OSLO, Dec 8: Nobel Peace Prize laureates concluded a historic three-day meeting in Oslo Saturday, agreeing humanity faced a brave new world of danger and conflict but unable to come to terms themselves on its causes or how to address it.

In a session closing the symposium on conflict in the 21st century to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel awards, laureates and officials described terrorism as a “hijacking” of religion and universal human values.

But retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others attacked the US-led military response to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The issue so divided the laureates they were unable to forge a joint statement to crown their meeting.

“Might is not right,” Tutu said.

“If it is utterly reprehensible that innocent civilians were targeted in New York and Washington, how could we possibly say it doesn’t apply elsewhere in the world?” he added in a reference to civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Gunnar Berge, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, echoed that view, saying that even if the September attacks were “the hijacking of religion for evil” the United States should not take its self-styled “war on terrorism” beyond Afghanistan.

If it does, he added, “then I think we have only seen the beginning of a disaster”.

Throughout the centenary Nobel symposium, many laureates said that while terrorism was evil, its roots lay in the poverty and dispossession experienced by much of humanity and could only be eradicated when those basic injustices were addressed.

The administration of US President George W. Bush has scoffed at “relativizing” the causes of the September 11 attacks and defended its continuing response to them on the grounds that they were not justifiable on any grounds whatsoever.

A number of the Nobel peace laureates said they agreed with Washington’s philosophy on the issue and its goal of destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as well as their “guest” Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, accused of being behind the attacks.

“I have supported from the beginning the US actions against the Taliban and bin Laden,” East Timor independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta said.

Nobel-prize winning US author Elie Wiesel also came down squarely behind what critics have described as Washington’s “shoot first, ask questions later” response to the September attacks.

“We must first eliminate terrorism and then later organize a major international conference to examine its causes,” he told fellow laureates on Friday.

The laureates meanwhile failed to come up with a common declaration to close their symposium, apparently unable to hammer out a consensus on the form and content of the message.

A draft text was circulated among them Friday and Saturday and one laureate said a declaration was needed because a separate statement issued in Sweden by recipients of other Nobel prizes “was not strong enough” and was drafted before September 11.

But Bernard Lown, a 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner, described the text under consideration as “too diffuse” and former Polish President Lech Walesa voiced disdain for the draft statement.

“I prefer shorter, more precise statements,” Walesa told AFP.

“This is something we need to discuss more. These are not documents you can just take and sign. I’m not sure of their purpose,” he said, adding that they were “probably” too focused on US policies.

Some laureates said a joint statement might still be issued on Monday when this year’s Peace Prize winners, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the United Nations, are presented with their awards at a formal ceremony here.—AFP