Aquino and Waite Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Philippine President Corazon Aquino and missing British hostage negotiator Terry Waite are among 84 nominees for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Wednesday.

Committee Secretary Jakob Sverdrup would only confirm the names of Aquino and Waite on a secret list of 56 individuals and 28 organizations he said were proposed for the prestigious award this year.

But sources close to the committee said another candidate is Bob Geldof of Ireland, nominated for the third time for organizing the Band Aid musical extravaganza that raised millions for the starving in Africa and reportedly the runner-up to last year’s laureate, Jewish Holocaust author Elie Wiesel of the United States.

Other candidates, the sources said, are militant African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and his wife, Winnie, nominated together for the second year for their struggle against South Africa’s racial separation policies known as apartheid.

Among organizations running for the prize this year, the sources said, are the World Health Organization and Charter 77, the Czechoslovak human rights movement founded 10 years ago.

Nominated by Norwegian

Aquino was nominated by Norwegian member of Parliament Liv Aasen, who cited her for choosing political dialogue instead of military action in solving conflicts in her country. Aquino came to power in February, 1986, after President Ferdinand E. Marcos was ousted.

Waite, the Church of England envoy missing in Lebanon for more than two weeks, was proposed for the prestigious prize by a group of British Parliament members who called him a “shining light” in the troubled Middle East.

The letter to the Nobel Committee, written before Waite vanished, was received last week before the Feb. 1 deadline for nominations to the award, Sverdrup said.

Previous winners of the prize, announced since 1901, include anti-apartheid leader Bishop Desmond Tutu and Polish labor leader Lech Walesa, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

Candidates for the award can be nominated by national assemblies, former laureates, some university professors, members of the Norwegan Nobel Committee and members of international peace and judicial bodies. The prize may not be awarded posthumously.