the US. Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands. A list of the international awards won by Satyarthi in the past is furnished below.
The Aachener International Peace Award from Germany in 1994.
Robert F.Kennedy Human Rights Award from USA in 1995.
The trumpeter Award from USA in 1995.
De Gouden Wimpel Award from Netherlands in 1988.
La Hospitalet award from Spain in1999.
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Award from Germany in 1999.
Wallenberg Medal from University of Michigan, in recognition of humanitarian work against Child Labour, in October, 2002.
Freedom Award from USA in 2006.
Heroes Acting to End Modern Slavery from US State Department in 2007.
Medal of the Italian Senate from Italy in 2007.
Alfonso Comin International Award from Spain in 2008.
Defenders of Democracy Award from USA in 2009.
Satyarthi testifies before an American Senate Sub-committee
In 1994,Kailash Satyarthi had appeared before the US Senate Sub-committee chaired by Democrat senator Tom Harkin to testify about the pathetic conditions under which the children work in the carpet industry in India. It is relevant to note here that he had never bothered to bring these issues to the notice of the government of India or the Indian Parliament which makes his intentions suspect. Later in 1996, Satyarthi took her ten-year old daughter Asmita Satyarthi to present her as a star witness before a US congressional hearing on child labour. All such congressional hearings on any India-related issues generally end up in India bashing. The hearing was chaired by Congressman Joseph Kennedy. In 1995, Satyarthi had received the Robert Kennedy Human Rights award from Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F.Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Robert Kennedy was the dad of Congressman Joseph Kennedy. Kerry Kennedy is the sister of Joseph Kennedy. (http://indianrealist.com/)
After appearing before a congressional hearing as a star witness, an opportunity was also arranged by senator Tom Harkin for Asmita Satyarthi to address the US Congress about the child labor in India. Later, senator Tom Harkin had also helped Asmita Satyarthi to complete her under graduate studies from the University of Iowa in the US. Asmita Satyarthi herself had stated how as a ten-year old girl she had addressed the US Congress in 1996. (http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/what-has-asmita-got-to-do-with-the-nobel-peace-prize/article6492120.ece)
Satyarhi wins Ashoka Fellowship
Kailash Satyarthi was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 1993. Muhammad yunus of Bangladesh, another Ashoka fellow had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work enabling financial inclusion of the poor through micro-financing. Arvind Kejriwal is another Indian who received the Ashoka Fellowship in 2004. The Ashoka is an US- registered organization whose strategic partners include Mc Kinsey and Company, Corporate Executive Board and Latham and Watkins. This organization has been engaged in creating human assets for expanding American influence all over the world, since the cold war.
Satyarthi leads Global March Against child labour
The Global March Against Child Labour started on January 17, 1998 from Manila, crossed 103 countries building awareness about the menace of child labour and finally concluded on June 1, 1998 in Geneva where the ILO conference was in session. Global March International Secretariat is located in New Delhi. Kailash Satyarthi is the President of the Global March Against Child Labour. The following organizations were in the forefront in establishing the Global March Against the Child Labour and conducting the global march in 1998.
Educational International
Oxfam International
Action Aid
World Vision
Social Alert
World Confederation of Teachers
Save the Children Fund
Public Services International, and USAID.
According to the organizers of this march, the ILO was forced to ratify the Worst forms of Child Labour convention (No.182) in 1999 only because of their Global March Campaign. It also claimed to have motivated the ILO to observe June 12 as Anti-Child Labour Day from 2002. Though Kailash Satyarthi is supposed to have led this march, it was entirely planned and executed by organizations like UNICEF. Action Aid, World Vision and USAID, all linked with western intelligence or church agencies.
Global Campaign for Education
Satyarthi had also served as the President of the Global Campaign for Education from its inception in 1999 to 2011, which emerged as a strong civil society network of NGOs for promoting education for all. The campaign was carried out by Action Aid, Oxfam and Education International, while Satyarhi remained as its figurehead.
