|
|
President George W. Bush
|
President Bush should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize if he catches those responsible for attacks on the US without sparking a war, say Norwegian academics on the nomination board for the prize.
The 12 university professors and other intellectuals, nominating Mr Bush in the Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet, said their proposal aimed to make the world think about ways of solving conflicts without a tit-for-tat escalation of violence.
The group, comprising several leading left-wingers, said its nomination was for the 2002 prize - to give time to see how Bush tackles the crisis.
"The past century had enough violence and we should be careful we don't start the new one with a war," Mr Magnus Haavelsruud, a professor of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the 12, said.
He said the group had no simple recommendations for how Washington could catch suspects or defuse terrorism without violence but said that an eye for an eye only leads to blindness.
The secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee will meet in Oslo on Friday for what may be a final meeting to decide the winner of the prize on the 100th anniversary of the first award in 1901. The deadline for nominations for 2001 was in February.
The winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 12th.