Two Peace Prizes from Oslo

One is widely applauded, but did the other come too late?

When the Nobel Peace Prize Commitee in Oslo announced last year that it would give no award for 1976, Norwegians were prepared. An alliance of newspapers and civic groups had already begun a campaign for a "People's Peace Prize," which eventually collected $324,000 in donations. The sum was awarded to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, the Roman Catholic "peace women" of Belfast (TIME, Dec. 13) who had stirred the world with their pleas for an end to sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

The Nobel Committee had not overlooked the women; their campaign had not begun until August 1976, six months after the deadline for nominations. Last week the committee acknowledged that popular opinion had settled on the right candidates. Corrigan, 33, and Williams, 34, were named winners of last year's Peace Prize. Simultaneously, the 1977 award was given to Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization dedicated to freeing political prisoners and ending the use of torture around the world. The cash that goes with each prize: $140,000 for 1976, $146,000 for 1977.

The award to Amnesty International marked the second time that the Nobel judges had paid tribute to its work: in 1974 the Peace Prize was given to Ireland's former Foreign Minister Sean MacBride, longtime chairman of AI's executive committee. There is no reason to criticize the duplicated honor. From its start 16 years ago as a letter-writing campaign by London Lawyer Peter Benenson, AI has become a potent force on world opinion. It now counts more than 168,000 members in 107 countries.

Amnesty International's basic tactics have proved effective for years. A local group "adopts" three known political prisoners: one in a Communist country, one in a non-Communist developed country, one in a "nonaligned" Third World nation (no group adopts prisoners in its own country). The adopting chapter boosts the morale of the prisoner with letters and material relief to his family, and bombards government officials at all levels with letters seeking his release. According to MacBride, "The avalanche of mail is the biggest annoyance to most governments. Soon the issue is being raised at Cabinet level, and everyone is wondering whether the guy is worth all the trouble. The answer is frequently no." AI never claims responsiblity for winning its adoptees' freedom, explains Secretary-General Martin Ennals, because "no government likes to be told they are doing something under duress." Yet the group produces results: of some 16,000 prisoners aided since 1961, 10,600 have been released.

One reason for AI's effectiveness is its impartiality--a fact cited by the Nobel Committee. In its well-documented reports on torture and human rights abuses around the world, AI has cited Czechoslovakia as well as Chile, the Soviet Union as well as Iran. Much of the Nobel Prize money, said Chairman Thomas Ham-marberg, will go to build more local organizations in Third World countries in Asia and Latin America.

While AI has grown steadily in members and reputation, Ulster's Community of Peace People, as the movement is now called, has lost rather than gained visibility in the past year. It no longer mounts massive demonstrations on Ulster streets, and Corrigan and Williams rarely take their courageous, much-publicized peace strolls through the city's tense confrontation zones. Some early supporters have defected after disputes with Ciaran Mc-Keown, an ex-journalist who has become the chief ideologue of the movement. Mc-Keown has switched the emphasis from protest marches toward projects of "community democracy" that he hopes will start to heal the hatreds between Northern Ireland's 1 million Protestants and its 500,000 Catholics.

Williams and Corrigan believe the peace movement is going in the right direction. "When the movement started, it was only emotion," Corrigan said last week. "Now it is hard work." Among projects that the Nobel money will help fund are neighborhood cooperatives, efforts to find housing and employment to dissuade people from resorting to terrorism, and other social programs'. Williams and Corrigan also cite a statistic that argues for their success: since their crusade was launched 14 months ago, violence in Northern Ireland has been cut by half.

But it is by no means gone. Last week as the two women received congratulations from friends and supporters, three more victims of the Irish Republican Army's Provisional unit were being buried: a prison guard who was machine-gunned in his car, a school-bus driver who was shot to death as he stopped on his route, and a woman private in the Ulster Defence Regiment, who was gunned down in her mobile home. The third group of attackers even turned their guns on their victim's terrified three-year-old daughter, sending bullets through the Teddy bear she was holding but leaving her unharmed. Despite objections that the peace movement has become passe, Northern Ireland clearly needs every Peace Person it can get. -

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