(NEWZIMBABWE) By denying Tsvangirai peace prize, Nobel Foundation preserved its integrity

By denying Tsvangirai peace prize, Nobel Foundation preserved its integrity
By Obert Madondo
Last updated: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:13:53 GMT

SO, ZIMBABWE’S Prime Minister-designate, Morgan Tsvangirai, lost the coveted 2008 Nobel Peace Prize to former Finnish president Artti Ahtisaari? What rank nonsense! Tsvangirai may never have been on the coveted 2008 shortlist to begin with.

We have a potential Zimbabwe Nobelgate scandal here. Tsvangirai’s supporters may have exploited the biggest weakness inherent in the Nobel Prize institution – secrecy – to elevate him to the rank of Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other great global peace icons.

Each year, the respective Nobel Committees distribute nomination forms to an undisclosed number of recipients who pick nominees. These nominees include past winners, prominent institutions, academics and respected members of the field.

Nobel Foundation statutes forbid the disclosure of information about nominees. Only winners in each category – physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics - are announced.

The 2008 Peace Prize list reportedly had 197 nominees, comprised of 33 organisations and 167 individuals. Candidates reportedly included Irish singer, songwriter and political activist, Bob Geldof and Chinese dissident, Hu Jia.

The secrecy presents a quandary for Tsvangirai’s supporters. The nominator can only step forward with the evidence that Tsvangirai was on the list at the risk of betraying the Nobel Foundation’s trust.

By implication, Tsvangirai’s critics can posit a compelling argument that his nomination may have been manufactured.

For argument’s sake, I’m willing to consider that someone in the West may have successfully nominated Tsvangirai. Acceptable nominators include “members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague and of the International Court of Justice at The Hague” and “university professors of history, political science, law, etc, and university presidents and directors of peace research institutes and institutes of international affairs”.

There’s a personal vested interest here. The Hague hungers for Mugabe. Over the last ten years, the intellectuals in the second category have created an irretrievable, larger-than-life evil persona of Mugabe through books, university lectures and media analyses.

It is possible that someone nominated Tsvangirai in retaliation for the spectacular failure of the West’s regime-change project. Maybe the nominator hoped to land a cheap political punch at Mugabe? In 1989, the peace prize was awarded the Dalai Lama, a decision lauded as a “slap at China”.

Or maybe someone genuinely believed Tsvangirai deserved the most prestigious prize in the world? They are wrong. Tsvangirai might have shown extra-ordinary courage in confronting Mugabe’s dictatorship, but he is no Nobel Prize material.

His popularity in the West derives more from being regularly roughed up by Mugabe rather than for bringing substance to the democratic process.

Let’s take a quick analysis of the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and the man’s political career.

Time Magazine suggests that the prize has “peace and security roots” and often favours individuals in the “international peace and security industry”. Time further notes that “it's not unusual for the Nobel Committee to honour individuals from that industry in order to draw attention to the importance of the work of the institutions they represent.”

The magazine suggests that the 2005 prize went to Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei to highlight the importance of the International Atomic Energy Agency's work in monitoring nuclear proliferation “two years after the Bush Administration blundered into Iraq, pooh-poohing the IAEA's finding that Iraq had no nuclear weapons”.

Kofi Annan, then United Nations Secretary General, was awarded the prize in 2001 “to affirm the importance of international law and consensus following the shock of 9/11.”

The Nobel Peace Prize has also sought to impact global civil society. In 1990, it was awarded to Russian President, Mikhail Gorbachev, who engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped change the course of history.

Local efforts with global implications were evidently in the spotlight when the South African pair of Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk, and Kenya’s Wangari Maathai, won the prize in 1993 and 2004, respectively.

The prize has also drawn attention to courageous individuals who have shown courage, inspiration and leadership in the face of violent repression. Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is one example.

All these examples have “inspiring leadership” and “global implication” as qualifying pre-requisites.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are three types of great leaders: leaders who are born with greatness; leaders who achieve greatness and leaders who have greatness thrust upon them.

