BRUSSELS – Swiss professor Fritz Stoeckli and American professor Mitchel Feigenbaum have turned down honorary doctorates from the Royal Military Academy (KMS). They would have been awarded the degrees next week on Thursday.

The professors announced their decision at the end of February after Defence Minister André Flahaut said that Congolese president Joseph Kabila would be receiving the same honour. The controversial announcement from the minister led to “reconsideration.”

“Because of the controversy surrounding the person of Kabila and in solidarity with the KMS professors who were not consulted in connection with that, professors Mitchell J. Feigenbaum (Rockefeller University, New York) and Fritz Stoeckli (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland) are distancing themselves from their honorary doctorates, which would have officially been awarded them on 19 March in Brussels,” the University of Neuchâtel explains on its website.

“Their joint decision was passed on to the rector magnificus of the KMS, lieutenant Michel Singelé”, the Swiss university adds.

The announcement of the award ceremony has also been removed from the Military Academy’s website.

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news