BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end Latin America's longest-running armed conflict.
The honor came just five days after voters dealt him a stunning blow by rejecting a peace deal with leftist rebels.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Santos for his "resolute" attempts to stop a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 Colombians and displaced millions since the 1960s. But in a departure from its tradition of honoring both sides of a peace process, the five-member committee conspicuously left out Santos' counterpart, rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, from the honor.
Santos, 65, dedicated the prize to his fellow Colombians, especially victims of the bloody conflict, and said it redoubles his commitment to ending hostilities, something he said he would work toward for the rest of his life.
"I invite everyone to bring together our strength, our minds and our hearts in this great national endeavor so that we can win the most important prize of all: peace in Colombia," Santos said alongside his wife in his first public appearance since winning the Nobel.
"This is very important event for my country, for the victims of this war," continued Santos, who was elected in 2010. "This a great push. We're on the verge of ending this war."
Santos and Londono -- leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- signed a peace deal last month to end the conflict after more than four years of negotiations in Cuba.
But on Sunday, voters rejected the deal by the narrowest of margins -- less than half a percentage point -- over concerns that the rebels, who are widely despised by Colombians for committing scores of atrocities, were getting a sweetheart deal. Turnout was less than 40 percent of eligible voters.
Under the accord, rebels who turn over their weapons and confess their crimes would be spared jail, and the rebel group would be reserved seats in Congress to help smooth its transition to a political movement.
"The referendum was not a vote for or against peace," the Nobel committee said Friday, insisting the peace process wasn't dead. "What the 'No' side rejected was not the desire for peace, but a specific peace agreement."
Santos, the Harvard-educated descendant of one of Colombia's wealthiest families, is an unlikely peacemaker. As defense minister a decade ago, he was responsible for some of the biggest military setbacks for the rebels. Those included a 2008 cross-border raid into Ecuador that took out a top rebel commander and the stealth rescue of three Americans held captive by the rebels for more than five years.
Nobel committee secretary Olav Njoelstad said there was "broad consensus" on picking Santos as this year's laureate -- the first time the peace prize has gone to Latin America since 1992, when Guatemalan indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu won. It is Colombia's second Nobel honor after beloved novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the prize for literature in 1982.
Rebel leader Londono reacted to the award on Twitter by saying "the only prize to which we aspire" is one of social justice for Colombia, without far-right militias, retaliation or lies. He later congratulated Santos, as well as Cuba, Norway, Venezuela and Chile, which helped facilitate the talks.
The guerrilla leader was never considered as strong a candidate for the award as Santos. Like other guerrilla commanders, he is wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges and leads a rebel army that the United States and Colombian governments consider a "terrorist" organization.
Londono has been a visible presence at the talks in Havana only since last year, and negotiators say he typically prefers to delegate responsibilities to his negotiating team.
Santos also was congratulated by former President Alvaro Uribe, whose U.S.-backed military offensive is widely credited with forcing the rebel group into negotiations. Uribe, a hard-line conservative, led the "No" campaign against the peace deal.
"I hope it leads to a change in the accords that are damaging for our democracy," he said on Twitter about the prize.
The pursuit of a peace deal with the guerrillas "was a deeply personal conviction for him," said Pilar Calderon, who worked closely with Santos as his communications director for two years, until April.
She said the award was a recognition of "his tireless effort, that hasn't stopped even in the moments of greatest uncertainty," including the stunning defeat of the accord Sunday at the polls.
Calderon said she expected that some in the deeply polarized country will say Santos' long campaign for a pact with the rebels was motivated by personal "vanity" and a kind of prize-chasing.
"They're wrong," she said. "He did it because he knows that the only way for Colombia to move forward is with peace."
The award is likely to give new momentum to the peace process, putting pressure on Uribe to rally behind a solution and encouraging the rebel group to show greater flexibility after initially dismissing the referendum's results as legally irrelevant.
In Bogota, 20 activists who were camped out since Wednesday in front of Colombia's Congress to demand the peace deal not be scuttled, shouted: "Peace deal now!" and "Colombia wants peace!"
"This is a big help, but we're not leaving until there's peace," said Juliana Bohorquez, a 31-year-old artist, upon being awakened before dawn with the news.
In Cuba, rebel and government negotiators committed themselves to listening to the deal's critics even while inviting the U.N. and Latin American governments to send observers to begin implementing security protocols contained in the accord so that a cease-fire in place for weeks doesn't unravel during the impasse.
"Today we've heard the voice of the world. Now it's time to hear the clamor of all Colombians," chief government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said. "Peace is coming. We can't impede its march."
The rebels' chief negotiator Ivan Marquez was equally emphatic.
"We're not going to destroy what we've designed and that has received so much international praise," he said.
Awarding Santos alone contrasted with the Nobel committee's tradition of honoring both sides in a peace process, as it did in 1994 for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord and in 1998 for peace talks in Northern Ireland.
colombia's future
The committee recognized that the referendum result had "created great uncertainty" about Colombia's future.
"There is a real danger that the peace process will come to a halt and that civil war will flare up again," it said. "This makes it even more important that the parties, headed by President Santos and .... guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono, continue to respect the cease-fire. ... We hope it will encourage all good initiatives and all the parties who could make a difference in this process in Colombia."
The future of the efforts is in flux. Ordinary rebel fighters already have spent months preparing to lay down their arms and rejoin their families.Absent any breakthroughs, a June cease-fire will expire Oct. 31.
Kaci Kullmann Five, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said the prize should be seen as encouragement to the rebel group as well.
Information for this article was contributed by Joshua Goodman, Karl Ritter and Mark Lewis of The Associated Press and by Michael Birnbaum, Nick Miroff and Annabell Van den Berghe of The Washington Post.
A Section on 10/08/2016