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Peace prizes that sparked outrage! Join us as we examine the most controversial laureates ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Our countdown includes figures whose legacies are stained by war crimes, human rights abuses, and moral contradictions that left the world questioning the Nobel Committee's judgment.
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00:00The world used to see this woman as a symbol of peace and human rights.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 10 highly controversial figures who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
00:10But a lot has happened since then. There is an ongoing conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
00:18Elihu Root. Receiving the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize for his work, Elihu Root advanced international law
00:24and was instrumental in advocating for and shaping judicial tribunals.
00:28On paper, he was a pioneer of diplomacy over conflict, and world peace seemed within reach.
00:34But before that, Root served as U.S. Secretary of War, helping to modernize the American military
00:40and overseeing the bloody occupation of the Philippines, a campaign marked by numerous atrocities against innocent civilians.
00:47Critics argued that Root's award honored an empire builder disguised as a peacemaker
00:51and rewarded the man who made American expansionism more efficient.
00:55His legacy highlights the early Nobel Committee's blind spot, mistaking polite diplomacy for genuine peace.
01:02Cordell Hull.
01:03A senator, a Secretary of State, and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
01:07An impressive resume of public service from the late Cordell Hull.
01:11U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was celebrated for helping found the United Nations
01:16and shaping the international order following the chaos of World War II.
01:19His 1945 Peace Prize recognized that vision, but his record tells a different story.
01:25Just a few years earlier, in 1939, Hull personally advised Franklin D. Roosevelt
01:30to deny asylum to Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis, forcing hundreds back toward Nazi Europe.
01:36Many of these abandoned refugees later perished in the Holocaust.
01:39Supporters credit Hull for promoting global cooperation, yet critics argue that his humanitarian failure made him unworthy of a peace prize.
02:04The stark contrast between his diplomatic achievements and his sheer moral blindness remain one of the Nobel Committee's most glaring misjudgments.
02:12In winning the Nobel Peace Prize as the father of the United Nations, he inspires us today.
02:20Mother Teresa.
02:22Mother Teresa is a Nobel Prize winner.
02:24She's a symbol.
02:25People in the West talk about her, so Indians adopt her at that level.
02:29The fact that what she does on the streets of Calcutta is really irrelevant to them.
02:32They couldn't care about it, and most of them don't even know.
02:35But Mother Teresa is the sort of figure you show to visitors.
02:39Canonized as a saint, and revered by millions around the world, Mother Teresa received the 1979 prize for her humanitarian work with the poor in Calcutta.
02:48She was hailed as the embodiment of selflessness, but her legacy isn't without controversy.
02:53Later investigations revealed unsanitary conditions in her clinics, minimal to non-existent medical care, and an emphasis on suffering as beautiful.
03:00The needles, they used and reused over and over and over, and you would see some of the nuns rinsing needles under the cold water tap.
03:09And I asked one of them why she was doing it.
03:12And she said, well, to clean it.
03:14And I said, yes, but why are you not sterilizing it?
03:16Why are you not boiling water and sterilizing your needles?
03:20She says, there's no point.
03:21Teresa also accepted donations from corrupt dictators, and staunchly opposed abortion and contraception, earning criticism from secular and feminist groups alike.
03:31To admirers, she brought dignity to the dying.
03:34To detractors, she romanticized poverty and pain.
03:38Yet Mother Teresa regards herself as mandated by heaven, which is hardly modest.
03:43She lends spiritual solace to dictators and to wealthy exploiters, which is scarcely the essence of simplicity.
03:51And she preaches surrender and prostration to the poor, which a truly humble person would barely have the nerve to do.
03:58Woodrow Wilson.
03:59In Paris, the Allies were gathering to discuss the future and to shape the peace.
04:04And it was Wilson who'd written the 14 points that were the basis for that peace.
04:09American President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after the First World War for creating the League of Nations,
04:16the world's first attempt at a lasting system of collective security.
04:19Sounds great.
04:20His 14 points inspired a new vision for global diplomacy, but Wilson's idealism hid deep hypocrisy.
04:26Wilson's peace plan had 14 points, and he unveiled it to the American people and the world in a speech before Congress early in 1918.
04:35At home, he re-segregated federal offices, screened the deeply racist the birth of a nation at the White House,
04:41and supported many bigoted policies.
04:44Even on the international stage, his calls for self-determination excluded colonized peoples.
04:49Wilson was a prophet of peace, but he was also a white supremacist whose vision was deeply selective.
04:55This is classic political hypocrisy at work.
04:58Progressive abroad, regressive at home.
05:00The essence of Wilsonianism, as it related to international affairs, was a belief that the United States could not stay out of international affairs.
05:08That the United States had a role to play in keeping peace, in preventing conflicts from spreading.
05:14Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat.
05:16What kind of relationship did Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat have?
05:21Was it more than cordial?
05:22We remember a statement that Begin said, we think we like each other, but was there more to it than that?
05:27Did they really like each other?
05:28In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin duly won the Nobel Peace Prize for the Camp David Accords,
05:38groundbreaking framework agreements that led to peace between their respective countries.
05:42It was hailed as a triumph of diplomacy, but not everyone saw it that way.
05:46The two leaders were very strong leaders, determined, true believers in their ideologies and in God Almighty.
05:56Sadat's peace deal infuriated much of the Arab world, and led to his assassination just a few years later in 1981.
06:03Begin, once a leader of a militant group called the Ergon, faced accusations of using peace as political cover.
06:10While the Accords did end decades of direct war, they also left the Palestinian question completely unresolved.
06:15It was a real peace accord, but it was brokered by men with serious blood on their hands.
