The Nobel Peace Prize 2000
Kim Dae-jung
Presentation Speech by Gunnar Berge,
Chairman of theNorwegian Nobel Committee, Oslo, December 10,
2000.
Translation of the Norwegian text.
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel
Peace Prize for the year 2000 to Kim Dae-jung. He receives the
prize for his lifelong work for democracy and human rights in
South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and
reconciliation with North Korea in particular. We welcome the
Laureate here today.
The question has been raised of whether it is too early to award
the prize for a process of reconciliation which has only just
begun. It would suffice to say in reply that Kim Dae-jung's work
for human rights made him a worthy candidate irrespective of the
recent developments in relations between the two Korean states.
It is also clear, however, that his strong commitment to
reconciliation with North Korea, and the results that have been
achieved - especially in the past year - added a new and
important dimension to Kim Dae-jung's candidacy.
While recognising that reverses in international peace work are
something one has to be prepared for, the Nobel Committee
nevertheless adheres to the principle: nothing ventured, nothing
gained. The Peace Prize is a reward for the steps that have been
taken so far. However, as so often before in the history of the
Nobel Peace Prize, it is intended this year, too, as an
encouragement to advance still further along the long road to
peace and reconciliation.
This is to a large extent a matter of courage: Kim Dae-jung has
had the will to break with fifty years of ingrained hostility,
and to reach out a cooperative hand across what has probably been
the world's most heavily guarded frontier. His has been the kind
of personal and political courage which, regrettably, is all too
often missing in other conflict-ridden regions. The same applies
to peace work as to life in general when you set out to cross the
highest mountains: the first steps are the hardest. But you can
count on plenty of company along the glamorous finishing stretch.
Gunnar Roaldkvam, a writer from Stavanger, puts this so simply
and so aptly in his poem "The last drop":
Once upon a time
there were two drops of water;
one was the first,
the other the last.
The first drop
was the bravest.
I could quite fancy
being the last drop,
the one that makes everything
run over,
so that we get
our freedom back.
But who wants to be
the first
drop?
Today, Kim Dae-jung is the president of a
democratic South Korea. His path to power has been long -
extremely long. For decades he fought a seemingly hopeless fight
against an authoritarian regime. One may well ask where he found
the strength. His own answer is: "I used all my strength to
resist the dictatorial regimes, because there was no other way to
defend the people and promote democracy. I felt like a homeowner
whose house was invaded by a robber. I had to fight the intruder
with my bare hands to protect my family and property without
thinking of my own safety."
In the 1950s, when Kim ran for election to the national assembly,
the police were used to prevent support for any other candidates
than the regime's own. He was not elected until 1961, but that
success was short-lived: a military coup three days later led to
the dissolution of the assembly. But Kim did not give up. In
1963, after ten years of almost continuous political struggle, he
finally took a seat in the national assembly as an opposition
representative. The ruling party, it should be added, tried to
buy him. Kim was not for sale.
In 1971, Kim Dae-jung ran in the presidential election, winning
46 per cent of the votes despite considerable ballot-rigging.
This made him a serious threat to the military regime. As a
result, he spent many long years, first in prison, then in house
arrest and in exile in Japan and the United States. He also
underwent kidnapping and assassination attempts. Somehow enduring
all these trials, Kim kept up his outspoken opposition to the
regime.
As a member of a delegation from the Norwegian Storting, I
visited South Korea in 1979, a visit which among other things
brought me into contact with supporters of Kim Dae-jung. I am
glad I was able then to serve as a link to important connections
in Scandinavia.
Even under severe prison conditions, Kim Dae-jung managed to find
things to live for. With indomitable optimism, he wrote about the
pleasures he found in prison. Reading all kinds of eastern
and western books: theology, politics, economics, history and
literature. The brief meetings with his family. The letters from
those closest to him, and the opportunities to write back,
despite all the attempts to prevent him. And finally the flowers
in the tiny patch of a garden where he was allowed to spend an
hour a day.
Kim Dae-jung's story has a lot in common with the experience of
several other Peace Prize Laureates, especially Nelson Mandela and
Andrei Sakharov.
And with that of Mahatma Gandhi, who did
not receive the prize but would have deserved it. To outsiders,
Kim's invincible spirit may appear almost superhuman. On this
point, too , the Laureate takes a more sober view: "Many people
tell me," he says, "that I am courageous, because I have been to
prison six or seven times and overcome several close calls in my
life. However, the truth is that I am as timid now as I was in my
boyhood. Considering what I have experienced in my life, I should
not be afraid of being imprisoned. But, whenever I was locked up,
I was invariably fearful and anxious." Self-knowledge of this
order does not detract from the courage!
