The 'Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo' nominated for Nobel Peace Award

After two unsuccessful attempts, the Norwegian Nobel Committee that evaluates the candidates of the Nobel Peace Prize accepted the nomination of 'Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo'.

The nomination filed last January by Senator Daniel Filmus, former education minister, has just been approved.

The Grandmothers had been candidates for personal initiatives in 2001 and 2007, but the proposal did not prospered so far. Filmus began working on the project last year, when his tenure as minister of education ended. He presented the project in January this year, as a national senator.

A few years ago this would not have been possible. The Nobel Prizes were then elected through a procedure involving a closed circle of voters. Two years ago, the methodology changed to open the participation of certain institutions such as parliament, which can now present their projects.

Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo has existed since 1977. Since then the Abuelas deal with the promotion and defence of human rights, especially the right to identity of children who were appropriate by the military during the last dictatorship. During this time they have managed to locate and return 88 appropriate people, plus numerous paradigmatic achievements, as the "index grandfather", a specific method to determine the parents of a child in their absence, through genetic testing DNA.

The choice of an institution, rather than Estela Carlotto as president of the organization, is also linked to the general characteristics of the process. Those who were behind the nomination ensure that the Commission Oslo preferred the presentation of collectives rather than individual candidates.

The results of the election will be announced on December 10, as planned. From now until then, the Government will try to maintain a strict low profile for the nature of the election.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five awards instituted by the inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel. While the prizes for physics, chemistry, mathematics and literature are awarded in Stockholm, the Nobel Peace Prize is given in Oslo.

Read the letter of nomination (Spanish)

(source: Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo Las Abuelas como candidatas al Nobel de la Paz)