1997 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

December 10, 1997, Wednesday, Final Edition

HEADLINE: It's Peace Prize Party Time for Norway; U.S. Anti-Land Mines Crusader To Accept the 1997 Nobel Today

BYLINE: John Burgess, Washington Post Foreign Service

DATELINE: OSLO, Dec. 9

Norway's King Harald V will attend, as will his prime minister, most of parliament, the diplomatic corps and almost every other Oslo notable with the connections to get tickets. Thousands of children will leave school to cheer in the streets. There will be live music -- Emmylou Harris and Mariah Carey, among others -- a torchlight parade through dark winter streets, banquets and speeches.

The 1997 Nobel Peace Prize will pass formally to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its American coordinator, Jody Williams, on Wednesday in a ceremony that will set off what amounts to an annual two-day national celebration.

In the minds of many Norwegians, the peace prize is as much a part of their national identity as the fjords and the plays of Henrik Ibsen. Being Norwegian means being part of a once-a-year moral instruction to a world that is generally willing to listen.

"We've had experience of war. We were occupied by the Nazis, " explained Lasse Figved, a government employee. "We can understand what war does to civilians, to children. "

The cachet surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize is created, in part, by the perception that it is above politics. In fact, it is administered by a five-member committee of Norwegian dignitaries appointed by parliament. In secrecy they pore over nominations that flow in from around the world before choosing the winner. The selection almost always conforms with the country's humanitarian world view.

There have been exceptions. Many Norwegians, for instance, did not like it when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev received the 1990 prize when he was still boss of a Communist superpower with which Norway shared a short but disputed border. But in most cases, said Siri Frost Sterri, a member of parliament, the name is announced, the credentials catalogued, and "we see there are good reasons. "

Committee members do their jobs under constant diplomatic and other pressure aimed at securing the prize for a favored candidate. But Per Egil Hegge, culture and arts editor of the Aftenposten newspaper, says they maintain their integrity. "You can lobby for it, you can feed them false information, but you can't buy it, " he said.

That has helped guard the reputation of the prize and make it a unique tool for influencing the world.

"The prize in most years has been given more to influence future acts than to reward past ones, " said Thomas Loftus, the U.S. ambassador to Norway. "What they give the Nobel prize winners is a [global] bully pulpit. "

Williams told reporters in Oslo today that the prize already has boosted the campaign against land mines by encouraging 122 nations to sign the treaty outlawing the weapons last week despite the absence of the United States, China and Russia.

No one knows for sure why Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and dynamite inventor who endowed the prizes that bear his name, chose to pass the peace prize to Norway. In the will executed after his death in 1896, he specified without explanation that it would be awarded by a Norwegian committee, while the other prizes would be handled from Sweden.

Many Norwegians like to think he did it because theirs was a society with remarkably few sins (if you discount the Vikings' centuries-long plunder of their neighbors to the south). Unlike most other countries of Western Europe, Norway was never an imperial power -- it has been ruled variously during its history by Denmark, Sweden and Nazi Germany.

In the late 20th century, Norway has emerged as a leader in international aid, a tireless supporter of the United Nations and disinterested broker of deals to end regional conflicts. The Israeli-Palestinian peace accord was largely negotiated in Oslo; so was a plan to settle Guatemala's guerrilla war. At present, Norway is helping U.S. officials try to mediate the Greek-Turkish dispute on Cyprus.

The North Sea oil boom that began in the 1970s -- Norway is now the world's second-largest exporter of petroleum, after Saudi Arabia -- has given the country the means to fund good works as well as praise them. It has consistently raised its foreign aid budgets.

Norway is not neutral in the way Switzerland is. It is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But it has stayed out of the European Union and frequently differed with Washington, most recently over the land mines treaty.

Its growth on the world stage has brought a new sense of confidence, says Loftus. Norwegians used to preface remarks about themselves by saying: "We are a small country, but, . . . " Now, he said, "they start after the 'but.' "

GRAPHIC: Photo, erik johansen, American anti-land mines campaigner Jody Williams views pictures of former peace prize winners in Oslo.

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