KUDOS! Africa Wins Nobel Peace Prize Again!

[Onyango Oloo]

Onyango Wasilishas His Pongezis, Hekos and Kudos...

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed El Baradei, for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way. At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA´s work is of incalculable importance. In his will, Alfred Nobel wrote that the Peace Prize should, among other criteria, be awarded to whoever had done most for the "abolition or reduction of standing armies". In its application of this criterion in recent decades, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has concentrated on the struggle to diminish the significance of nuclear arms in international politics, with a view to their abolition. That the world has achieved little in this respect makes active opposition to nuclear arms all the more important today. Oslo, 7 October 2005

IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei addressing the media. (Photo Credit: D. Calma/IAEA)


For the second year running the Nobel Peace Prize has come to Africa.

For the second year running the world's most prestigious prize has recognized the outstanding contributions of African and international scientists in fighting for a new world governed by peace, international cooperation, nuclear non-proliferation, respect for mother earth and a minimization of military conflicts.

If we look at the link below of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates since 1960,

nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/

we notice that this is the SEVENTH time someone from Africa has won that prize- Chief Albert Luthuli in 1960; Anwar Sadat in 1978; Desmond Tutu in 1984; Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk in 1993; Kofi Annan in 2001; Wangari Maathai in 2004 and Mohammed el Baradei and his IAEA team in 2005.

Not bad for a continent demonized in the mainstream Western media as conflict prone and war like.

All Africans must stand tall; All Africans, women and men, must smile; All Africans, old and young, must applaud not just the latest African recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize but the entire continent itself. All Africans must jump for joy as we celebrate what is truly a Pan African and Internationalist award for the part that the South plays in making this world a better place.

Contrary to what we see on CNN and the BBC, Africans cherish peace more than they embrace war.

It is not often appreciated that most African refugees are hosted by other African governments. It is not often appreciated that regional African formations like ECOWAS and respected world statesmen like Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan have done more to resolve conflicts and promote peace in Africa than all those emissaries from North America and Europe. Even our own Kenyan heads of state-despite their sordid internal records on human rights- like Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki have contributed to peace efforts in Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda and Congo- irrespective of what their other nefarious agendas might be.

Some people may be astounded and dumbfounded to hear me claim the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for Kenya as well.

But I am not just talking in generic terms because El Baradei, an Egyptian is an African and therefore all Africans are included in the accolades.

No, I am talking in LITERAL terms.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been split between the Mohammed el Baradei and the staff of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Energy_Agency

has a number of Kenyans who work for it and one of them, David Otwoma, who lives in Vienna, Austria is a member of this very forum JUKWAA where I am first posting this message.

Last evening (Wednesday, October 12, 2005) I decided to send him an email of congratulations and also get more details about the Kenyans who work at the IAEA. Leaving aside the personal and private stuff in that e-mail response, David Otwoma told me that there are six Kenyans working for the IAEA. Three are professional appointments (David Otwoma-Nuclear Safeguards Inspector;Nelima Okhoya-Concepts and Planning Officer;a Kenyan woman of South Asian heritage; and three general staff).

The four other Kenyans had not yet given David Otwoma permission to use their names publicly so we will respect their right to privacy.

Nevertheless we would like to commend each and every one of them plus each and every one of their IAEA colleagues from a host of countries around the world who have earned this valuable citation.

For more information about this year's Nobel Peace Prize please visit this IAEA link:

www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/NobelPrize/index.shtml

Here is an editorial from Asahi Shimbun in Japan:

www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200510100093.html

The Salt Lake Tribune considers the award a "gloved denunciation of the United States:

www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3105000

While the Iranian mullahs reacted cautiously:

www.newkerala.com/newsdaily.php?action=fullnews&id=32963

Speaking of other 2005 Nobel Prize winners, I am personally delirious that one of my all time favourite authors, Britain's


Harold Pinter has collared this year's Literature medallion:

www.cbc.ca/cp/world/051013/w101338.html

To get an inkling for my blissful dementia at the Pinter recognition take a whiff of this Pinteresque quote from Pinter himself:

"I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world..."

It would appear that in the last few years the Nobel organization has been taking conscious steps to align itself with the strivings and aspirations of progressive and democratic humankind rather than with the murdereous and rapacious behemoths of world monopoly capitalism- at least when it comes to the Peace and Literature Prizes. I am blocking out that fiasco of granting the prize to that notorious war criminal Henry Kissinger way back in the 1970s.

Onyango Oloo
Toronto

[Onyango Oloo]

reload/refresh is the way to flow so says mellow oloo.

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[Onyango Oloo]

From: "otwomad" <Otwomad@...>
Date: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:35 pm
Subject: Re: KUDOS! Africa Wins Nobel Peace Prize Again!

OO,

> Not bad for a continent demonized in the mainstream Western media as conflict prone and war like.

I just returned after a short trip to Birmingham, UK. This is the Black History Month in Britain and I do not know if the same is observed in America but I do know that in Africa we do not observe it.

