Bruno Kreisky Foundation

for Human Rights

1988 | 5th award

July 8th 1988
Austria Center Vienna

Bruno Kreisky had hoped until the last moment to take part in this award ceremony. This was however made impossible for him by his already badly impaired health. In a short greeting Kreisky wrote:

"Whoever has a relatively long life behind him and has traversed the heights and the depths, knows that the fettered spirit always rises again. Let me close with the word of promise which has inspired many of us all our lives: For they cannot kill the spirit, brothers and sisters."

Bruno Kreisky
Aerial view of the Jewish- Arab village and peace project Neve Shalom/Wahat al- Salam.

The 5th award ceremony in 1988 at the Austria Center Vienna honoured 18 recipients. At Bruno Kreisky's suggestion, awards went to the Brazilian Dominican monk Frei Betto, the Israeli-Palestinian village Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam, Latif Dori from the Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue founded by Israelis of oriental origin, the Committee for Social and Medical Aid for Palestinians and Claudia Vilanek for her charitable work in India and Austria.

Other award winners were the International Helsinki Federation, the Catholic Social Academy Austria, the Society of Friends of the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, the Society for Austrian-Arab Relations, Greenpeace Austria, and the Association for the History of the Labour Movement. The prominent Namibian human rights lawyer and independence activist, Anton Lubowski, was honoured, as was the leading opposition politician in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. Anton Lubowski was murdered only a few months later, shortly before independence elections. Benazir Bhutto, who became Prime Minister of Pakaistan twice, was assassinated in 2007.

Prize Winners and guests of honour at the award ceremony in 1988.

Attention was again drawn to the repression of human rights in South Korea with an award to Justitia et Pax, Korean Commission.

Other award winners included Bishop Leonidas Eduardo Proaño Villaba from Ecuador, the Guatemalan Human Rights Organisation GAM, the Nicaraguan writer and politician Sergio Ramírez Mercado, and the Unidad Nacional de Trabajadores Salvadoreños (UNTS).