The peacemakers

摘要

How a small country plays a large part IT HAS become standard for countries which discover large deposits of oil or gas to declare that they will copy Norway. A president will announce the creation of a fund to park revenues from hydrocarbons. Grand plans are drawn up for spending the bounty on improving the lot of mankind. But being Norway is much harder than it sounds. Only one country seems to have the necessary mixture of wealth, generosity, internationalism, optimism and modesty required to pull it off.Norway is the biggest contributor to conflict resolution, the optimistic name given to efforts to get warring parties to talk to each other. A high point here came in 1993, when Norwegian diplomats and researchers cajoled Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate face to face. The resulting Oslo accords were signed in Washington by politicians from America, Russia, Israel and Palestine. Norway was more than happy for them to take the credit for its initiative.