World Peace Prize judge responds to `Next' allegations

The controversy over the World Peace Prize awarded to Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) grew yesterday as the award-giving organization's chief judge, Lester Wolff, lashed out at critics which reports say are "politicizing" the award.

"People are trying to, in some fashion, politicize an event of well-meaning people," said Wolff, chief judge of the World Peace Prize Award Council (WPPAC), a US-based group that awarded the vice president the council's top honor last Sunday.

"All expenses have been born by private individuals ... I paid for my trip with the American Express Card," said Wolff, former chairman of the US House Asian Affairs Committee, in an effort to dispell speculation that Taiwan had funded the group's trip to Taiwan for the award ceremony.

Wolff held a press conference yesterday in the wake of a report in the latest issue of Next (壹周刊) that questioned the legitimacy of the prize as well as the intentions of the major organizers, including Wolff.

The foreign ministry said on Thursday Taiwan's de facto embassy in Washington confirmed that the WPPAC had registered with the US government.

However, critics said the WPPAC peace prize was nowhere to be found in major reference books.

Wolff said the Next report was either due to a misunderstanding or an attempt to sabotage the event, referring to the council's decision to award Lu the peace prize this year.

Wolff, who nominated Lu, reiterated that Lu deserved the prize for her lifetime commitment to fighting for human rights and democracy.

In defense of the council's decision to grant the prize to the repressive South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee in 1996, some 30 years after Rhee passed away, Wolff said it's quite "a common practice" in the US to grant an award to the deceased to honor their contributions they made during their lifetimes.