President Juan Manuel Santos affirmed upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize that the Colombian people is making possible what seemed impossible: ending a conflict that has lasted more than half a century.

During the awards ceremony, the president recalled that only six years ago, neither he nor his countrymen dared to imagine the end of the war they had suffered, the only one and most prolonged of the continent.

‘After serious, and often intense, difficult negotiations I can announce with deep humility and gratitude that the Colombian people, with the support of our friends, are making possible what they believed impossible,’ Santos said during his speech.

The head of state and the leader of the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), Timoleón Jiménez, signed on November 24th the final agreement, with which they pledged to end the long confrontation.

The Congress validated then that second agreement, derived from the initial one, formalized in Cartagena de Indias and subsequently rejected during the October plebiscite by the majority of voters.

Santos mentioned some of the benefits derived from the conclusive consensus, including the possibility of declaring the country free of antipersonnel mines by 2021, and the new approach to the fight against drug trafficking, focusing on strategies such as the progressive substitution of illicit crops with other plantations.

‘I receive this award on behalf of about 50 million Colombians, my compatriots, who finally see end a nightmare (…) which only brought suffering, misery and backwardness to our nation,’ stressed Santos.

(hr/l2p/oda/ap)

Nobel laureates have gathered to witness the award ceremonies for this year’s Nobel prizes. Peace Laureate Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is receiving his award in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

Juan Manuel Santos has been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday at Oslo’s City Hall. The ceremony, aired live on YouTube, was attended by the royal family, members of the Norwegian government, representatives of families who suffered during the Colombian government’s standoff with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and former FARC prisoners, Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas.

Speaking at the occasion, Santos described the award as a “gift from heaven” and dedicated it to all citizens of his country.

“I should confess that this news [of winning the Nobel] was like a gift from the heavens…The Nobel Prize was the wind that could propel us to our destination, to the achievement of peace,” he said. The Nobel Peace Prize was a “vote of confidence in the faith and future of our country,” Santos added.

The Nobel Peace Prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a check for 8 million Swedish kronor (824,000 euros, $871,000). Santos promised to use the sum for victims of the war.

Santos’ award was recognition for his contribution towards sealing a peace deal between FARC and the government, ending a 50-year-long civil war.

Speaking to the Agence France-Presse news agency before the ceremony began, Santos said he was not sure whether he could repeat his success with Colombia’s second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). “I cannot guarantee that we will finish before the end of my mandate … I will do my best but to establish a timeframe is always counterproductive in negotiations of this sort,” he said.

Another ceremony was planned in the Swedish capital of Stockholm later on Saturday to honor laureates in the fields of science, economics and literature.

This year’s literature laureate, Bob Dylan, declined to attend the ceremony. His decision is being seen as a slight by the Nobel Foundation, especially since the singer and poet only acknowledged the award two weeks after it had been announced. A member of the Nobel Academy called the behavior “impolite and arrogant.”

Swedish dailies also took to commenting on Dylan’s no-show, with the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper joking about his “pre-existing commitments” and asking, “But what is Bob Dylan doing instead of going to the Nobel ceremony?”
Dylan has sent a thank you note instead and singer-songwriter Patti Smith will sing his “A hard rain’s a-gonna fall” at the ceremony in Stockholm’s concert hall. The Nobel Foundation says his prize should be presented to him in person in 2017, either in Sweden or abroad.

Other Nobel laureates this year include Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom, who won the Nobel in economics for their contributions to contract theory. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, British scientist Fraser Stoddart and Dutch scientist Bernard Feringa, jointly won the Nobel in chemistry for their work on molecular machines.

David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz won the prize in physics for their research on superconductors and other unusual states of matter.

The Nobel in medicine this year goes to Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi for his work on autophagy, the “self-eating” process which lets a cell break down and recycle its contents.

(mg/jlw AFP, AP)

FOTO: Poppe, Cornelius / NTB scanpix

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos expressed his confidence that the Constitutional Court approves the use of the fast track, or mechanism in the Congress to apply and use of the peace legislations.

‘I hope that the next Monday the court gives its approval to the fast track procedure, to implement the agreement with the rebels of the FARC-EP as soon as possible,’ commented Santos in a press round in this capital Friday.

Santos arrived in Oslo, Norway Friday, to receive the Peace Nobel Prize of 2016, accompanied by a group of victims of the conflict in Colombia and other personalities that supported the dialogues with the FARC-EP, in a ceremony that will be held on Saturday.

At the start of his speech, President Santos reasserted that the pact with the FARC-EP was approved for the majority of the Colombian Parliament.

The FARC-EP members, Santos added, will be starting to move right to the zones of Colombia where the disarming process will begin.

After he knew he was the winner of the Peace Nobel Prize, President Santos dedicated the award to all those directly affected people by the war, which has left 300,000 dead, almost 7 million displaced and at least, 45,000 disappeared people in Colombia.

He promised to donate the 8 million Swedish crowns of the Nobel Prize (975,000 dollars) for the repair of the damages caused to victims of war and relatives.

Previous to the ceremony at the Oslo City Hall, where the delivery of the Nobel prize will be held, Santos will be receieved by King Harald V and Queen Sophia of Norway, at the Royal Palace.

Later, he will visit Sweden, Belgium, Spain and Italy.

