The Nobel Peace Prize 1988

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded to the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces .

The Peacekeeping Forces of the United Nations have, under extremely difficult conditions, contributed to reducing tensions where an armistice has been negotiated but a peace treaty has yet to be established. In situations of this kind, the UN forces represent the manifest will of the community of nations to achieve peace through negotiations, and the forces have, by their presence, made a decisive contribution towards the initiation of actual peace negotiations.

It is the considered opinion of the Committee that the Peacekeeping Forces through their efforts have made important contributions towards the realization of one of the fundamental tenets of the United Nations . Thus, the world organization has come to play a more central part in world affairs and has been invested with increasing trust.

The Peacekeeping Forces are recruited from among the young people of many nations, who, in keeping with their ideals, voluntarily take on a demanding and hazardous service in the cause of peace. In the opinion of the Committee, their efforts contribute in a particularly appropriate way towards the realization of the goals of the United Nations.


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The Nobel Peace Prize 1988

Presentation Speech by Egil Aarvik, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee .

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces is unfortunately a reminder to us that peace is not a matter of course here in our world. Peace has to be actively protected - and this protection has its price. 733 young people have sacrificed their lives in the service of the particular form of peacekeeping which is under consideration here.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee asks those gathered together here today to join them in honouring the memory of those young people.

They came from different countries and had widely different backgrounds, but they were united in one thing: they were willing to devote their youth and their energy to the service of peace. They volunteered to the service, knowing that it could involve risk. It became their lot to pay the highest price a human being can pay.

We honour them for their unselfish contribution, and we join their relatives in their sorrow over their loved ones' early departure. Let us show this through a moment's silence.

We invoke peace on the memory of these young people in a spirit of thankfulness and deep respect.

For the first time in its history, the Peace Prize is to be awarded today to an organisation which, at least in part, consists of military forces. It might be reasonable to ask whether this is, in fact, in direct contradiction to the whole idea of the Peace Prize. The fact that this question has not been raised is an indication that it is universally accepted that the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are in the spirit of the Peace Prize.

The description "Forces" is in itself inadequate since it conjures up the idea of a military operation in the traditional sense, while the reality is in many ways the diametric opposite. A more correct description would be "The United Nations Peacekeeping Operation" - consisting of both contingents of troops and unarmed observation corps.

These peacekeeping operations were commenced in 1956 when the UNEF (United Nations Emergency Force) was established in connection with the Suez crisis. The Security Council was unable to act because of a veto from two of the member states. Instead, use was made of the so-called "Uniting for Peace" resolution which gives the General Assembly of the United Nations the power to intervene in the event of the Security Council being unable to act in the face of a threat to world peace.

The General Assembly was summoned to a special session. In the following events, important roles were played by two prominent individuals: the former foreign minister of Canada, Lester Pearson, and the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld . Both of these men were later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Through the influence of these two, plans were made and a resolution passed for a peacekeeping force which was to supervise the retreat of foreign troops from the canal zone.

The principles which were defined for this peace operation were written, in the main, by Dag Hammarskjöld. It is an honour to his memory that the same guidelines are, generally speaking, in use today.

The most important points in these guidelines are:

1. The involved parties must give their support and cooperation to the United Nations forces.
   
   
2. The primary aim is to prevent new hostilities and provide a background against which it is possible to work for a peaceful solution of the conflict.
   
   
3. The force is to make use of negotiation and persuasion instead of violence.
   
   
4. The force is under the command of the leadership of the United Nations and is not allowed to accept orders from other parts, not even the states who have made the troops available.
   
   
5. All member nations should contribute to the financing of the forces.

The peacekeeping forces have, on the basis of the resolution of 1956 and the guidelines drawn up by Dag Hammarskjöld, developed into what present Secretary-General Perez de Cuéllar calls "The United Nations' most successful renewal".

