UNESCO: ‘Dictator Prize’ Suspension Only a Temporary Fix
NEW YORK – UNESCO’s decision today to delay awarding a
controversial prize named after and funded by the dictator of Equatorial Guinea
is a positive initial step, civil society groups said. The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced June 15,
2010, that its executive board, consisting of 58 countries, approved
Director-General Irina Bokova’s proposal to postpone the award and instead engage
in consultations to consider the prize’s future.
Some
270 organizations around the world, including the Center for Economic and Social Rights, have been involved in the campaign
against the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in
the Life Sciences. They have called for the award to be cancelled completely. The
next meeting of the governing board is scheduled for October.
“UNESCO’s
director-general and member states have done the right thing by postponing this
award, given concerns about President Obiang’s notorious record of human rights
abuse and corruption,” said Tutu Alicante, an exile from Equatorial Guinea who
heads the group EG Justice. “The real test, however, will be whether they
ultimately cancel the prize.”
The
coalition reiterated its calls for the funds behind the prize to be used to promote
basic education and address other needs of Equatorial Guinea’s people. Such
spending should be done in a clear and transparent way, they stressed, to
address high levels of official corruption in the country.
“The
UNESCO-Obiang prize’s $3 million endowment should be used to benefit the people
of Equatorial Guinea – from whom these funds have been taken – rather than to
glorify their president,” the Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, archbishop emeritus of
Capetown, said in a June 11, 2010 statement
released before the executive board meeting.
During
the board meeting, governments from various regions spoke out against the award
and in support of futher dialogue. In her opening remarks, Bokova called on
member states to “be courageous and recognize our responsibilities for it is
our organization that is at stake.”
The
prize has been criticized
by numerous governments, UNESCO
prize laureates, scientists
and public health advocates, press
freedom organizations, anticorruption
groups, and many other concerned organizations
and individuals around the world.
Since
the discovery of oil in the 1990s, Equatorial Guinea has become the richest
country in sub-Saharan Africa on a per capita basis, but the vast majority of
its people still live in extreme poverty and are unable to achieve an adequate
standard of living.
Visist CESR's Equatorial Guinea page for more information.