VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: The Nobel Commission for the Peace Prize has received 199 nominations including Colin Powell, the U2 singer Bono and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In the final highly-secret list, there are 163 individuals and 36 organizations, which is an all time record according to the commission secretary Geir Lundestad.

“The increase in nominations proves that the prize continues to create great interest,” Lundstad said.

An article published in VHeadline.com on November 26 last year, headlined “Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias proposed for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize” aroused great interest ... some of it very negative.  The author received a myriad of insults and threats to his physical well-being from the “peace loving opposition democrats” opposed to Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Since that piece was published, Chavez has continued his humanitarian projects, the most recent of which are extending Mission Miracle in alliance with Cuba to correct blindness and sight disorders to the whole of the American continent, including the US and the Caribbean. He has also offered crude oil, gasoline and heating oil at preferential, financed rates to smaller Caribbean countries, as well as Uruguay and Paraguay which are struggling with the sky high price of energy.

The improvement in cash flow of these countries generated by the financing aspect at 1% per year, allows their governments to use this surplus to invest in social programs.

This initiative has also taken into account poor communities, schools, hospitals, old peoples homes facing a predicted brutally cold winter in the United States ... part of this program includes donations of heating oil as well as financing part of the deliveries from CITGO, a 100%-owned US-based Venezuelan company based in Houston with 8 refineries delivering to over 14,000 gasoline stations. Pilot projects will be underway in Chicago and Boston as of October 14.

As per the Nobel Peace Prize website the 2004 winner was Wangari Maathai of Kenya “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”

If these three qualities are key to winning the Nobel Peace Prize then Chavez has all these in abundance ... and more.  He must be the world’s leading democrat having been to the polls 9 times since 1998.  He promotes peace by asking for troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, so that these sovereign nations can exercise self-determination and define their own path in the future.

• Sustainable and endogenous development is one of the corner stones of the Bolivarian revolution ... thus alleviating poverty medium to long term.

Other accomplishments, which have been pushed by Chavez’ personal leadership in Venezuela are the Social Missions, all grouped under the humanitarian banner of Mision Cristo (Christ's Mission). The most important of these, Mision Robinson has taught 1.4 million Venezuelans to read and write; Mision Barrio Adentro (Neighborhood Within) offers free primary healthcare in the poor areas and is now reaching 14 million Venezuelans out of a population of approximately 25 million; Mision Mercal sells cheap staple foods and has impacted more than half the population at the time of writing.

Chavez, however, is up against some very stiff competition including Colin Powell (for his efforts to end the 21-year civil war in Sudan); the ex-governor of Illinois, George Ryan (for his campaign to abolish the death sentence in the US); Israeli Mordechai Vanunu (for denouncing the existence of nuclear weapons in his country); the Japanese Hidankyo group (survivors of the US' atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

The Norwegian press has also reported that late Pope John Paul II is also on the secret list as well as the Salvation Army, the ex-President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar.

The award ceremony is scheduled to take place in Oslo on December 10 -­ the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel who instituted the Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Peace Prize includes a cash element equivalent to around US$1.6 million.

Whether or not the Bolivarians will have cause to celebrate on October 7 does not really matter. The fact that President Chavez’ nomination has got this far is a victory in itself and a vindication of the humanist projects he has put in place to benefit the historically-excluded and dispossessed -- not only in Venezuela but now throughout the American continent and the Caribbean.

And this is just the beginning...

Carlos Herrera
Carlos.Herrera@VHeadline.com