Colombian president wins Nobel Prize for peace efforts

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a surprise choice after Colombians voted "No" to an agreement he signed with Marxist rebels to end 52 years of war.

Santos has promised to revive the peace plan even though Colombians, in a referendum on Sunday, narrowly rejected the accord. Many voters believed it was too lenient on the FARC guerrillas.



"The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people," committee leader Kaci Kullmann Five said when announcing the prize. Voters did not say "No" to peace but to the agreement, she said.

The award pointedly excluded FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, who signed the deal with Santos. Some Nobel watchers had taken Colombia off their lists of favorites after the referendum "No".

"The fact that a majority of the voters said "No" to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead," the committee said. "This makes it even more important that the parties, headed by President Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londoño, continue to respect the ceasefire," the committee said.



Last year, Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to save the the only democracy that emerged from the Arab Spring, offering the country symbolic support after it was shaken by a wave of militant attacks.

The quartet of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers was formed in the summer of 2013.



The prize is a gold medal, a diploma and a cheque for eight million Swedish kronor (around 860,000 euros/$950,000) that will handed out at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of prize creator Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and scientist.