There’s nothing in Tsvangirai’s humble upbringing to suggest that he was born with greatness. He is yet to achieve greatness.

Stephen Chan, author of “Citizen of Africa: Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai”, describes the PM-designate as “a hit-and-miss politician… prone to periods of wayward and ineffectual leadership”.

Chan only partially sums up the stagnated democratic struggles of the last nine years. Tsvangirai’s is an impressive history of failures.

Remember his famous call for the violent overthrow of Mugabe before the 2002 presidential poll? The election came and Mugabe stole it. In 2002, Tsvangirai pledged to unseat Mugabe “within a year”. The crippling mass protests and boycotts subsequently promised never materialised.

Tsvangirai’s dictatorial leadership and violent crackdown of dissent facilitated the 2005 split of the MDC. His failure to heal the rift and galvanise democratic forces around him cost Zimbabweans outright victory against Mugabe in the March 29 Presidential election. He won the first round but lost every contest.

After the election Tsvangirai went on self-imposed exile, putting his personal safety above the welfare of his supporters. Returning from exile, he promised a “rude shock for Mugabe” that never materialised.

Need I say more?

Tsvangirai’s jinxed politics have now contaminated the current inclusive government, condemning it to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). With an inflation rate of present (231 million per cent), the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, is burning, her spine broken.

Tsvangirai belongs with the group of leaders who have greatness thrust upon them.

The Nobel Peace Prize has often been linked to the anniversary of some significant event. The 2008 Prizes coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Could Tsvangirai’s nomination have been designed to associate him with the noble struggle for human rights? Tsvangirai is no human rights champion. By signing the power-sharing agreement, Tsvangirai invited Zimbabweans to worship the same devil he condemned yesterday. After signing the agreement, he declared that Mugabe will not be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Those who may accept this undeserved immunity for Mugabe for the sake of national unity and progress had another rude awakening. For the MDC, prosecuting other alleged human rights abusers in Mugabe’s Zanu PF, including the military chiefs, is tantamount to sabotaging its future.

What a way to rubbish Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and all the innocent lives the Mugabe dictatorship consumed over the last 28 years? Maybe Tsvangirai is just admitting that he is just an accidental by-product of Mugabe’s dictatorship, without the political substance of his own? Without Mugabe, there would be no Tsvangirai.

Over the last nine years, Mugabe has been demonised and associated with everything and everyone evil. A parallel campaign has sought to prop up Tsvangirai’s image by portraying him as Mugabe’s exact opposite. While Mugabe was busy destroying Zimbabwe, Tsvangirai was the “man who embodies Zimbabwe’s hope for change”, a democrat.

The West imposed sanctions on Mugabe while simultaneously sponsoring ‘events’ in Zimbabwe aimed at ‘discrediting’ Mugabe. Last week US Ambassador, James McGee inadvertently confirmed that he was among Tsvangirai’s top advisors when he admitted to playing golf with the PM-designate.

Then there were attempts to associate Tsvangirai with world-renowned movement and institutions. On October 10, The Telegraph told us the “Nobel Peace Prize shortlist includes Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissidents”.

In one instance of absurdity, one Zimbabwean website proclaimed: “Tsvangirai loses Nobel prize to scientists who discovered AIDS virus”.

After Tsvangirai had “won” the March 29 presidential election, both the USAToday and International Herald Tribune newspapers carried biographies of the Presidential candidates. Tsvangirai: “graduated from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2001 with a diploma in Executive Leaders In Development Program”.

In the real world, even a 2-week Harvard University “executive leadership training” crush course does not make a leader, let alone a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Surely, if Tsvangirai had a single drop of Nobel Prize blood in him, this spirited, expensive campaign to spruce up his image would be unnecessary.

Again, I’m willing to consider that Tsvangirai may have been nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. By denying him the honour, the Nobel Foundation preserved its integrity and saved the West from sinking to yet another lower level patronage and desperation.

Obert Madondo is a Zimbabwean national and writes from Toronto,