In Italy, Santos will meet Pope Francis, someone who has encouraged Colombians to keep going for the search of peace and national reconciliation.

Rome – Following the historic peace accord with the FARC (the Revolutionary Amed Forces of Colombia), Colombia is pressing ahead in developing business activities.

It is placing a special focus on Italy, “a country of excellence, home to incredible entrepreneurs and engineers”.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday in Oslo. He will then continue his journey to Brussels, Madrid and Rome, arriving in the Eternal City on December 15.

Colombia’s new ambassador to Italy, Juan Mesa Zuleta, informed AGI about President Santos’ mission to Italy. “I arrived in Italy three months ago and have held meetings with over 100 entrepreneurs.

They are from all the Italian regions, and are interested in investing in Colombia. Italy has cutting-edge products and its entrepreneurs are interested in investing and networking at an international level,” said the ambassador.

President Santos’ three-day mission to Italy will include institutional meetings, talks with President Mattarella, a visit with Pope Francis, and a business forum with Italian entrepreneurs who see great potential in post-FARC Colombia.

“Currently, bilateral relations between Italy and Colombia are still limited, as trade accounts for 1.2 or 1.3 billion euro. Colombia exports fuels, mineral oils, coffee and bananas to Italy. Italy in turn exports to Colombia, above all, agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals, electrical materials and equipment. Italian enterprises have expressed a great interest in increasing trade, especially in the agricultural sector and the fashion and clothing industry.

Enterprises such as Enel, Impregilo, Salvini, Autostrade are the major stakeholders. Top Italian designers are coming to Colombia to utilise local labour forces. This is an industrial sector with great potential.” The market is actually very large. “Following the free trade agreement signed in 2012 and enforced in 2013 between the European Union, Peru and Colombia, custom taxes have been considerably reduced,” added the ambassador.

Colombia is a gateway to Latin America and Korea, thanks to the Pacific Alliance (the free trade area including Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile) and the recently enforced trade deal signed with South Korea. The Pacific Alliance area represents a market of 200 million people.

Colombia’s position is strategic, as it has coasts on both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. Its climate enables all-year-round farming.”. .

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, accompanied by 20 special guests, arrived today in this capital, where he will be awarded tomorrow the Nobel Peace Prize of 2016.

When leaving Colombia, Santos declared he will receive the award on behalf of all Colombians, but mainly in remembrance of the victims of the conflict that lasted more than 50 years.

The entourage of Santos, who arrived aboard a Colombian Air Force plane, is made up of about 30 people, including guests who are victims of the internal armed conflict, officials and family members.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says he has brought no members of the leftist FARC rebel group to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony because he doesn’t want to “create problems” for the Norwegian government.

Santos told reporters Friday that the rebels, with whom he recently reached a peace agreement, “will be here in heart and spirit.”

He said a Spanish lawyer that served as a chief negotiator for FARC would represent the rebels at the ceremony on Saturday.

After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the Colombian president will carry out a European tour of several days comprising Sweden, Spain, Belgium and Italy, where he will have an audience with Pope Francis.

In a snub to the rebels that also helped secure peace, the Colombian pop star Juanes was invited to the ceremony, but FARC representatives were not.

With a peace deal in hand, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will travel Thursday to the Norwegian capital Oslo to collect the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, but no one representing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, his partner in the effort to secure peace, will be joining him.

Olav Njolstad, head of the Nobel Institute, confirmed that the FARC will not be part of the events.

“No FARC representatives are among the guests,” Njolstad told AFP.

Santos is expected to take with him approximately 40 people, among them some of peace negotiators, as well as representatives of victims of the conflict. But the delegation doesn’t include anyone from the rebel group with which his government spent over four years negotiating the end of the five-decade-long conflict.

This is the second snub by the Nobel Committee, which opted to only recognize Santos and not the FARC with the prestigious prize, despite speculation that FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, better known by his alias Timoleon Jimenez or Timochenko, could be tapped to share the award with the president. In other occasions, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to multiple people, as was the case in 1994, in recognition of their joint effort to secure peace.

Colombian pop artist Juanes, however, will be in attendance, performing at the award ceremony on Saturday, when Santos will accept the prize. Although Juanes was a proponent of the peace deal with the FARC, he previously expressed support for the policies of former President Alvaro Uribe, the fiercest opponent of the peace process.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee surprised many when it announced that Santos would be awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with the FARC just days after the historic deal was narrowly defeated at the polls in a plebiscite on Oct. 2.

The Colombian president began peace talks with the FARC in 2012 in Havana. Four years later, the two parties reached an accord on five phases of talks to end a conflict that has killed some 260,000 people since it began in 1964.

A former defense minister of Uribe’s right-wing administration, Santos had overseen the conservative government’s military campaign against the rebel group.

Santos first kept up his army-led and U.S.-backed attacks on the FARC that included the killing of the FARC’s top leader, Alfonso Cano, and its military commander Mono Jojoy. But halfway through his first four-year term, Santos staked his reputation and political future on a new round of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

After the first deal was narrowly rejected by the Colombian public in a plebiscite, a revised deal was approved by Congress last month, avoiding another vote and launching the country toward the implementation phase.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos previously said he would donate the prize money he will receive as part of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize to victims of the internal conflict.

(telesurtv)