Kim Dae-jung ran in two more presidential elections, in 1987 and
1992. If no military regime stood in his way, the argument was
used against him, in a country of sharp regional divisions, that
he came from the wrong region. Finally wearying of the struggle,
he withdrew from active politics after the 1992 election.
But in 1997 Kim Dae-jung saw a new opportunity. Incredibly
enough, with his political enemies divided amongst themselves,
the military regime's leading opponent was elected president.
That was the definitive proof that South Korea had at long last
found a place among the world's democracies.
The idea of revenge must have occurred to the new president.
Instead, as with Nelson Mandela, forgiveness and reconciliation
became the main planks in Kim's political platform and guided the
steps he took. Kim Dae-jung forgave most things - including
the unforgivable.
What had taken place was a democratic revolution. But even after
a revolution, some features of the old order live on. In a
democratic perspective, South Korea still has some way to go
where reform of the legal system and of security legislation is
concerned. According to Amnesty International, there are still
long-term political prisoners in South Korean gaols. Others
maintain that the rights of organized labour are not sufficiently
safeguarded. Our reply is that we feel confident that Kim
Dae-jung will complete the process of democratisation of which he
has been the foremost spokesman for almost half a century.
An important debate is currently being conducted in Asia
concerning the status of human rights. It is argued by some that
such rights are a western invention, a tool for achieving western
political and cultural dominance. Kim rejects this view, just as
he also denies that there are any special Asian, as distinct from
universal, human rights. The same way of thinking led the Nobel
Committee, in its grounds for this year's award, to draw
particular attention to the important part Kim has played in the
development of human rights throughout East Asia. As José Ramos Horta,
Peace Prize Laureate in 1996 and with us here today, has stated,
Kim also vigorously took up the cause of East Timor. There was
great symbolic force in the decision to place the South Korean
army, used only a few years previously to suppress political
opposition in its own country, at the disposal of the global
community in defence of human rights in East Timor.
Kim Dae-jung has also actively supported Aung San Suu Kyi, Peace
Prize Laureate in 1991, in her heroic struggle against the
dictatorship in Burma . Our thoughts today also reach out to her,
prevented as she has so far been from coming to Norway to receive
the Peace Prize she so richly deserves. Unfortunately the regime
is once again stepping up its pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi.
Kim was elected president on a program of extensive reforms in
South Korea, and an active policy of cooperation with North Korea
now widely spoken of as the "sunshine policy". The term
originated in Aesop's fable about the traveller who in a strong
north wind drew his cloak ever more closely about him, only to
have to take it off in the end because of the warmth of the
sun.
The sunshine policy is designed, if not to stop the wind, then at
least to lessen the cold through gradually increasing interaction
and an emphasis on the common interests of the two states. Kim
Dae-jung has made it clear that South Korea has no intention of
annexing or absorbing its northern neighbour. The target is
reunification, although both parties know that it will take time
and will require the most thorough preparation.
There can be little doubt that to date Kim Dae-jung has been the
prime mover behind the ongoing process of détente and
reconciliation. Perhaps his role can best be compared with
Willy Brandt's,
whose Ostpolitik was of such fundamental importance in the
normalisation between the two German states, and won him the
Peace Prize. Brandt's Ostpolitik alone could not have led
to German unification, but it was a prerequisite for the union
which followed in 1989-90. From South Korea's point of view, the
political side of Germany's unification looks attractive, while
the economic side, with a price tag that may be much higher in
Korea than in Germany, is a warning to make haste slowly.
The dialogue between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jung II at the
Pyongyang summit last June led to more than loose declarations
and airy rhetoric. The pictures of family members meeting after
five decades of separation made a deep impression all over the
world. However restricted and controlled these contacts may be,
the tears of joy are a stark contrast to the cold, hatred and
discouragement felt so strongly by all visitors to the border at
Panmunjon.
The people of North Korea have lived under extremely difficult
conditions for a long time. The international community can not
be indifferent to their hunger, or remain silent in the face of
the country's massive political repression. On the other hand,
North Korea's leaders deserve recognition for their part in the
first steps towards reconciliation between the two
countries.
In most of the world, the cold war ice age is over. The world may
see the sunshine policy thawing the last remnants of the cold war
on the Korean peninsula. It may take time. But the process has
begun, and no one has contributed more than today's Laureate, Kim
Dae-jung. In the poet's words, "The first drop was the
bravest."
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