06:20During most of the time, when they stayed at Camp David, Begin and Sadat hardly saw each other.
06:30Theodore Roosevelt
06:31Theodore Roosevelt basically created the modern presidency.
06:34Every president since Theodore Roosevelt has acted in Theodore Roosevelt's shadow.
06:38He was bubbling over with energy and ideas and thoughts, and when he entered a room, people knew it.
06:44Teddy became the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, doing so in 1906 after mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War.
06:52The committee praised his diplomacy, but the Rough Rider president hardly fit the image of a pacifist.
06:57And so, this was a short war. There weren't a whole lot of conspicuous heroes, and Roosevelt was the one.
07:03He played the part very well, and he played the part for all it was worth.
07:06In fact, Roosevelt loved and often glorified warfare, expanding his imperial reach through the Panama Canal and pushing the idea of America's civilizing mission abroad.
07:17His famous mantra of speak softly and carry a big stick beautifully summarizes his belief that peace can only be enforced through sheer power.
07:25Roosevelt won the Peace Prize while extolling the virtues of warfare.
07:29The irony is so stark, it's almost comedic.
07:32As America prepared for combat, citizen Roosevelt became an outspoken supporter of the war effort, rallying the public and young recruits.
07:43Proudly for Roosevelt, his four sons enlisted in the armed forces.
07:48Roosevelt could no longer go into battle. So what did he do? He sent his sons into battle.
07:54Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin.
07:57After decades of violence, the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization secretly met in 1992 to put an end to the conflict.
08:07The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize went jointly to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo Accords,
08:17a historic handshake that symbolized hope for peace in the Middle East.
08:20As we all know, that optimism didn't last long.
08:23The meetings gave birth to the Oslo Accords, designed to establish a partnership for negotiating borders, governance, and a path to peace.
08:31But these treaties didn't last, and many considered them to be an ultimate failure.
08:36Violence and mistrust continued. Settlements expanded, and the peace process eventually collapsed.
08:42Arafat was accused of past terrorism. Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist.
08:47And Peres' later military actions raised more than a few eyebrows.
08:51To some, the award was grossly premature, celebrating an imaginary peace that hadn't yet materialized.
08:57An idealistic gamble that aged terribly.
09:01It was clear that the Oslo Accords had failed.
09:04The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues today.
09:07Palestinian autonomy has still not been achieved, and support for a two-state solution has declined.
09:13Aung San Suu Kyi.
09:14Aung San Suu Kyi even won a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar.
09:21Now she's the civilian leader, and she's fighting charges that the country, on her watch, has committed genocide.
09:29Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent resistance against Myanmar's brutal military regime.
09:38She spent years under house arrest, and became a global icon of democracy and courage.
09:43But her reputation eventually imploded.
09:46As Myanmar's civilian leader, Suu Kyi defended the very same military during its campaign of genocide against the Rohingya minority, denying well-documented atrocities and crimes against humanity.
09:57This is what it's accused of, targeting and killing the Rohingya Muslim minority.
10:01U.N. experts say Myanmar's army acted with genocidal intent when, in 2017, troops forced out more than 740,000 Rohingya.
10:12Human rights groups accused her of moral betrayal and demanded that her prize be revoked.
10:17Once hailed as the conscience of Asia, Suu Kyi made a complete 180 from saintly symbol to complicit leader, marking one of the most dramatic reversals in Nobel history.
10:27It's hard to get your head around just what an incredible turnaround this is.
10:31Abiyah Ahmed.
10:32Now after taking office, Abiyah made peace with neighboring Eritrea, bringing an end to a 20-year conflict.
10:39But that move earned him the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
10:42Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiyah Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a decades-long conflict with neighboring Eritrea and launching a number of democratic reforms at home.
10:54He was hailed as a new face of African peace, but the optimism didn't last long.
10:58Just a year later, Ethiopia plunged into civil war, with Abiyah accused of overseeing massacres and famine in the Tigray region.
11:06Then last year, Abiyah sent the army into the northern Tigray region to crush the TPLF.
11:11Thousands have been killed and millions displaced.
11:15Reports of human rights abuses and horrific ethnic violence tarnished his once bright image, as he was unanimously vilified on the world stage.
11:23The Nobel Committee even admitted that the war cast shadows over his award.
11:27And that's putting it mildly for what is probably the fastest collapse of Nobel credibility.
11:31Through the vote, Abiyah Ahmed seeks to establish his political legitimacy, but the Prime Minister is facing various challenges, including the conflict in Tigray, for which he's facing mounting pressure at home and abroad.
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11:59What is unanimously considered the most egregious Nobel Peace Prize ever given went to Henry Kissinger, who won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam.
12:28Even back then, the outrage was immediate.
12:32Two Nobel Committee members resigned in protest, and even Kissinger himself refused to attend the ceremony.
12:37And wouldn't you know it? The ceasefire quickly collapsed, and the U.S. continued bombing Cambodia and Laos under his watch.
12:44Kissinger's realpolitik was, I would say, amoral. Yes.
12:49There was a deliberate ignoring of what a country did inside its boundaries.
12:54Beyond Vietnam, Kissinger supported coups and authoritarian regimes in Chile, Indonesia, and beyond, all in the name of American stability.
13:04To some critics, Kissinger was nothing but a war criminal, and his award for peace remains the ultimate symbol of Nobel irony.
13:11The U.S. lost the Vietnam War, but Kissinger, the diplomat, somehow eked out a victory.
13:17He and Le Duc To were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
13:20Nothing that has happened to me in public life has moved me more than this award.
13:29Can you think of any further examples? Let us know in the comments below.
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