For many years, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded as an activist expression of European political views and Norwegian economic interests. Like other Western European countries, Norway is concerned only about its own welfare and that of the Continent. The Nobel Peace Prize is one means by which they have made their policies attractive to others. For example, in 2003, the prize was given to an unknown Iranian woman for her unknown human-rights activities in Iran, even as many important women were wasting away inside the regime’s prisons. (One such woman is the world-renowned Iranian poet Simin Behbahani, whose collection of poetry on human rights has been translated into many languages.)

In November 2002, however, the Norwegian State Oil Company signed a contract with the Petro Pars Gas Company, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company. (European governments are either the total owners or majority shareholders of their oil companies; in 2002, 82 percent of the State Oil Company was owned by the Norwegian government.) To get the contract, the Norwegian State Oil Company hired Horton Investment Company, registered in the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. The owners of this investment company were Mehdi Rafsanjani, the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and the second most powerful member of the ruling clergy, and Abbas Yazdi, a member of the Islamic regime. The consulting fee to the Horton Investment Company was $40 million in a Swiss back account.

It just so happened that Mehdi Rafsanjani was also the director of the Petro Pars Gas Company.

The State Oil Company’s Iran scandal was discovered by Iranian Norwegians, and caused not only the dismissal of the company’s president but a fine to the company of 20 million Norwegian kroner. During the unraveling of the scandal, the Iranian relations of many politicians were questioned by the Parliament.

On June 12, 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took action against the State Oil Company under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and fined it $21 million.

The members of the Nobel committee are mostly from the Norwegian political elite. The committee’s chairman, Thorbjørn Jagland, was Norway’s minister of foreign affairs in 2000-01 and chairman of the standing committee on foreign affairs from 2001 to 2005. He is currently chairman of the board of directors of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights — but he refused to recognize any human rights for the young Iranians killed by the Islamic regime on the streets of Iran. Norway wants more underpriced gas and oil contracts from the corrupt Iranian regime, just as President Obama desires face-saving dialogue with the same oppressive regime.

The Washington Post’s September 10 editorial saying that this year’s prize should have been given to Neda, a young girl killed by the Iranian regime, and the other oppressed people of Iran is commendable but very naïve. When Europeans talk about peace and human rights they mean it for themselves only, and not anyone else. As their history of imperialism has proven, they are the number one enablers and supporters of the oppressors and violators of human rights the world over.

– Manda Zand Ervin heads the Alliance of Iranian Women.