Legislator and former presidential candidate, Ottón Solís, feels that Costa Rica should receive the Nobel Prize for Peace, making a motion that led to the formation of a Legislative Committee in charge of obtaining the nomination.
The Committee will be made up of legislators Gerardo Vargas, of the Frente Amplio (FA), Silvia Sánchez, of the Liberación Nacional (PLN), and Solís, of the Accion Cuidadana (PAC).
The reason for the nomination? According to the motion in the Legislative Assembly, Costa Rica has demonstrated a devotion to peace by maintaining a ban a military force for more than 60 years.
But, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sanchez, feels that (the nomination) is an impossibility as only individuals and organizations can receive the recognition.
However, if Costa Rica is nominated, Arias said he will support the candidacy and will work with the Committee and is even willing to write Nobel in support of the nomination.
“Nothing more honourable that to nominate a country that abolished its army in 1948”, says Arias who was
awarded his Nobel in 1987 for his role in bringing peace to Central America.
The Costa Rica proposal includes a joint nomination with Japan, which also eliminated its army after the second World War.
However, for former president Arias, the case of Japan is quite different from Costa Rica, because that county spends 1% of its GDP, estimated around US$50 billion dollars, in military spending.
The nomination deadline for the Nobel Peace Price 2015 is February 1, 2015.
Though they are meant to stay secret for 50 years, nominations the Nobel Peace Prize it is leaked every year, noted the National Post earlier this year in its article “Nobel Peace Prize nominations show how ‘hopelessly politicized’ and ‘screwy’ the controversial award has been”.
When Arias won in 1987, the committee told him privately it was a weapon to use against Ronald Reagan, according to a book by Robert Kagan.
Over the years nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize have included Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. “Not everything worthy of admiration should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Jay Nordlinger, senior editor of National Review and author of the 2012 book Peace, They Say: A History Of The Nobel Peace Prize, The Most Famous And Controversial Prize In The World.
Lech Walesa told Nordlinger that, without his prize, Solidarity could not have succeeded in Poland, because it “blew wind into our sail.”
“The prize has now been misused for so long. Without profile or purpose, it’s being spread out at random and crumbles in all directions. There is an absolute and total confusion of what peace idea it should support,” said Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer who once brought a court case under inheritance laws, arguing Alfred Nobel’s will was being ignored. It failed, but sparked a wider investigation.
Asked about his own failed nomination in 2007, John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told the New York Times: “The Nobel Peace Prize has become hopelessly politicized. I think it cheapens the prize itself. At least they didn’t give Gore the prize for economics.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature
With notes from the National Post; La Nacion;
