One of the most controversial figures in Colombia may be an odds-on favorite to win one of the world’s most prestigious awards.Piedad Cordoba has served as an opposition senator for several years but more importantly has acted as a broker for the liberation of hostages held by Colombia’s FARC rebels. Her work as liaison has also helped distribute videos of hostages still held captive deep in the jungle and has brought hope to dozens of families anxiously awaiting their loved ones.
Cordoba has also received plenty of flack from her critics; she has been looked upon with suspicion over her seemingly close political ties to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. At times she has locked horns with Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe though tensions seem to have simmered down lately. Such is the disdain for her that she was “showered…with insults and threats” by passengers at Bogota’s main airport last year.
Love her or hate her, Cordoba may soon get the ultimate recognition for her efforts:
Colombia Senator Piedad Cordoba and Afghanistan’s Sima Samar, two women promoting peace and human rights in conflict zones, are among the top contenders for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo said…Image- El Pais
Cordoba, 54, “is the most likely candidate,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the
institute which each year lists potential winners. “She has been able to carve out an independent space for herself in a conflict that’s very protracted. Samar certainly has a very strong personality and played a major role in the Afghan context.”
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Colombia Reports, New York Times, Bloomberg,
17 comments:
To carve a space for herself in that conflict? I find that a rather strange statement, but it seems to confirm the impression some people have that she is above all interested in her political career.
She has been too divisive for my taste.
Apart from that:
Thanks for your blog!
If the Swedish Academy or the Institution that gives these prizes awards Piedad Cordova then the Nobel Prize for Peace will be devalued forever.
And the opinion of Sweden and Scandinavia will sink, for the people that know who is Piedad.
She has always being a leftist preachig against the Rich and the Government, preaching lies and extremism. Even when the Government makes great efforts to help the poorest population and achieve peace. She is a Political Agitator, not a Worker for Peace.
There is no person so far and so removed of Sainthood as Piedad Cordova.
She is not Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa of Calcuta.
She is always representing the Chavez Points in Politics, and the Chavez Demagoguery, Populism and Brutality.
She speaks of the Military Actions of the Colombian Armed Forces as Assessinations, even if Colombian Soldiers lose their lives in those combats. And is always fraternizing with the Murderers and Thugs of the FARC.
If Sweden awards the prestigious Nobel Prize to a political agitator that doesn't like to work in the Colombian Congress, but receives a humongeous salary for doing nothing, then many people will change the perception of Sweden and Scandinavia as paradises of learning and intelligence.
Like when Danemark ( not in Scandinavia ) said that the FARC were belligerant or something ( What Gross Imbecility !! )
So Swedish People, please don't award a prize to a Lady that visits Colombian Universities to make propaganda for Subversion, and the Crime and Murder of the FARC. In a country Colombia that has a very high standard of Free Press, Free TV and Free Radio, and where the Government is constantly criticized, many times with lies and in unjust form.
She is not impartial, she is not equilibrated or a messenger for peace. She is always accusing the presidents of Colombia of being dictators and paramilitaries and monsters. And all that is garbage.
She never condemns the violence of the FARC against the Poor, the Land Mines that kill poor peasant children or leave them without legs for life.
She doesn't condemn the FARC gas cylinders that destroy the poorest villages and kill old people, women and children.
She doesn't condemn or protest against the Terrorist Bombs of the FARC that kill hundred of Civilians. She doesn't speak of the FARC Kidnappings for Money. She doesn't condemn the FARC as narcos ( drugs are the main business of these criminals )
This lady is a bum, doesn't like to work. She is a scoundrel !!
Milenials.com
Vicente Duque
I'm not sure I understand your position here, Mr. Duque. Could you elaborate? Three more paragraphs should do it.
I am no BR, but I can say some:
Piedad is always justifying the human rights of one side. It is fine if she denounces one side, but then she has to denounce both.
There is democracy in the land, even if it is dysfunction.
Farc could become a party, as Piedad shows, but it decides not to because it is more worth to be drug dealers than anything else.
They are interested in keeping things like now and she in profiting from the game.
Don't give the Nobel Peace Prize to Lies and to Pathological Liers and to the minions and sycophants of Hugo Chavez
I would applaud the Nobel Peace Prize for Piedad is she were moderate and didn't talk so much against the Government of Colombia and President Uribe.
But she is an extremist, a hard socialist that goes to other countries to rant and degrade the Colombian Government with a lot of lies. Like telling that Mr Uribe is a dictator that has a lot of Paramilitary Thugs at his service and that constantly kills the opposition.
She repeats the same lies in Colombian Universities and before every Camera. Thanks Heaven that Colombia is a free speech country, even to preach subversion.
The paramilitaries have been increasingly exported to the USA in chains, because they are asked as narcos or mafiosi, conspiracy to introduce drugs into the USA.
There are rotten apples in the Colombian Army ( specially in the past ) but they are being purged and contained. You can't blame the president for all the crimes in a country, and the crime rate has been decreasing at very fast speed.
Less and less Trade Unionists are killed each year.
Mr Uribe could be the devil, but he has brought peace to a country. He doesn't expect or ask for a Nobel Peace Prize. The guerrillas are 90% defeated, they are hidden in the deep jungle, away from almost all towns and villages.
