Annan arrives for Nobel ceremony
OSLO, Norway -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has arrived in Oslo to accept his Nobel Peace Prize as other laureates ended a peace symposium marking the 100-year anniversary of the coveted award.
Annan will receive the 10 million Swedish kronor ($940,000) award, which he shares with the United Nations, in an elaborate ceremony on Monday at Oslo's city hall, followed by a banquet.
"We are very happy to be back on this very special occasion," said Annan, who was accompanied by his Swedish-born wife, Nane.
On his arrival Annan paid tribute to the United Nations as a "unique, indispensable organisation."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to the U.N. and its secretary-general on October 12 for their roles at the "forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world."
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Annan will deliver the Nobel lecture after receiving the award, while the president of the U.N. General Assembly, South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo, is to accept on behalf of the organisation.
The three-day peace symposium, which drew 28 Nobel Peace Prize winners to discuss global conflict in the 21st century, was given extra focus with increased violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Norwegian Nobel Committee member Gunnar Staalsett referred to the destroyed World Trade Center as "a symbol of this age," and said the September 11 terrorist attacks were "a hijacking of our common values."
But the theme of the conference was human rights with discussions on how to avert totalitarianism, bolster democracy and human rights and promote arms control.
"The victory of terrorism is to convert democracies into parties of terrorist states and we should jealously watch that this will not happen," Staalsett said in closing remarks at the misty Holmenkollen resort on the slopes above the Oslo fjord.
Among those scheduled to take part were South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, former Polish President Lech Walesa, Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, Northern Irish politicians John Hume and David Trimble and Jewish author Elie Wiesel.
Later, laureates led by East Timorese freedom fighter Jose Ramos-Horta, who won the prize in 1996, and South African anti-apartheid cleric Desmond Tutu were expected at a rally at the Norwegian Parliament.
They were due to release the text of an appeal for the release from house arrest of Myanmar's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi, who won the peace prize in 1991, has been detained at her Yangon lakeside home in Myanmar, formerly Burma, since September 2000 after she defied official restrictions by attempting to travel outside the capital for a political meeting.
The awards were created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and are always presented on the anniversary of his 1896 death.
The prizes in literature, medicine, physics, chemistry and economics are presented the same day in Stockholm, Sweden, where more than 160 laureates were gathering for similar centennial celebrations.
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