Rugmark/Goodweave
The Rugmark trade mark is held by Rugmark International, registered in Germany. Marketing countries include the US, Germany and UK. The Rugmark label was planned, conceptualized and implemented by German Export Promotion Council in association with the German NGO ‘Bread for the World’ , UNICEF and American senator Tom Harkin, only to weed out competition from the Indian carpet industry. Styarthi only gave the necessary inputs about the child labour in India to Tom Harkin to frame his anti-child labour bill, called Child Labor Deterrence Act, which was passed by the US House of Representatives and Senate in 1993. Rugmark is a label introduced by the western carpet mafia with help from Indian agents like Satyarthi to harm India’s economic interests. The Rugmark India was opened in September 1994, and in the same year a second office of Rugmark was opened in Germany. The Rugmark opened its third office in Washington DC in 1995.The Rugmark (now known as Goodweave) is completely controlled by officials based in Germany and USA. Kailash Satyarhi was groomed and propped up as a celebrity activist by the western lobby to serve their own interests, by giving him so many international awards.
Kailash Satyarthi is the first Indian to win the Nobel Peace Award and Satyarthi winning this award is a matter of great pride and happiness for every Indian. However, if an impartial assessment is made about the merit and legitimacy over this award to Satyarthi, most educated Indians in the country would have serious reservations against the choice of Satyarthi for this award. If Kailash Satyarthi has genuinely done some wonderful work and if he truly deserved such a prestigious award, how come that he remains unknown to most people in India. His campaign against child labor was encouraged, promoted and even funded by German Export Promotion Council, German NGOs like Bread for the World and Misereor and some other western and church agencies. (http://www.indiancurrents.org/article.php?a=30)
Prior to the introduction of Rugmark labeling system, the carpet industry in the West was facing serious competition from India, and the Rugmark labeling system was invented and introduced in India and other Asian countries like Nepal and Pakistan by western agencies like German Export Promotion Council, UNICEF and the western carpet mafia with the help of Indian agents like Satyarthi to overcome the competitive edge enjoyed by the Indian carpets. Satyarthi is only the nominal head of the Rugmark Foundation. It was actually founded and managed by the carpet manufacturer lobby of Germany and USA. The global march against child labor in 1998 and the global campaign for education from 2009 to 2011, both allegedly led by Kailash Satyarthi were actually organized mainly by organizations like Action Aid, World Vision, UNICEF and USAID. By giving credit to Satyarthi for organizing such mega events, the western agencies were indulging in an image building exercise in favour of Satyarthi. The Child Labor Deterrence Act passed in the US grants NGOs in India the status of inspectors of Indian businesses. Accordingly, Rugmark Foundation was granted the status of Inspector enabling it to inspect and certify that the carpets inspected are free of child labour. Germany and the US are India’s main competitors in the world carpet market. Great irony here is that the Rugmark Foundation founded and controlled by the German and American carpet mafia will have to inspect and certify that Indian-made carpets are free of child labour and hence fit for export. No wonder that this certification process had a crippling effect on India’s carpet export. Can any patriotic Indian be proud of Satyarthi’s achievements?
The US tactic of maintaining supremacy by suppressing developing countries
The US never believed in fair-play in competing with other countries in achieving success in various fields like economic, scientific, technological or in defence. While the US and its Western allies continue to march ahead with progress and prosperity, they make sure that the developing countries, especially countries like India, do not catch up or overtake them. They use trade sanctions and World trade Organization to foist their own version of free trade and impose stringent standards related to environment and labour laws to weaken industries in countries like India to stall our economic progress. The environment and labour laws are intended only to create huddles or make business operations in India expensive by forcing them to go through costly certification process. One such law that targeted the carpet industry in India was the Child Labour Deterrence Act which was passed in the US. The Law was first proposed in 1992 by the Democratic senator Tom Harkin who drafted it with the inputs provided by Kailash Satyarthi. The American law gives selected NGOs in India the status of Inspectors of Indian businesses. In 1994, Satyarthi with the help of his American senator friend Tom Harkins developed a carpet labeling system called ‘RugMark’ with the venture capital from a German Protestant group named ‘Bread for the World.’ He thus profited from his venture and also became an inspector on behalf of the Western agencies ensuring that Indian carpet industry loses its competitive edge.
