Piedad Cordoba and the Nobel Peace Prize

To the surprise of a lot of people, including me, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba was not awarded the Nobel peace prize for her role in the many releases of hostages by the FARC guerrilla in Colombia. The prize was instead awarded to US President Barak Obama, possibly in an strategic move by the Nobel Prize committee, in the same manner that the prize was given to Desmond Tutu in 1984 as explained by Robert Nairman in the Huffington Post.

The Venezuelan Chavista press as well as its political figures are outraged by the announcement, as an international victory in the magnitude of a Nobel prize is impatiently awaited, one that would perhaps reverse the major international setback Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and Cordoba suffered by the Ingrid Betancourt rescue of June 2008. Shortly after the rescue, the three politicians were forced to silence their shameful plea to recognize "belligerence status" for the FARC after its viciousness was so widely exposed to the entire world, clear and uncensored.

Instead, Cordoba might have to wait another year, or perhaps longer, along characters such as Shlomo Ben-Ami from Israel who lives in that grayzone of almost-Nobel-peace-prize recipients but not quite. Among Cordoba's declarations on the prize announcement was a strange ramble about Obama's possible assasination and thus the urgency for him to keep working for peace: "Obama is being threatened and could be assasined and has to keep himself above the pressures of war, he must keep working for peace."

Nobel peace prize recipients beliefs and ideals are usually elevated for political gain; though, when Desmond Tutu and Henry Kissinger are both prize recipients, people must question the merits of this prize. I believe the hostage releases, even if plagued by the most disgusting Chavista propaghanda in them, are a good reason to nominate the PDVSA financed Cordoba for the prize, but they are certainly not significant enough to earn it. Not in the same manner that Oscar Arias won it in 1987 by getting the peace of accord of Guatemala. To a lesser extent is Barak Obama anywhere near worthy of receiving this prize, though, one must recognize that the potential of an US president armed with a friendly senate and congress is definitely worth awarding the "strategic" Nobel Peace prize.