Nobel laureates visit Belgian war memorials

Three Nobel Peace Prize laureates took part in a visit to the Westhoek area of West Flanders yesterday, on the eve of their participation in an International Symposium on Science for Peace.

Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters accompanied Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, who won jointly in 2011 with Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Yemeni politician Tawakkol Karman (pictured) for their work on women’s rights;  Betty Williams from Northern Ireland, who won in 1976 with Mairead Corrigan Maguire for her campaigning for peace in the province; and former South African president Frederik Willem De Klerk, who shared the 1993 prize with Nelson Mandela for their work in terminating the apartheid regime.

The party visited the Tyne Cot Commonwealth cemetery in Zonnebeke, followed by the In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres, before attending the Last Post at the nearby Menin Gate, a nightly ceremony held to commemorate the fallen.

“The destructive power of war made a deep impression on me during our visit to Tyne Cot and In Flanders Fields,” De Klerk said. “We must not allow ourselves to forget this history; it is essential to the advance of peace.”

“My impressions of this visit will stay with me always,” said Williams. “As a mother and a grandmother, I realise those who lie buried here are all mothers’ sons. It hurts like hell to realise this.”

The guests will take part today in an international peace symposium, one of the first events in the Flemish government’s commemoration of the 1914-18 centenary.

“In less than one year, it will be exactly 100 years since the Great War caused such untold suffering for millions, here in Flanders and in many other countries in Europe and in the world,” said Peeters during yesterday’s visit. “The Flemish government has made the centenary remembrance a priority. The scars of war are still visible in Flanders’ Fields; the war-time past is still palpable. With this visit today, I, together with our Nobel winners, wish to send a universal message of peace into the world.”

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