|
Carter accepts Nobel Peace Prize, warns against use of war
By Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MIAMI
- Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, former President Jimmy
Carter rejected the concept of “preventive war” but called
on Iraq to comply fully with a U.N. resolution designed to head
off a war over weapons of mass destruction.
“War may sometimes be a necessary evil”' the
39th American president declared, “but no matter how necessary,
it is always an evil- never a good. We will not learn how to live
together in peace by killing each other's children.”
The 78-year-old former chief executive diplomatically
avoided explicit criticism of the Bush administration, which has
said war in Iraq may be necessary to forestall a larger conflict,
but he rejected the principle out of hand.
“For powerful countries to adopt a principle of
preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic
consequences,” the president told the Oslo City Hall audience
of about 1,000 people that included his wife Rosalynn and their
children, as well as Norway's King Harald and Queen Sonja.
Moreover, without specifically mentioning Baghdad or
Saddam Hussein, he criticized President Bush's threat to attack
Iraq without U.N. support if the White House deems it necessary.
“It is clear that global challenges must be met
with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances
and international consensus,” Carter said. “Imperfect
as it may be, there is no doubt that this can best be done through
the United Nations.”
Later, in the same speech, he urged Iraq to “comply
fully” with U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that
Baghdad rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. “The world
insists that it must be done,” he said.
The pomp and solemnity of the gold medal award, accompanied
by a $1 million cash prize, gave Carter a prestigious podium from
which to revive a variety of familiar themes involving the search
for peace and promotion of human rights, the issues that were the
hallmark of his presidency.
He criticized economic embargoes and urged Israel to
leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip if it wants to achieve peace.
A former peanut farmer and Navy submarine officer, the
Georgia Democrat was elected president in 1976 but lost his bid
for a second term to Ronald Reagan, the Republican, in 1980.
In retirement he has run the Carter Center in Atlanta,
using it as a launch pad to travel throughout Latin America, often
as an elections monitor; mediate international crises, mostly on
a freelance basis; and champion anti-poverty programs.
As president, he ceded U.S. control of the Panama Canal,
a move conservatives called a strategic blunder. When the Soviet
Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, his administration armed anti-communist
Muslims. A Saudi on the Islamic side was named Osama bin Laden.
As a private citizen, Carter mediated the end of a military coup
in Haiti in 1994 to reinstate President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
and ostensibly stabilize that still-troubled Caribbean nation.
Two years later he careened between West Bank polling
places to monitor the first -and so far only -Palestinian Authority
elections.
“Not all his efforts have been equally successful,”
said Nobel Committee head Gunnar Berge, awarding the prize. “But,
as Carter himself has said . . . ‘The worst thing that you
can do is not to try.’ Few people, if any, have tried harder.”
He said Carter “does the opposite of what his countryman
Mark Twain once wrote about forgetting where you bury the peace-pipe,
but not where the battle-axe is. Carter never mislays the peace-pipe.''
Long an opponent of the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba,
Carter included his criticisms in the 2,300-word Nobel address,
without specifically naming Fidel Castro or Havana.
“We must also strive to correct the injustice of
economic sanctions that seek to penalize abusive leaders but all
too often inflict punishment on those who are already suffering
from the abuse,” he said.
Back to issue contents /
Homepage
|
|
