UN, Kofi Annan Win Nobel Peace Prize

The UN and its Secretary-General Kofi Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "their work for a better organized and more peaceful world."

UN spokesperson Fred Eckhard woke Annan and told him the news shortly after 5 a.m. Friday. Speaking on CNN, Eckhard called the award "a vote of confidence in our common future." "Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has been able to move towards its full potential in the peace and security area," Eckhard said.

Annan, born in 1938 in Ghana, became UN secretary-general in 1997. He has been praised for his character, moral leadership, his efforts to stop civil wars in Africa and elsewhere and his work to combat AIDS.

Following is the text of the 2001 Nobel Peace Citation:

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2001, in two equal portions, to the United Nations (U.N.) and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.

"For one hundred years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to strengthen organized cooperation between states. The end of the Cold War has at least made it possible for the U.N. to perform more fully the part it was originally intended to play. Today the organization is at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world, and of the international mobilization aimed at meeting the world's economic, social and environment challenges.

"Kofi Annan has devoted almost his entire working life to the U.N. As Secretary-General, he has been preeminent in bringing new life to the organization. While clearly underlining the U.N.'s traditional responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights. He has risen to such new challenges as HIV/AIDS and international terrorism, and brought about more efficient utilization of the U.N.'s modest resources. In an organization that can hardly become more than its members permit, he had made clear that sovereignty cannot be a shield behind which member states conceal their violations.

"The U.N. has in its history achieved many successes, and suffered many setbacks. Through this first Peace Prize to the U.N. as such, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes in its centenary year to proclaim that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations."

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