Hans Blix Wins Sydney Peace Prize
SYDNEY, Australia - Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, chairman of the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, has been awarded the 2007 Sydney Peace Prize.
The Sydney Peace Foundation, which announced the award on Monday morning, said Dr Blix was the unanimous choice of the prize jury.
The citation reads: “Hans Blix, for principled and courageous opposition to proponents of war in Iraq, for lifelong advocacy of humanitarian law and non-violence and for leadership of disarmament programs to rid the world of weapons of terror”.
Dr Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, declared in 2004 that the war in Iraq was illegal.
In 2003, he said Iraq had probably destroyed all its weapons of mass destruction in the early 1990s.
The jury for the Sydney peace prize is made up of seven community leaders from diverse fields, including business, media and academia, who assess the merits of an individual or organisation to promote peace and justice.
Alan Cameron, Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, says it is highly relevant that in the 10th anniversary year of the Sydney Peace Prize, the jury focused on universal disarmament as a major peace issue.
Dr Blix will deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture on November 7 in Sydney. He will receive the prize at a gala dinner and award ceremony the following night.
The Sydney Peace Foundation is a non-profit organisation created in 1998 within the University of Sydney.
Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.
Isn’t Hans Blix a big advocate for nuclear power?
@readingdoc - Your question is irrelevant. Blix deserves the PEACE prize.
I think you will find that Hans Blix sees nuclear power as an alternative to the abuse of fossile fuel. He is deeply concerned about global warming. He may not agree with everyone about a solution, but at least he offers more than un-curious George. If more people had the guts to stand up to the Bush regime, we wouldn’t even be discussing the Iraq War.
Here, here! The ‘Bush regime’ is the physical expression of the pathetic state of American society, in which affluence is preferred to justice, religious bigotry prevails over Christ’s teachings, learning is valued only for the status and wealth it brings, propaganda passes readily for truth, fools are suffered gladly (and even elected to be Chief Executive) and ‘might’ and ‘right’ considered synonyms. The current malignant regime is proof incontravertible that ‘for evil to triumph, all that is needed is that good people do nothing’.
I think that the efforts to prevent nuclear ambitions in, say Iran, Korea will be fruitless, until the 45 000, or so missiles with nuclear warheads pointing at various cities around the world are seriously addressed as the greatest threat to all humanity. Blix stating today in an interview on radio here in Oz ‘we need to prevent them [rogue states] of getting nuclear arms…’ says something of the hubris still prevailing and the naive belief, that ‘our’ nuclear weapons don’t matter in a serious debate.
“religious bigotry prevails over Christ’s teachings”
You are much too polite in your choice of the description” religious bigotry” . Christ was not so polite when he accussed the Pharisees and Sadducees of religious bigotry and called them a brood of vipers and white-washed vases, pure on the outside and corrupt within.
Everything that the religious-right stand for;premptive war,torture,wire-tapping,election-cheating,approval of Israeli-initiated atrocities,for-profit healthcare and education,capital punishment,abstinence-only education…did I miss any ?,is an ignorant and/or defiant disobedience of Matt6 , the Sermon on the Mount.
I defy any Bible scholar , liberal or fundamental to show me any command of Jesus that could be rationally interpreted by a literate person to condone any one of the above religious-right stands.
A person cannot be flag-draped American patriot and obey Christ’s teaching,literally, at the same time.
The present-day religious bigots haven’t figured that out yet and the ancient ones became VERY,VERY ANGRY
leomanBK, you have caputured the words I have been looking for. Thank you. I’m not a “word smith” but, apparently you are. Thank you for writing what I could not express effectively with words.
Recommended reading: Blix’s “Disarming Iraq”.
I’m no diplomat and Blix is. In my view he’s a coward and a Johnny come lately. If you compare him with Denis Halliday who came out against the cruel and disasterous Iraq sanctions policy when it was happening (and resigned in protest) this guy did little to impress. Somewhat reminiscent of a Jimmy Carter who writes some truth when he’s more or less on his deathbed. I remember filming an appearance of Blix at the annual ball of a law school in Boston where he was the featured guest right around the beginning of the war. Everybody was eager to hear him and he basically said, I don’t want to spoil your appetite so I’ll talk about my days at law school back when I was your age, never mind the pending war. At least I had not rented a tele lens like the mightily pissed CSPAN crew on the riser next to me.
I don’t know how important this award is but it is a slap in the face to the Bush administration who tried to make Blix sound like some incompetent fringe lunatic when he was complaining about being told “exactly where the WMDs are” in Iraq prior to the war and could find nothing when his people went to the “exact spot”. Actually they did a good axe job on Blix as a lot of my conservative friends still laugh in my face when I quote Blix.
Regarding nuclear energy: accept it-it’s coming. The U.S. public will do anything to save what they view as their “high standard of living” and low gas prices. They won’t fight or vote for a National Health service but they WILL eventually accept nuclear energy. Believe me when gas hits $5.00 a gallon they will be screaming for it, and when they learn it takes 6 to 8 years to get one of those plants on-line they will be calling their Congressional representatives and demanding an all out program to get nuclear on line. Yes and then you will see Congressional response to the publics bidding.
Logan, can you mention your sources and references about Blix. I don’t recal him being a Bush clan, quite the oposite.
Well said Leoman, and Ronald White. There are almost no simularieties between the stance of the religious right and the new testament. If there were, the new testament would never had the impact that it has for the last 2000 years. As Leoman says; this war (and most of what the Bush administration has stood for ) is a prefect example of what happens when good people (and the Dems.) do nothing. Bush is less than 2 years from being history. The spineless Democratic party has let this mad man abuse this country and the world. It is probably too late for impeachment to have any positive effect. We have had the misfortune of living through 8 years of what has to be the worst president in our nations history. The only question is how long will it take, if ever, to recover from the effects of these dark times?