Rules governing the awarding of Nobel Prizes have poured cold water on efforts to have the joint awarding of the Peace Prize to former apartheid-era president FW de Klerk withdrawn.
Various groups and parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have made calls for the Nobel Committee to revoke the prize after comments by De Klerk saying he did not believe apartheid was a crime against humanity.
In the video below EFF’s Dali Mpofu provides reasons why De Klerk’s Nobel Peace Prize should be revoked:
The De Klerk Foundation has since withdrawn the statement and apologised.
Below is the FW de Klerk Foundation’s full statement :
Efforts to see De Klerk tried by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity appear unlikely. Paragraph 10 of the Nobel Foundation’s Statutes are clear, no appeals may be made against the decision of a prize-awarding body with regard to the awarding of a prize, meaning options to seek the revocation of the De Klerk award are slim to none.
It states further that should divergent opinions be expressed concerning the award of a prize, this may not be included in the record or otherwise divulged.
In addition, the Rome Statute which establishes the International Criminal Court names the Crime of Apartheid as among the list of Crimes Against Humanity in Article 7 but Article 11 says the Court has jurisdiction only with respect to crimes committed after the entry into force of the Statute which happened only in July of 2002.
South Africa as a States Party, acceded to the Statute in November 2000, years after the official policy of apartheid had ended.
Meanwhile, struggle veteran, Shiela Sisulu, says De Klerk should be forced to spend time with the real victims of apartheid. Sisulu rejected his apology over his statement that apartheid was not a crime against humanity as too little too late.
“ So he got into a hole and he’s still trying to dig himself out of it and he’s going deeper and deeper, he better just apologise retract and do time, you know do time working with people to understand how hurtful what he said was.”
