Nuclear Non-proliferation
March 3, 2009
Mordechai Vanunu has asked the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo to remove his name from this year’s list of nominees. “[I] cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres. He is the man who was behind all the Israeli atomic policy.”
Like Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan did in Pakistan, he writes, Peres was behind the atomic weapon proliferation to South Africa, including the 1978 nuclear weapon test, and other states.
Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, had revealed to the British press details of the Israeli nuclear weapons program. He had been kidnapped in Italy by Israeli agents in 1988 and spent 18 years in prison, 11 years in solitary confinement. He was released in 2004, but had been arrested since then several times. Between 1988 and 2004, Vanunu had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price each year.
Vanunu had received an honorary doctorate by the University of Tromsø, which is currently my employer.
[...] [1] The Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu has compared Shimon Peres with the Pakistani dealer of nuclear equipment Abdul Qadeer Khan. Vanunu, who has spent 18 years in prison in Israel for revealing details of Israel’s covert nuclear weapons program, has recently asked the Peace Nobel Committee in Oslo to remove him from the list of nominees. [...]