Global Demilitarization – The True Goal of the Nobel Peace Prize
NOBEL LAUREATES, 18 Jul 2022
Fredrik S. Heffermehl | Nobel Peace Prize Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service
Oslo, July 11, 2022
H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres,
Secretary General of the United Nations, UN-New YorkYour Excellency,
I deeply appreciate your commitment to global demilitarization. With an education in law from Oslo and New York, I have for the last 40 years worked for disarmament (in IPB, IALANA etc., often at the UN in NY and Geneva). In my latest book, so far published only in Norwegian, I use the Nobel Peace Prize as a potent tool to challenge militarism. I also comment on your fine initiative in 2018, Securing Our Common Future, and try to explain why initiatives for alternative and non-violent security, including even Nobel´s prize for disarmament, were always defeated. See more HERE.
Since I discovered, in 2007, that Alfred Nobel – in his legally binding will – intended to support general and complete disarmament, I have been using the prize as a wedge to help undo the political influence of global militarism. My book in 2010, “The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel really wanted”, was the first professional interpretation of Nobel´s peace prize. But even solid documentation of the intended purpose did not change the award policy.
The new book shows how the award committee gets away with ignoring the express call for global demilitarization in Nobel’s will. His clearly antimilitarist prize has been transformed into a general peace prize. Based on the Committee´s archives, I identify the 140 champions of peace whose life efforts for a demilitarized world order entitled them to receive the prize. It has been heartbreaking to discover how the world has been unable to benefit from their dedicated work because an influential war business made sure they would fail.
Please let me send you the as yet unpublished manuscript in the hope that the UN disarmament experts will find it helpful to realizing world peace, the main goal of the UN.
__________________________________________
Fredrik S. Heffermehl, cand. jur, LLM NYU, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and ex-Vice President of the International Peace Bureau. He is the author of The Nobel Peace Prize, What Nobel Really Wanted (Praeger, 2010 – expanded versions in Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish and [2014] Russian). fredpax@online.no – http://www.nobelwill.org.
Tags: Anti-militarism, Anti-war, Demilitarization, Disarmament, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Nobel's Will
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Jul 2022.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Global Demilitarization – The True Goal of the Nobel Peace Prize, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
Dear Fredrik.
Reading the first words of your letter to Antonio Guterres paralyzes me and I can read no further. You write “I deeply appreciate your commitment to global demilitarization.” Where on earth did you get this idea from? Guterres was promoted to the top job after his great ‘success’ as High Commissioner for Refugees. This means producing almost single-handedly over 5 million refugees in his 10-year tenure of this commercial UN Agency. (the more refugees they produce, the more money they make)
You forget Antonio Guterres, like any previous UN Secretary General, is just that: a “secretary”. The secretary’s job is not to give orders. The secretary is given orders and he has to abet by them. If his paymasters – UN member countries – want to have a war, the Secretary must see to it, prepare the ground, facilitate things. This is why meetings between Biden and Zelinsky and Biden with Putin took place at the UN, un0der the watchful eyes – and ears – of their ‘secretary’.
Why does Guterres talk all the time about UN military procurement? why does the UN through their devious “Transparency in Armaments” treaty want to know of all arms imports and exports of member countries? why re UN wants the reports to be ‘voluntarily’? this is only to open the way for governments to carry out all their war plans. all illegal trafficking to take place.
The “Being open about armaments” is precisely for the opposite of “encouraging restraint in the transfer or production of weaponry.”: it is for making wars easier tho happen.
Dear Alberto,
I appreciate your knowledge and zeal in questioning official narratives once again in this comment. I have an ambition of peaceful communication – and always follow the advice of my beloved and recently deceased friend Bruce Kent: “More flies with sugar than with vinegar”. That is how you should read also the opening of my letter to UNSG Guterres. But please also note the first sentence (the caption) which is this: Global Demilitarization – The True Goal of the Nobel Peace Prize. I recommend you read the full letter. Best greetings,
Fredrik