Summary
The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF), founded on September 12, 1985 – today 28 years ago – is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2013 and so are three TFF Associates:
• Richard Falk, professor in international law at Santa Barbara and Princeton, the UN S-G’s envoy for the Occupied Territories;
• David Krieger, founder (1982) and president of The Nuclear Age Foundation devoted to nuclear abolition;
• Jan Oberg, co-founder and director of TFF.
Background
World renown expert on the Nobel Peace Prize, Norwegian lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl*, says:
– Nobel dedicated his prize to “the “champions of peace” (not to “peace” in general). Not that many of those we know from open sources are nominated this year are qualified, but a select few are eligible, like the American Professor Richard Falk, Norwegian Ambassador Gunnar Garbo, American David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the former Director General of UNESCO Federico Mayor, Spain, Swedish peace scientist and organizer Jan Oberg, as well as American Professor of peace education Betty Reardon.
– These clearly are the kind of “champions of peace” described in Nobel’s will, working for global disarmament based on global law.
– Among organizations nominated are the International Peace Bureau, the Transnational Foundation (TFF), UNESCO, and the Womens´International League for Peace and Freedom.
A nomination is a great encouragement
Naturally, TFF’s Jan Oberg is happy but entertains “no illusions”:
– There are not that many organizations like TFF that has remained independent of government and corporate support for so many years and thus never has had to be politically correct. It must be remembered too that while co-founder Christina Spannar and I have been responsible for the day-to-day management and leadership, TFF’s reputation around the world is based on its network of more than 60 Associates who work non-stop and non-paid for the UN (and Gandhian) norm of “peace by peaceful means”.
– Do I believe my colleagues, TFF or I myself will actually receive the Prize? No way! With the present Nobel Committee’s operations well outside Alfred Nobel’s will, none of us – Western “dissidents” – would have a chance. With Heffermehl we have also been leading the international work to rehabilitate Alfred Nobel’s will. But two things are important:
a) being nominated is a recognition after all these years of our pretty hard work both behind the desk and in war zones; it stimulates us to move forward; and
b) it is the perspective of the worldwide struggle for true peace that will win in the long run. The resistance to violence is mounting everywhere – just look at how easy Obama and a few others thought it would be to just announce and then conduct a war on Syria – and now 80-90% of the world’s peoples and governments are either against or hesitant. History’s strongest military power is facing political defeat after a series of failed wars.
TFF will keep on doing whatever we can to bring about the necessary paradigm shift from warfare to smart conflict-handling – peacefare – with as little violence as possible, ends Jan Oberg.
* “The Nobel Peace Prize. What Nobel Really Wanted” by Fredrik Heffermehl, Prager 2010
