Más signos

Gente rápida para los mandados, los noruegos. Esta mañana nos enteramos que el Premio Nobel de la Paz fue para el comité de Naciones Unidas encargado de la eliminación de las armas químicas. Comité que, justito justito, está en estos mismos momentos abocado a la tarea de destruir las armas químicas de Siria, como consecuencia de los acuerdos firmados entre (básicamente) Siria, Rusia y Estados Unidos hace pocas semanas. 

Esta es una forma de (1) santificar los acuerdos, lo que parece alejar definitivamente la posibilidad de una intervención armada de la NATO en Siria; (2) lavarles la cara a Obama y Kerry, que tuvieron que aceptar el acuerdo con caripelas más bien pétreas; (3) lavarles la cara a los propios noruegos, que dos años antes participaron alegremente de la carnicería libia, y (4) hacer de cuenta que Europa tiene algún tipo de pensamiento propio frente a Estados Unidos.

En fin, así se hace la Historia. Cada día agrega una señal nueva a estos nuevos tiempos (para entender esto hay que leer nuestro post anterior). Vos brindá tranquilo, Vladimiro; el mundo ya se enteró de lo que pasa. Leemos en el New York Times:

Título: Chemical Weapons Watchdog Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Texto: “LONDON — Urging the destruction of “an entire category” of unconventional weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2013 Peace Prize on Friday to a relatively modest and little-known United Nations-backed body that is currently seeking to destroy Syria’s stocks of chemical arms under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States.

The award to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, usually known by its initials O.P.C.W., took some Nobel-watchers by surprise. In the days leading up to the award, much attention had focused on Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani student who risked her life to campaign for female education.

In its citation the committee said the O.P.C.W. and the conventions under which it was founded in 1997 “have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law. Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons.”

It was the second successive year that the panel, based in Oslo, chose an organization for its accolade. The European Union won the 2012 prize.

Inspectors from the 189-member O.P.C.W. began arriving in Syria this month after a chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus on Aug. 21 killed hundreds of people. Under the Russian-American agreement, Syria is scheduled to become the 190th member of the organization in coming days.

The chemical attack outside Damascus initially drew an American threat of military reprisal before Moscow and Washington reached a compromise arrangement to seek the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stocks under international supervision.

Thorbjorn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who is chairman of the panel, said chemical weapons had been used by Hitler’s armies in their campaign of mass extermination and on many other occasions by states and terrorists. He denied that the award to a body based in The Hague represented a Eurocentric shift after last year’s award to the European Union."It’s global,” he said.

The organization is supposed to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997 with four aims: to seek the destruction of all chemical weapons under international verification; to prevent the creation of new chemical weapons; to help countries protect themselves against chemical attack; and to foster international cooperation in the peaceful use of chemistry.

The identity of the Nobel Peace Prize winner is notoriously difficult to forecast.

Much speculation before Friday’s announcement centered on Ms. Yousafzai, who was shot by a Taliban gunman a year ago in retribution for her campaign. Another front-runner was said to have been Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who has treated rape victims in the long-running conflict in his native Congo.

But, an hour before Friday’s announcement, the Norwegian public broadcaster, NRK, forecast that the 2013 prize would go to the O.P.C.W. The broadcaster also correctly tipped the European Union as last year’s winner.

The award is worth $1.25 million and will be presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of its founder, the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who established the prize in 1895 in his will. It was the 94th to be awarded since then.

While much attention is focused on Syria’s chemical weapons stocks, the Nobel committee noted pointedly that other countries — including the United States and Russia — had not scrapped chemical arsenals.”