After months of raucous negotiations, multiple resignations and embarrassing headlines, supporters of the planned Atlanta Nobel peace summit say they’ve tentatively found new organizers for the event.
On Monday, the Rotary Club of Atlanta voted to take the reins in plans to host Nobel laureates and humanitarian organizations this November, pending answers to a few “key questions” about the event’s organization.
The group is still vetting issues, such as financial matters and whether international laureates will attend, before it makes a final decision, according to Bob Hope, a longtime public relations executive and spokesman for the summit.
Rotary Club of Atlanta Chairman Robert Balentine said the group’s goal “is to find a path to producing an event that will bring pride to our city.”
But so far, it has just brought headaches.
The fate of Atlanta’s World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates has been in doubt in recent months following the resignation of several notable Atlantans who have clashed with the event’s lead organizer, Mohammad Bhuiyan.
Bhuiyan is the CEO of Yunus Creative Lab, the nonprofit that helped bring the 2015 Nobel peace summit to Atlanta. He and his wife, Shamima Amin, began the nonprofit with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who has since resigned from his own organization because of the controversy.
Much of the public brouhaha began, however, when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed withdrew the city's participation in March, citing concerns over its management. Yunus resigned just weeks later, stating in his resignation letter that his continued support of the event was misrepresented by his own board. Former gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter, Laura Turner Seydel and Willis Potts, the former chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents, are the latest to withdraw from the effort.
The Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, the Rome-based organization that originally designated Atlanta as this year’s host city, must still approve of the Rotary’s involvement, Hope said.
Earlier this month, the secretariat's organization warned Atlanta leaders to find a resolution, or risk losing the event to another city.
A spokeswoman for Reed’s office said the mayor has seen and approved the Rotary’s proposal. Reed has said the city won’t participate in the summit if Bhuiyan remains on board.
Under the new proposed arrangement, the Rotary would spearhead an event entirely separate from one organized by the remaining boardmembers of Yunus Creative Lab.
Bhuiyan, reached on Monday, vowed to move ahead with his own summit, accusing Reed and Seydel “and a couple of others” of trying to “derail” his organization’s efforts. He and Amin have worked without pay for nearly two years to launch the international event, he said.
Bhuiyan, a former college administrator, believes that many of the criticisms against his leadership have been unfair. He and others have clashed on issues including where to house donations and hiring decisions. Many have also said Bhuiyan’s personality has played a role in the breakdown.
Bhuiyan, who is Bangladeshi, also believes that some of the complaints raised by others are racially motivated and have nothing to do with his competency.
“It is very unfortunate that Rotary is being used by them. But that doesn’t matter. We are still moving forward with the original plan to have the summit in Atlanta as planned,” Bhuiyan said in an email.
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