Strangely enough, the peacekeeping forces as such were a new creation: they are not named - or even envisaged - in the original United Nations treaty. The treaty does mention the possibility of military involvement on the part of the United Nations in the event of hostilities, but, because of the relationship between the great powers, it has never been possible to make use of this part of the treaty - the possible exception being the action in Korea in 1950.

Today's peacekeeping operations are something quite different. The troops are made available on a voluntary basis and are approved by the Security Council. They are stationed in areas where a ceasefire has already been established but where no formal peace treaty has been concluded, and they are stationed in such a way that the conflicting parties, in the event of a resumption of hostilities, would meet the United Nations troops first. Actual fighting can thus be avoided, peace and quiet maintained, and it is possible to develop an atmosphere which makes active peace work possible. The very presence of the United Nations troops can have a positive effect. The soldiers very often make friends among the local population, they can offer help and aid in many ways, and are a conciliating element in otherwise explosive situations.

In this connection it is interesting to note a parallel with one of the ideas Alfred Nobel worked on - following a model from the French duelling etiquette. The seconds in such a conflict could intervene between the combatants with the aim of achieving a delay in the duel so that tempers could be cooled and the whole business possibly solved by other means.

It is perhaps reasonable that there were powerful political objections to this model, but the point remains: the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces today have just such an "interventionist" role. Because the United Nations is, in this way, on speaking terms with both parts, negotiations which are at a standstill can perhaps be reopened, and in many situations it is possible that armed fighting can be avoided.

The English brigadier, Michael Harbottle, who took part in the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in Cyprus at the end of the 1960's, has written a book on his experiences there. The book is called The Impartial Soldier , and in it he relates an episode which illustrates what the United Nations peacekeeping operations mean better than any official report.

The Finnish contingent under the command of Colonel Uolevi Koskenpalo was involved in the episode. A message was received to the effect that the Turks had begun to dig trenches in a suspicious manner; the Greeks had observed this, under the leadership of a general, they had decided to take the affair into their own hands. Colonel Koskenpalo had, however, placed his three platoons in precisely the right strategic position, so that the Greeks met the Finnish United Nations troops first as intended. The Greek general disliked being hindered in this way and began to protest loudly. In fact he screamed at the Finn - an obvious mistake. In contrast to the Greek, Colonel Koskenpalo was a well built man with a chest and shoulders of Nordic dimensions. He advanced slowly and from a height of well over six feet looked down at the Greek and said in a moderately loud voice, "Don't shout, general. I am a colonel in the Finnish army and don't like being shouted at."

The reaction was surprising. The general naturally didn't believe his ears, but the shouting stopped immediately and in a little while he retreated together with his forces. This gave the Finn the opportunity to both inform and placate the Greek high command and to persuade the Turks to stop the provocative trench digging.

In this way a violent episode was avoided. There have been many similar episodes where the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces have intervened. It is a question of a strictly peaceful behaviour combined with authority. The Finnish colonel was able to act as an efficient peace medium because he had the authority of the United Nations and the force of his well-trained Finnish United Nations soldiers behind him.

What has been said about the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces is equally true of the United Nations observers. Their duties are to ensure that the Security Council's ceasefire demands are kept. They mark the ceasefire line, establish observation posts and report to the Secretary-General if there are violations of the ceasefire.

This is an important role in critical situations. Reports from the observation corps will be non-partisan and accurate, in contrast to reports from the involved parties themselves. This gives them an obvious value both to the involved parties and to the outside world generally.

It is often emphasised that the United Nations' peacekeeping operations are only carried out at the invitation of the countries involved. The troops and observation corps are guests in the area, and they have a special responsibility to behave in a way which is in agreement with international law and ordinary politeness. Experience to now indicates that the peacekeeping forces have been a correct solution to the problem.

