S. AFRICA RIVALS ACCEPT NOBEL
MANDELA, DE KLERK LAUDED IN OSLO
Author: Associated Press
Date: Saturday, December 11, 1993
Page: 10
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN
OSLO -- Setting aside their differences for a day, Nelson Mandela and
President F. W. de Klerk accepted the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday and promised
to keep working toward a democratic, nonracial South Africa.
The African National Congress leader and the man who freed him from prison
received long, enthusiastic applause from an audience of 2,000 people when
they were presented with their gold medals and diplomas.
At a separate ceremony in Stockholm, American novelist Toni Morrison was
awarded the Nobel prize in literature, and eight other laureates in medicine,
physics, chemistry and economics also accepted their prizes.
At the City Hall ceremony in Oslo, Mandela and de Klerk stood beside each
other in silence, smiling and holding the medals for the crowd to see.
"Five years ago, people would have seriously questioned the sanity of
anyone who predicted that Mr. Mandela and I would be joint recipients of the
1993 Nobel Peace Prize," de Klerk said in his Nobel lecture. "And yet both of
us are here before you today."
"We are political opponents. We disagree strongly on key issues and we will
soon fight a strenuous election campaign against one another. But we will do
so, I believe, in the frame of mind and within the framework of peace that has
already been established."
The two rivals also received the equivalent of $790,000 for the award. But
Mandela said it cannot be measured in money.
"It will and must be measured by the happiness and welfare of the
children, at once the most vulnerable citizens in any society and the greatest
of our treasures," he said.
"The children must at last play in the open veld, no longer tortured by
the pangs of hunger or ravaged by disease or threatened with the scourge of
ignorance, molestation and abuse, and no longer required to engage in deeds
whose gravity exceeds the demands of their tender years."
King Harald V and Queen Sonja were in the audience as the chairman of the
Nobel Committee, Francis Sejersted, presented the awards.
Sejersted said members of the Nobel Committee realized the fight to end
apartheid is not over.
"The danger of setbacks exists," he said. But the award was an
encouragement and the laureates have made "a brilliant contribution to peace,"
he said.
Mandela, 75, said the Peace Prize was a call "that we devote what remains
of our lives to the use of our country's unique and painful experience to
demonstrate that human existence should be based on democracy, prosperity and
solidarity."
De Klerk, 57, began tearing down the legal basis of apartheid when he
became president in 1989. He released Mandela from 27 years in prison in 1990,
and has scheduled the country's first multiracial elections for April.
The prizes awarded in Stockholm:
- Morrison, 62, of Princeton University, received the literature prize for
focusing on the experiences of blacks in the United States. Morrison "has
given the Afro-American people their history back, piece by piece," said
Swedish Academy Secretary Sture Allen, introducing the first black American
winner.
- The 1977 discovery that human genes were as complex as a mosaic earned
the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for Richard J. Roberts, 50, of
Derby, England, and Phillip A. Sharp, 49, of Falmouth, Ky.
Both now live and work in Massachusetts, Roberts at New England Biolabs in
Beverly and Roberts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- In physics, Russell Hulse, 43, and Joseph H. Taylor, 52, also of
Princeton. In 1974, they sighted the first binary pulsar, a dense twin star
that emits radio signals crucial for learning more about the universe.
- In chemistry, Kary Mullis, 48, of La Jolla, Calif., and Michael Smith,
61, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. They developed ways to
more easily duplicate and manipulate genes, helping provide tools to create
anticancer antibodies and protein-rich plants.
- In economics, Robert W. Fogel, 67, of the University of Chicago and
Douglass C. North, 73, of Washington University in St. Louis. They applied
economic theory to help analyze why some countries develop and grow richer
while others do not.
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