Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been declared the winner of this year's Confucius Peace Prize, which is dubbed as China's Nobel Peace Prize.
The 91-year-old longtime Zimbabwean ruler was awarded the Chinese peace prize after reportedly beating off other contenders that included Microsoft founder Bill Gates, U.N. secretary general Ban Ki Moon and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.
"Since he became chairman of the African Union in February 2015, 91-year-old Mugabe has been travelling the world over, actively promoting peace on the African continent, breathing new life for the ideals of peace and mankind in the 21st century," the prize committee said in a statement, according to Shanghaiist.
Mugabe, however, skipped the awards ceremony, which was held in Beijing in September.
The Confucius Peace Prize, first given in 2010, is awarded at a little-known China International Peace Studies Centre. "If he hadn't come to power in 1980, if he hadn't played a role, how much talent would have been wasted!" said Qiao Damo, founder of the Centre, according to AFP.
Mugabe, a former guerrilla fighter, has often been accused of abusing rights and suppressing democratic forces in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean opposition described the peace award to Mugabe as a mockery to Zimbabweans. "It makes a mockery of the word 'award.' Robert Mugabe has done everything a winner of a peace award shouldn't do. He has run down Zimbabwe, from being a breadbasket of southern Africa to a basket case in a short period of 35 years," main opposition MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu said, according to NewsDay Zimbabwe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Cuban leader Fidel Castro were among the previous recipients of the prize, according to Xinhua.
