In an unprecedented move, the Norwegian swells who decide who is worthy of High Acclaim and Prestige in the world, awarded the annual Nobel Peace Prize they control to only one side in a "peace process." The worthies gave the prize (funded by deceased explosives multi-millionaire Alfred Nobel) to Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, omitting his negotiating partner, the rebel FARC organization and its leaders.
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Consider previous similar prizes: in 1994 the Peace Prize was bestowed upon the Israeli political bosses Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian "terrorist" Yasser Arafat, for initiating the deceptively misnamed "Oslo Peace Process." (It actually was a con job and long stalling process during which, over eight years, the Israelis, with their U.S. patrons running interference for them,
doubled the "settler" population in the occupied territories while pretending to be "negotiating" for a future Palestinian state on the same land. This was yet another of Bill Clinton's deceptions and crimes against humanity.)
In 1993, the Big Prize went to the president of the racist apartheid South African regime, F. W. de Klerk, and the "terrorist" ANC head Nelson Mandela, for negotiating a transition to more democratic rule, ending a decades-long period of repression and insurgency.
And in 1978, the prize went to Egyptian president Anwar Satat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin (formerly head of the terrorist Irgun). This for negotiating a peace treaty between their two nations.
But apparently the FARC is beyond the pale to the international bourgeoisie.
Facts, history, and reality all have to be ignored in the "universal" demonization of FARC by the international bourgeoisie. Start with the estimated 250,000 who have "died in the 52 year conflict." Most were unarmed civilians murdered by the military, police, and fascist auxiliaries, the right-wing death squads euphemised as "paramilitaries" (never "terrorists," the label officially branded on FARC). Just a year ago or so mass graves were discovered outside a military base containing the corpses of civilians murdered by soldiers who claimed their victims were "guerrillas," to obtain bounties and inflate their body count.
It is also misleading to refer to a "52 year long civil war." There was a previous cessation of war- but not of violence, as it turned out- when the FARC laid down their arms and ran candidates for office. This turned out to be a great opportunity for the rich of Colombia to try and exterminate people for progress. The Colombian bourgeoisie duly unleashed their fascist killers on the FARC candidates, supporters, and allies, to murder thousands of "leftists." This period of one-sided violence lasted from 1984-87. And according to Wikipedia: "In 1989 a single large landholder had over 400 UP members murdered. Over 70% of all Colombian presidential candidates in 1990—and 100% of those from center-left parties—were assassinated." [Sources at Wikipedia.]
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The fact of the previous three-year attempt by FARC and others to "participate in the political process," which was met by massive state terrorism, is virtually blacked out of bourgeois history and media commentary. This is ideologically and politically necessary in order to paint FARC as "the bad guys," ruthless killer terrorists who "take hostages" (capture prisoners to try and exchange for their own people held as prisoners by the government, which has always refused prisoner exchanges) and "traffic in drugs" (as if the Colombian goverment, the "paramilitaries," and the CIA DON'T do the same).
By the way, the U.S. has sent its experts in state terrorism down to Colombia at least since 1959,
five years before the FARC took up arms. This "Special Survey Team" of "counterinsurgency experts" recommended a sinister program of "intervention," and that "to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature." In 1962 another group of U.S. Army covert terrorists, headed by a general this time, paid another visit to Colombia to conspire in repression with the Colombian "security forces" by teaching them methods, equipping them, and over all institutionalizing "professional" methods of ubiquitous human rights atrocities and a permanent feature of this typical U.S. client state in its "own backyard."
The award to Santos comes days after a referendum presented to the Colombian public to ratify the peace agreement negotiated with FARC was rejected by a bare majority of 50.2% of the 40% of eligible voters who actually voted. Thus 20% of the electorate defeated the deal.
In the aftermath of the vote, the BBC among others has given play to the complaints of the fascist elements of the Colombian elite who opposed the agreement. They are outraged that FARC members won't be imprisoned as long as they confess. (No mention of the crimes and impunity afforded to their death squads and their military.) They are also outraged that FARC didn't have to turn over all their weapons
before an agreement!!! And they find it unacceptable that a whole ten seats were to be reserved in the bicameral legislature for the FARC. (I guess they think the FARC's candidates should just be murdered, as happened during the last peace agreement.)
The previous president, Alvaro Uribe, a rich landowner who founded the death squads, has been a vociferous opponent of any peace agreement with FARC. He led this opposition, preferring to press on with extermination. (Aided by U.S.-guided assassination of top FARC personnel.)
Enjoy your prize, Santos. I mean the 8 million Swedish Krona ( a bit less than one million U.S. dollars, $926,000 as of today.)
Maybe the Norwegians just didn't want the U.S. to indict them for providing "material support to terrorism"!
1] Alfred Nobel was a Swedish industrialist, trained in chemistry and engineering who is usually described as an inventor and "innovator," His big "innovation" was developing dynamite. During that process, there were glitches along the way, including an explosion that killed his brother and four others. By 1867 his efforts bore fruit. After dynamite, apparently obsessed with explosives, Nobel invented gelignite in 1875, which is even more powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 he patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.
Another of his "innovations" was converting the iron and steel manufacturing company Bofors into a major weapons maker, especially of heavy armaments like cannons.
Nobel grew rich from dynamite and from his trade in arms and ordnance. But he was stung in 1888 by an obituary about him which a French newspaper, mistaking Nobel's brother for Alfred himself (the brother had just died), published, which stated: "The merchant of death is dead" and "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."
Nobel, desirous of having a good reputation "in perpetuity" as they say, that is, worried about what people would think of him after he was dead and no longer existed, hit upon what has proven to be one of the most brilliant, effective, and durable public relations moves of all time. He set up the Nobel Prizes, to be funded after his death through a trust fund in which he secretly put most of his wealth (the amount in the trust estimated at $265 million in current U.S. dollars), causing disappointment and surprise among his relatives and friends, who only discovered this after his death. (Rich people are almost invariably selfish creeps, and love to stick it to the fawners and sycophants who cravenly try to curry their favor in hopes of a big payoff in the future. The rich often secretly hold these wishful thinkers in contempt. Their wealth makes them chronically paranoid and distrustful that other people are only interested in them for their money. This is one reason the rich generally limit their friendships and socializing to other rich people, forming an insular and armored class of the rich.)
There are five Nobel Prizes, for Chemistry (natch, since he was a chemist), Peace (ironically), Literature, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine. They were first awarded in 1901. The "Economics Prize" was invented later by the Bank of Sweden, which attached it to Nobel's name to leech off the prestige of the real Nobels. The bank got the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the two science Nobels, to hand out the "Economics" prizes. Swedish institutions handle the awards other than the "Peace" prize, which is controlled by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. For some reason Nobel didn't want his fellow Swedes handling that one. Go figure.
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