Peace Prize organizers saw Lu as perfect choice

Organizers of the 2001 World Peace Prize said yesterday granting Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) the prize was not only a recognition of her contribution to Taiwan's democratization but a move to encourage China to learn from Taiwan's democracy.

"It was very difficult for us to make a decision this year ... It gave me great pleasure and honor to be able to nominate [Lu], and it was immediately agreed without having any other nominations made," said Lester Wolff, chief judge of the World Peace Prize Award Council (WPPAC), a US-based organization which decided to give the award to Lu.

The former chairman of the US House Asian Affairs Committee said Lu was chosen as the recipient of the prize in recognition of her contributions to Taiwan's democratization and to world peace.

Han Min-su, Chairman-Judge of the WPPAC, suggested that giving the award to Taiwan's vice president could influence China's democratization process.

"China is the greatest nation with the largest population. As a symbolic country of freedom and democracy, Taiwan is the best. Once Taiwan is recognized and highlighted in the world community, we anticipate that the whole of China will be wooed too," Han said.

The 24-member delegation reached Taipei yesterday and held a press conference together with Lu at the Presidential Office in the afternoon.

Lu stressed that the award, to be granted to her in a ceremony on Sunday at the Presidential Office, was in recognition of the joint effort made by the 23 million of people of Taiwan in the country's move towards democratization.

Earlier in the day Lu accompanied the group to visit the Chingmei military detention center where she was imprisoned for over five years in the wake of the Kaohsiung Incident in 1979.

The outspoken vice president also reminded the press of another round of "congratulatory meetings" to mark her achievement as the recipient of the prize to be held at the Grand Hotel on Sunday afternoon.

Lu is the first female recipient of the prize, which came into being in 1990, a year after US Congressman Robert Leggett and Han a South Korean evangelist, jointly founded the World Peace Corps Mission in 1989, patterned after the US Peace Corps.

When asked why the ceremony was not to be held in the US, Han said: "We are supposed to hold the ceremony where the prizewinner lives, and this is why we are holding it in Taipei."

But in a press conference in the US last week where the WPPAC announced Lu as the prizewinner, Wolff said he felt it was a shame the US government refused to allow Lu to come to Washington to collect the award.