Santos accepts Nobel peace prize on behalf of victims of Colombia's internal conflict

Record ID: 83044

  • Title: Santos accepts Nobel peace prize on behalf of victims of Colombia's internal conflict
  • Date: 7th October 2016
  • Summary: BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (OCTOBER 2, 2016) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF SANTOS VOTING IN PEACE REFERENDUM
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2016 13:39
  • Keywords: Juan Manuel Santos FARC Nobel Alvaro Uribe
  • Location: BOGOTA + UNIDENTIFIED FOREST LOCATION, COLOMBIA / INTERNET
  • City: BOGOTA + UNIDENTIFIED FOREST LOCATION, COLOMBIA / INTERNET
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA002530BBRB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday (October 7) for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist rebels, a surprise choice and a show of support after Colombians rejected a peace accord last Sunday.
    The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Santos had brought one of the longest civil wars in modern history significantly closer to a peaceful solution, but there was still a danger the peace process could collapse.
    Speaking in Bogota, Santos accepted the award on behalf of all Colombians, especially those who have perished in the country's conflict.
    "This morning, very early, my son Martin woke me to tell me the decision that of the committee in Norway to grant me the Nobel Peace Prize. I have infinite gratitude, with all my heart, for this honourable distinction. I don't receive this in my name, but in the name of all Colombians, especially the millions of victims from this conflict we have been suffering for more than 50 years. Colombians, this is for you. It's for the victims, so there's not even one more victim. No one else should die. We should reconcile, come together, to culminate this process and start to construct a stable and lasting peace," he said.
    The award excluded FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, who signed the peace accord with Santos in Cartagena on Sept. 26.
    Santos has promised to revive the plan even though Colombians narrowly rejected it in a referendum on Sunday. Many voters believed it was too lenient on the FARC guerrillas.
    Among the critics have been Santos's predecessor, President Alvaro Uribe. He sent out a tweet of measured congratulations.
    "I congratulate the Nobel Committee for (awarding) President (Juan Manuel) Santos. I hope that he seeks to change the agreements that are damaging to democracy."
    More than 220,000 people have died on the battlefield or in massacres during the struggle between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and government troops.
    Millions have been displaced and many beg on the streets of the capital, while economic potential has been held up in the mostly rural nation.
    Santos is the first Latin American to receive the peace prize since indigenous rights campaigner Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala won in 1992, and is the second Colombian laureate after writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the literature prize in 1982.
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