They are expecting another fool as president of Colombia, someone that again gives them sanctuaries and territories, and that is why they don't surrender.
And they are miserably killed in airstrikes. With modern technology and U. S. help they don't have a chance to recover and recuperate their lost territory.
I would wish that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have an end soon. But I see a lot of problems in the Western Hemisphere with Mr Chavez and his foolish client states ( Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and perhaps Cuba ).
I hope for a peaceful future for all the Western Hemisphere : Canada, USA, Anglophone Caribbean and Latin Nations. But Mr Chavez is making that future very difficult.
The Caribbean Russian Lake ??? That is difficult and far in the Future. But that is Chavez Dream !
Peace is the Greatest Treasure !
Prophesizing.com
Vicente Duque
Thanks to everyone for your comments on this post's subject.
There are plenty of things I wish to say about Ms. Cordoba and the Nobel Prize and I'll leave that for a future comment.
I will say one brief thing however - many of these comments (especially those against Piedad) are gross exaggerations. But I'll get to that at a later time...
Hi Everyone.
We don't really should care if Piedad C. wins the Nobel Prize. What it is shocked is to see all of this anger, and hate created in the entire Colombian Humanity and all over the world with the Ideology of terror.
What it is undoubt, is that she achived the objetive of bring the kidnapped people to their home that was the most important issue to solve, whether if she is musulman, maoist, marxist, guerrilla, paramilitar, She gave preference to this objetive that was to fight for caring for human rights of those kidnapped people.
Some people will say that is her strategy, that is just a theater performance, that she wants to get the Nobel Prize, that is a wolf over sheap skin... whatever... even if this is true, the important thing is to bring those people home. (Please realise this point)
I'm a so upset to see how people are manipulate for news from newspapers, TV news, etc.
Colombia is under a civil war. People is blind. The most important issue in life is to preserve the human rights.
I cannot understand why people cannot put on the board an analyzed point of view, an own one. Every comment read it here is just a mirror of what is said in television. Unbeliveable, how humanity can get so manipulated.
Best wishes.
How great for now on if I want to receive the Nobel Peace price I will make friends with a terrorist organization and act as a middle man between the terrorist organization and the suffering families.
Dont forget! You have to be a communist to be awarded the price because any other way of thinking is simply not advisable.
Also in any speach you make use the words "human rights" clearly any person who uses these words cannot be evil... that would be against the laws of nature.
MORRONS!
Did I just violate human rights? Respect my rights and I will respect yours!
"Did I just violate human rights?"
No, you just misspelled the word
"morons".
I did not like Piedad at all and thanks God she did not get the Nobel, but there have been plenty of people who are no communists and got the prize. Actually: most were no communists. I don't know if you call "communist" everyone who does not believe in creationism and in the US manifest destiny.
Al Gore is not a communist.
Jimmy c. is not a communist, not even a socialist, in spite of what the US extreme right says.
Neither any of these:
Yitzhak Rabin.
Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Dalai Lama.
Lech Wałęsa
Mother Theresa
Sakharov
Henry Kissinger (yeah, the one who supported Pinochet)
Woodrow Wilson
Obama
Theodore Roosevelt
Actually: Kissinger made friends with Pinochet and worse. So?
Totally agree with Vicente. That lady is a promoter of the guerrillas in Colombia and a puppet of dilusional dictator Hugo Chavez.
If she is elected for the Nobel Prize I would be concerned of how distorted the Colombian conflict is perceived by European countries.
European countries? Europe is a continent, the Swedish Nobel committee view is one of the views in Sweden.
Oops, sorry, I meant Norwegian.
Text of Nobel Peace Prize citation for Obama - According to Reuters - Congratulations for Mr Obama - The President of the USA deserves this award.
Mr Obama is a Great Historical Figure, for International Peace and Action, and may contribute to Racial Understanding inside and outside America.
I applaud this decision of the Norwegian Committee. But we also ask that the Afghanistan conflict not be escalated with more troops and deaths. This War can't be more stupid, idiotic and counterproductive for American Interests.
I also trust Mr Obama and the Democratic Party to find an intelligent, rational and moral solution to the problem of undocumented immigrants. Nobody can find a better solution that this powerful democratic and progressive force.
Finally to expulse or evict Youngsters from a country, or to evict any people is a wonderful recipe for decay and for declination. Progroms have been tried and implemented many times in History with disastrous consequences.
This is also a matter of Peace !
Reuters :
Text of Nobel Peace Prize citation for Obama
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5981RA20091009?virtualBrandChannel=11621
Some excerpts :
Text of Nobel Peace Prize citation for Obama
Friday, Oct 9, 2009
OSLO (Reuters) - Following is the text of the announcement Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee giving the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama:
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."
I agree 100% with the Norwegians ( and Europeans ! )
Milenials.com
Vicente Duque
Less and less trade unionists are killed in Colombia every year. This is certainly true. It's also a fact that no dodo birds have been killed in recent years. Once you've killed them all off, there's none left to kill.
for a woman denounced and under investigation for treason of her country? under investigation for ties to a terrorist group the FARC who also are drug dealers? How can someone defend giving her such an award
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