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		17 - 23 October 2002 Issue No. 608 International	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Nobel for peace?
Jimmy Carter's award of the Nobel Peace Prize was feted and acclaimed worldwide. But dark skeletons loom in the closet, writes Faiza Rady

Former US President Jimmy Carter makes a statement during a Plains, Georgia press conference after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, 11 October

To the sound of quasi-unanimous international applause, the Norwegian Nobel Committee designated former US President Jimmy Carter on Friday as this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Referring to his political work at the Atlanta-based Carter Centre, a liberal think-tank founded by Carter and his wife Rosalynn in 1982, the committee lauded the former president's activism and promotion of human rights. Reading from the committee's text, Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said, "in a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights, and economic development."
Carter, who was president from 1977-1981, is remembered for his role in brokering the 1978 Camp David peace agreements between Israel and Egypt. Carter's other stellar foreign policy achievements include the establishment of full diplomatic relations with China and a major nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union. However, he may be best remembered for his "championship of human rights, especially in Latin America, as well as his denunciation of Washington's 'inordinate fear of communism'," recalls political analyst Jim Lobe on Alternet, an alternative news website.
Pursuing his long-standing "championship" of human rights, Carter recently blasted George W Bush's stand on the issue. In a scathing indictment of the US administration's record, Carter defined "the troubling new face of America" in a 5 September Washington Post article. "Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us," said Carter. "It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation," he concluded.
This atavistic version of US history may go down well with talk-show audiences that are certain to follow the ceremonial Nobel Prize hullabaloo scheduled for 10 December, but what did "well-founded American commitments" like "peace justice and human rights" look like under the Carter administration? Take the former US president's promotion of human rights in Central America, a case in point praised by Lobe, but derisively dismissed by writer Alexander Cockburn in Counterpunch.
"In Carter time, Jimmy said America could not stand idly by while Nicaragua tried to set forth on a different path, after they threw out Anastasio Somoza," says Cockburn. So Carter had to intervene.
When the Sandanistas liberated the Nicaraguan capital Managua on 19 July 1979, following decades of plunder and tyranny under the US-backed Somoza dictatorship, the Carter administration decided to retain existing institutions in order to maintain its stronghold over the country. Among such institutions, Carter and his advisors chose to retain Somoza's National Guard. This was a highly skilled US-trained force, which had carried out murderous attacks against civilians in the months preceding the dictator's fall, leaving tens of thousands dead in their trail. "Somoza's elite band of psychopathic killers" were then called to the rescue, comments Cockburn. Regardless, the former US president had to take action. When push came to shove, law and order requirements vital to US interests necessarily took precedence over any high-brow humanitarian considerations.
Unfortunately, things have a way of not always working out according to plan. The Sandanistas proved to be a recalcitrant lot, adamantly refusing to reinstate the "psychopathic killers" as Nicaragua's National Guard. At that point the Carter team had to come up with a backup scheme. Plan B called for the evacuation of the National Guard's high brass and their reconstitution as a counter-revolutionary force. Within six months of Somoza's ousting, the liberal Carter crowd had created the Contra-army. Stationed in Honduras, the Contras launched cross-border terror raids into Nicaragua -- destabilising the country for years to come and ultimately contributing to the Sandanistas' downfall.
It is noteworthy that Carter managed to keep his hands clean throughout the whole sordid scheme since human rights remained high on his public agenda. Rather than directly involve his administration in providing training to a killer force, Carter let others handle the messy business. "The Carter doves did not give direct support to the National Guard Forces. Rather, training and direction were in the hands of neo-Nazi Argentine generals serving as a proxy for the United States," recalls prominent political writer Noam Chomsky. The US only took over directly with the prominence of Reagan's team, who were less squeamish about sticking to high-principled moral issues.
Besides launching the Contras to create havoc in Nicaragua, while preaching lofty concepts, Carter kept himself busy in other parts of the world. In May 1980, the US-backed military dictatorship of General Chun in South Korea faced opposition from peasants and workers in the city of Kwangju. They demanded simple things like better working conditions and freedom from the generals' oppressive rule. Democratisation of the political space figured high on their agenda. Nevertheless, granting political freedoms jeopardises US interests in client countries that host US troops.
Thus Carter's envoy, Richard Holbrooke, naturally advised the junta to hit back hard. This they did. "Paratroopers carried out three days of barbarity with the zeal of Nazi troopers," writes Chomsky. "Beating, stabbing and mutilating unarmed civilians, including children, young girls, and aged grandmothers." An Asia Watch investigative mission estimated that 2000 people were slaughtered in the carnage. Other investigators estimate that tens of thousands died in what Cockburn describes as "the worst massacre since the Korean war".
But there is more. The Carter administration's involvement in the Kwangju carnage went beyond advising generals in times of need. Kwangju was effectively aided and abetted under cover of US troops. General Chun had requested and received US naval and air cover in addition to 20,000 soldiers under American command. A few days after the blood bath Carter duly rewarded Chun, who took over the presidency, by approving a $600 million loan to the junta. A familiar scenario followed the US president's stamp of approval: thousands of dangerous "subversives" were arrested and sent to "purification" camps, among them hundreds of the country's trade union leaders and political activists. The vibrant democratisation movement was nipped in the bud, civil liberties were further restricted and censorship became even harsher. Meanwhile, Chun and the junta grew fatter, courtesy of the Carter team.
Pressed to explain how he could conciliate his support of military fascism with his posture on democracy and human rights, a somewhat contrite Carter lashed back with a familiar cliché. "While we would prefer democracy, the Koreans are not ready for that according to their own judgment. And I don't know how to explain it better."
Replete with contradictions between public posture and Realpolitik, that extended way beyond Nicaragua and South Korea, the Carter legacy weighed heavily on the South. Another case in point, Carter actually encouraged China to support the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge against the arch enemy of the US, Soviet-backed Vietnam. In the real world, human rights seemingly count for peanuts. "The ruling state-corporate nexus can, on occasion, produce someone who will deliver moral lessons on human rights," explains Chomsky. "But when some real interest is at stake, the rhetoric is quickly shelved."
Regardless, the rhetoric and the glitz seem to work for the Nobel. "Carter has been campaigning for years. He's a white American male with the blood of thousands on his hands. So how could he miss the Nobel," asks Cockburn. A prize of form over content, in these times.

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