The headline of the New African monthly magazine is

'How Africa Developed Europe and USA'.

www.africasia.com/newafrican/na.php?ID=671

By canceling Africa's debts, the G8 countries are supposed to be doing Africa a favor in helping the continent. While this is partially true, the other half of the truth has not been told….and it is that without Africa's wealth and resources (both human and material), development in Europe and America would not be, as we know it today. This month, as Africans in Britain celebrate Black History Month, New African takes an in-depth look at how Africa developed Europe and the Americas.

The report by Osei Boateng focuses on how slave trade developed Europe and America and underdeveloped Africa in the evil triangle trade (slaves from Africa to Americas sold for a profit; sugar, cotton, etc taken from America and sold to Europe at a profit; manufactured cloths sold to Africa for a profit). Apart from retarding Africa's development, slavery also ensured not only a climate of insecurity and destabilization for over 400 years, but also a massive depopulation of Africa. Africa's population remained at zero growth fixed at 100 million in 1650 to 1900 while that of Europe grew from 103 to 423 million and that of Asia from 257 to 857 million at the same period.

Dr. Walter Rodney extracted from his seminal work published in 1972, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa shows how the `golden years' of the colonial era intensified the development of Europe and America by Africa.. Colonialism was not merely a system of exploitation, but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits to the so-called `mother country'. It meant the development of Europe as part of the same dialectical process in which Africa was underdeveloped. One of the white settlers in Kenya, colonel Grogan, put it more bluntly when he said of the Kikuyu "We have stolen his land. Now we must steal his limbs. Compulsory labor is the corollary of our occupation of the country." For instance, after the Kenya Highlands had been declared `Crown Land', the British handed over to Lord Delamere 100,000 acres of the best land at a cost of a penny per acre. Lord Francis Scott purchased 350,000 acres, the East African Estate Ltd got another 350,000 acres, and East Africa Syndicate took 100,000 acres adjoining Lord Delamere's estate-all at giveaway prices. And such plantations made huge profits.

If Africa should stop developing other continents was a question posed by Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana in his groundbreaking book, Neo-Colonialism : The Last Stage of Imperialism published in 1965 and it angered America and Europe so much that they plotted day and night until he was overthrown. He noted that Africa is having to pay a huge price once more for the historical accident that this vast and compact continent brought fabulous profits to Western capitalism, first out of the trade in its people and then out of imperialist exploitation. This enrichment of one side of the world out of the exploitation of the other has left the African economy without the means to industrialize. That exploitation of this nature can take
place is due to balkanization of the African continent. Europe and America have financial and economic empires that are pan-African and they can only be challenged on a pan African basis. Only a united Africa through an All-African Union Government can defeat them. No one would suggest that all the peoples of Africa combined to establish their unity, their decision would be revoked by the forces of neo-colonialism. On the contrary faced with a new situation, those who practice neo-colonialism would adjust themselves to this new balance of world forces in exactly the same way as the capitalist world has in the past adjusted itself to any other change in the balance of power.

Rotimi Sankore examines the partition of Africa and explains why Africans must appreciate its historical significance. The 120th anniversary of the partition of Africa by the Berlin Conference (of November 1884 to February 1885) passed largely unmarked last year. Yet by not appreciating the historical significance of the partition, present and future generations of Africans risk not understanding how the unification of Africa is vital to its development. By cynically formalizing the scramble for Africa and its resources by Europeans and North American powers, the Berlin conference consolidated the balkanization of Africa for imperialist exploitation and cemented the basis for Africa being the most atomized, exploited and economically underdeveloped continent on the planet. These artificial constructs with the imposition of minority and majority `regimes' set the tone for the policy of `divide and conquer' and unending conflict in Africa
– with negative consequences for development.


Time barred…..Tomorrow I will continue on the present perspective. Did you know that DRCongo, was the world's biggest diamond producer for many decades before it was overtaken by South Africa and Botswana. DR Congo played a significant and crucial role in Britain and its
Allies winning the European wars (dubbed 2nd World War). Try and read Janine Roberts' investigative book, Glitter & Greed – the Secret World of the Diamond Cartel where she tells how the Congo's industrial diamonds were vital to the Allies' war production. Africa
diamond mines supplied 90% of Allied needs at time. And did you know that the first atomic bombs dropped in Japan came from uranium mined from Congo.


Compiled by Otwoma from various sources.


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[Onyango Oloo]

Posted by: Haki October 13, 09:58 PM

Mohamed El-Baradei is one tough cookie!

When the Bush administration tried to strong arm him into rubber-stamping their forged documents purporting to confirm that Iraq sought to obtain "yellow cake" from Niger, El-Baradei took only moments to dismiss the document as an obvious forgery that the CIA should have spotted.

It turns out that El-Baradei was right and Bush wrong.

When the truth came to light, instead of admitting his grave error in judgement, Bush and his cronies at the White house sought massive retribution against El-Baradei. This time the Bush war cry rung hollow in the international wilderness, because the world decided they would go with the truth. One of Bush's attack dogs, John Bolton, was given the assignment to spearheat a negative propaganda campaign against El-Baradei to ensure that he was not re-elected for another term at the IAEA. El-Baradei won easily because in this world there really is justice.