To the present there have been - or are - 13 peacekeeping operations. fifty-three countries have contributed with personnel, and the maximum force has been a total of 50,000 men. If one counts all the soldiers who have been involved in these operations, the total is something like 500,000 men.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee sees this mobilisation of troops from countries all over the world as a tangible expression of the world community's will to solve conflicts by peaceful means. The technological development of weapons systems has resulted in the peaceful resolution of conflicts becoming the only realistic possibility. Nuclear weapons have made the concept of wielding total power an absurdity. In conflict situations it is therefore vitally necessary that there are openings where real negotiations can be initiated. In the opinion of the Nobel Committee the United Nations peacekeeping operations contribute precisely to this.

The Committee believes also that the peacekeeping operations and the way they are carried out contribute to making the ideas which were the very reason for the establishment of the United Nations a reality. This year's Peace Prize should therefore also be regarded as a recognition of the whole organisation, the United Nations. The prize gives expression to the hope we all place in the United Nations.

Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar, who is directly responsible for the peacekeeping operations, and who is therefore present today to receive the prize, is here not only as the formal recipient, receiving the prize on behalf of others. He is himself one of the prizewinners today! With his never-tiring work and the results he has achieved as an active mediator he should be accorded his part of the honour for the growing confidence which is shown in the United Nations.

Confidence in the United Nations has otherwise been a variable factor. The United Nations has for many been seen as a body without power or effectiveness, a forum for bilateral insults, a theatre stage at the side of the reality of world politics. One has been able to have negative opinions of the United Nations without thereby colliding with the accepted state of affairs. But there is one overpowering argument in favour of the United Nations: the organisation has survived, and now defends more and more both its right to exist and its capacity to survive.

It has been pointed out, quite correctly, that the United Nations can only be what the member states make it. They can paralyse the United Nations by ignoring its resolutions, by vetoing, by sabotaging its economy. But they can also make the United Nations an active instrument in the fight for peace, a focus for international law and human rights, and a forum for the development of inter-racial understanding.

The signs today indicate that it is the latter alternative which is in the course of realising itself. Perhaps the very idea of the United Nations is now coming into its own? After what we have been through: Cold War, unsuccessful negotiations, growing fear of a universal atomic death, it is perhaps not so surprising that one again looks to the decisions that were made when the United Nations treaty was signed. On the ruins of the Second World War the survivors decided that conflicts should thereafter be solved by peaceful means. Barbarism should be replaced by friendly relations between nations. Freedom and human rights should be respected without reference to race, sex, language or religion. And the United Nations were to be the means by which the aims of the United Nations Treaty were to be realised.

This year's Peace Prize is a recognition of and homage to one organ of the United Nations. But it ought to be understood as a serious comment on the fact that we must, united and with our whole hearts, invest in the United Nations. It becomes clearer and clearer that what has to be done to secure the future for new generations has to be done together. Our determination has to be channelled into the United Nations. This is the best hope for the future of the world - indeed its only hope!

The belief and the hope which are placed in the United Nations have to be the hope and belief of the younger generations. In the ideals of the United Nations they can search for their own ideals, and it is they who are to form the world of the future.

In the selection of this year's Peace Prize laureate the Nobel Committee attached therefore great importance to the role of young people in the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. It is precisely the contribution of the young which makes the realisation of the United Nations' aims possible in a positive way.

For obvious reasons it is precisely the young who today feel the crippling powerlessness in their meeting with the powers who steer the development of our world. It is easy to lose one's foothold, it is difficult to retain one's optimism - at times it is unclear whether there is any point in attempting to do anything at all.

To all the young people who feel their situation in this way, I would direct a question, the question which the young Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg took up in his poem To Youth :

Well may you ask, in despondent alarm:
What is my weapon? What is my arm?

And thus it is that the young prizewinners can today raise their United Nations flag and answer with the words of this poem by one of our own young fallen:

This is the sword you must bear in your fight -
Faith in this life and man's God-given right.
For the future of all, seek it and choose it;
Die, if you must, gird it on and use it.
Silent the path of the arrow by night;
Halt with the spirit its death-dealing flight.
Then, only then, will all warfare cease.
Man's dignity only can give us true peace.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1981-1990 , Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

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United Nations Peacekeeping Forces – Acceptance Speech

Acceptance by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1988

(Translation)

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I should like to thank you, Mr Chairman, and the other members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee , for the award which I have received today on behalf of the United Nations peacekeeping operations. I should also like to pay homage to the memory of Alfred Nobel, that visionary Scandinavian. His commitment to the cause of peace lives on in the prize which he so generously endowed.