Satyarthi’s NGO RugMark Foundation changed its name to GoodWeave International in 2012. Majority of the 13 Board members of GoodWeave are Christian Westerners and at least two of them are associated with western churches. While one board member Rev.Pharis J.Harvey is from the United Methodist Church, another member Pat Zariga is from the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Nina Smith, the executive director of GoodWeave International, is also an American citizen.
Tom Harkin’s law passed by the US, instead of finding alternative means of livelihood for the families of children working in the carpet industry, merely help the western firms by weeding out competition. Section 2 of the Child Labour Deterrence Act of 1993 (Tom Harkin’s Bill) clearly says that “adult workers in the United States and other developed countries should not have their jobs imperiled by imports produced by the child labour in the developing countries.” It is clear from this open assertion that that the western sympathy for the plight of children working in the carpet industry in India and other developing countries is quite hollow and unreal as their real concern is the perceived threat from the import of carpets made of child labour to the jobs of adult labourers in the carpet industry in developed countries. The child labour is definitely an inhuman practice. However, the west cannot apply the same labour standards as prevailing in the developed countries to the developing countries as the children living in the developed countries enjoy superior living standard and advanced social security schemes. In India, the children work in the carpet industry to learn a skill and to supplement their parents’ income which is considered by Tom Harkin as exploitation. The fact is that because of the anti-child labour campaign of Satyarthi and Tom Harkin, many families dependent on carpet industry in India were reduced to misery.
Tom Harkin was responsible for nominating Kailash Satyarthi for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. In fact, he first nominated Satyarthi for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Since then, he has been nominating Satyarthi for the coveted award every year until he achieved the goal in 2014.
Shady history of Nobel Awards, especially the Nobel Award for Peace
Past experience shows that only nominees approved by the U.S. government can win the Nobel Prize. For instance, though many ardent fans of Mahatma Gandhi have won the Nobel Peace Prize, Gandhi himself was denied this honour despite being nominated five times and short-listed thrice. Gandhi, who showed the world that anything can be achieved through ‘satyagrah’ and non-violence was nominated for the award in 1937, 1938, 1939,1947 and a few days before he was martyred in January 1948. Similarly, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also failed to win the Nobel Prize, though he was nominated for this coveted award 11 times. Probably the socialist views of Nehru and Gandhi’s criticism against the conversion activities of Christian missionaries were not to the liking of the Nobel Committee and the United States. While Gandhi and Nehru were denied the Nobel Peace Prize, those who won the Nobel Peace award include the master manipulator and war monger Henry Kissinger in 1973, PLO leader and a terrorist Yasser Arafat in 1994 and Mikhail Gorbachev who presided over the disintegration of the Soviet Union, in 1990. The fact that some CIA-linked human rights organizations who support Maoist movement in India could mobilize the support of 44 Nobel Laureates to demand the immediate release of Dr.Binayak Sen, a jailed pro-Maoist human rights activist of Chattisgarh, further confirms the continued loyalty of Nobel Laureates to the various US agencies.
The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee which met in Oslo on 9th October, 2009 had declared President Barak Obama as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 for his extra-ordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and his commitment to work for a world without nuclear weapons. Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the USA only on January 21, 2009 which means that he had not completed even two weeks as president when he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama was just into his ninth month of presidency when he was declared as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize. Such a short period is hardly sufficient to judge the work of a person for such a prestigious award. Naturally most people across the world, including Americans themselves, were stunned by the unexpected choice of Obama for this prestigious award which came so early in his presidency. While critics all over the world described Obama’s choice as premature, there were others who objected to the choice of Obama for the award as he was sending more troops to strengthen his war machine in Iraq and Afghanistan besides initiating counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan and Somalia. The Nobel Prize cannot be given to a nominee merely in anticipation of some extraordinary work from him in future. Barak Obama has not done any extraordinary work to promote world peace so far to justify the Nobel Award granted to him in 2009. Obviously, the Nobel Committee had seriously erred in granting the Nobel Peace Award to Barak Obama in 2009 as has been proved by his declining popularity in his own country.
Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist and a prominent Chinese dissident who is presently undergoing a 11-year jail term in China, was named as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize for 2010. Liu Xiaobo was the founder of the ‘Charter 08’ campaign for constitutional reforms in China. The charter calls for open elections, freedom of religion and expression and abolition of subversion laws. Liu Xiaobo, a former professor, was previously jailed for 20 months for taking part in the 1989 students-led protests in Tiananmen Square. While China condemned the award as an “obscenity” and warned Norway of strained ties, leaders of most countries in the western block used the award of Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo as a convenient weapon to conduct an international campaign to highlight the issue of human rights suppression in China and put pressure on Chinese authorities for the immediate release of dissident leader Liu Xiaobo from the prison.
The declaration of US State Secretary Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho as the joint winners of Nobel Peace Prize for 1973 for brokering an unsuccessful deal to end the war, was the most controversial decision in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. America’s Vietnam war was condemned by most people all over the world, and because of the mounting casualties, in US itself there was growing public anger against the continuance of the war, which even many Americans were not sure of winning. Thus it was a necessity for the US to end the war and get out of Vietnam. There was so much anger among the people over Kissinger’s choice that protesters threw snowballs at the US ambassador in Oslo when he came to collect the prize on behalf of Henry Kissinger. Earlier Le Duc Tho had turned down the joint award.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Soviet dissident writer, historian and activist had exposed to the world the ‘Gulag’, the Soviet Union’s forced labour camp system through his writings, especially through his books ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, two of his best works. He had become a darling of the masses in the western countries, because of his writings against the oppressive Communist regime of the Soviet Union. Honouring his works, Solzhenitsyn was given the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He was exiled from Soviet Union in 1974 for his dissident activities and he returned to Russia only in 1994 after the break up of the Soviet Union.
In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev who presided over the break up of Soviet Union, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for demolishing the USSR which had acted as a bulwark of resistance against the forces of imperialism all over the world. The collapse of the communist empire of the USSR brought so much happiness to the leaders of the western block of countries that they promptly honoured Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of the event, with the award of Nobel Peace Prize.
On December 10, 1994, at a special ceremony in Oslo, Norway, Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shiman Peres were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Price for 1994, for their efforts ‘to create peace in the Middle East’ and their commitment to the peace process as envisioned by the Oslo Accords signed by them earlier. Reportedly the decision to award the peace prize to Arafat was taken on the belief that he had renounced all acts of terror and had become a sincere participant in the true peace process. However the controversial decision to award the coveted Nobel Prize to a master terrorist like Arafat had evoked strong protest and resentment among large sections of people all over the world. Even within the committee, there was disagreement and one of the committee members, Kaare Kristiansen, quit the committee refusing to be a party to the decision to honour an international terrorist with such a prestigious award. Later, agitated over Arafat’s continued association with dreaded terrorist outfits, so many organizations and groups had come forward demanding that the award given to him be revoked.
Aung San Sui Kyi of Myanmar was given the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991. She had led a highly popular movement against the authoritarian rule of the military junta in Myanmar and had suffered long years of imprisonment or house arrest. She had all along enjoyed the total backing of the USA in her struggle for restoration of democratic rule in Myanmar. But the US has double standards while dealing with authoritarian regimes in different countries. While the US has been conducting an international campaign against the authoritarian rule of the military junta in Myanmar for last so many years, it never opposed the long periods of army rule in Pakistan. It showed that the US has no problem with any authoritarian regime that remains loyal to the US leadership.
In short, it can be said that that the Nobel Peace Prize has become a tool in the hands of the US and its allies to influence the world opinion on whatever issues they take up to serve the interests of the capitalist lobby. As Wall Street Journal once commented that the Nobel Peace Prize has throughout its history been captive to the politics of time. (http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125513058590377255)