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations peacekeeping operations gives recognition to an idea of striking originality and power and pays brilliant tribute to those who have made it a reality.

The great experiment you are honouring here today has been shaped by many people. I recall in particular its original architects, Ralph Bunche , Dag Hammarskjöld and Lester Pearson , all three of them Nobel Laureates. Their remarkable work has been built upon by their successors who set up and directed further peacekeeping operations.

You are also honouring the soldiers of peace, some half a million young men and women from fifty-eight countries. Seven hundred and thirty-three "Blue Helmets" have given their lives in the service of peace. One of them, Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins, is still in the hands of his kidnappers. I take this opportunity to appeal once again for his immediate release. 1 We cannot forget these brave soldiers. Nor can we forget the civilians of the United Nations Secretariat, and especially the Field Operations Service, who have supported their military colleagues with dedication and courage in fifteen peacekeeping operations all over the world.

The technique which has come to be called peacekeeping uses soldiers as the servants of peace rather than as the instruments of war. It introduces to the military sphere the principle of nonviolence. It provides an honourable alternative to conflict and a means of reducing strife and tension, so that a solution can be sought through negotiation. Never before in history have military forces been employed internationally not to wage war, not to establish domination and not to serve the interests of any power or group of powers, but rather to prevent conflict between peoples.

We are now at a time of extraordinary hope and promise for the United Nations, after a long period when the spectre, and too often the grim reality of war have darkened our planet, there is a new mood of understanding and common sense, a new determination to move away from international conflict and devote ourselves instead to the immense task of building a better world. Recently, we have seen several conflicts give way to negotiation and conciliation.

These developments have not been fortuitous. They are the result of diplomatic activity by the United Nations sustained over the years and intensified recently. Indeed, the prospects of realising the vision expressed in the Charter of the United Nations seem better today than at any time since the organisation was founded.

In the past forty years we have experienced perhaps the most revolutionary period in all of human history. The instruments of war have been developed to the point where war itself has become a futile anachronism, an anachronism so expensive and terrifying that even the richest and most powerful countries can no longer afford to contemplate it. We have redrawn the political map of the world so that for the first time in history the international community is not dominated by competing empires, but consists of more than 160 independent sovereign states. Thus collective responsibility for peace can be evolved in a truly representative international system. At the same time, the technological revolution of the past forty years, which has radically changed the way people live, work and communicate, presents enormous opportunities as well as grave risks. We must now reflect upon these changes and start to assimilate them.

With a better international climate, it now seems possible to further develop modes and techniques to control conflict and settle disputes. We can, and must, achieve what we have dreamed of for so long, that is to make the rule of law standard rather than the exception in world affairs. Our technological capacity and the undoubted basic fact of interdependence, make this even more urgent. With a reliable system of collective responsibility we can face the vast economic and social challenges of our time and alleviate the massive poverty and suffering which are a disgrace to the human condition. Without it, we run the risk of a steady deterioration of the conditions of life on this planet.

In our striving for a world at peace with itself, and governed by the rule of law, I believe that peacekeeping operations play a vital and significant role. In some ways they are analogous to the role of the civil police in the development of peaceful, law-abiding nation states. The technique of peacekeeping, which has already proved itself in fifteen operations all over the world, can help us to cross the line from a world of international conflict and violence to a world in which respect for international law and authority overcomes belligerence and ensures justice.

Peacekeeping operations symbolise the world community's will to peace and represent the impartial, practical expression of that will. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to these operations illuminates the hope and strengthens the promise of this extraordinary concept.

Lieutenant William Higgins was abducted in February 1988 near Tyre and, despite the pleas by the Secretary-General and others, was killed by his captors.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1981-1990 , Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

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