Nobel Peace Prize Committee awards Colombian president as Bogotá locals cry on the streets

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee have once again outdone themselves with yet another baffling choice of winner of this year’s prize; Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos who this Sunday failed reach a peaceful agreement with the left wing guerilla FARC which would have marked the end to a 52-year-long conflict. The rebel war has through the years resulted in the deaths of 260.000 people.

In the past we have seen the EU and Barack Obama receive the prize without really understanding why they deserved it, and now the trend continues. However, this year’s decision is even more shocking seeing as Santos is being rewarded for his political failure. The referendum was expected to come through with the opposite result by most pollsters, but the reality was a ridiculously low turnout and a 50.2 – 49.8 result in favour of not signing the peace deal.

22-year-old Journalism student Fran Wendt Hojer lives in Bogotá and described students crying in the street after the results came in. “The first thing people asked each other in class on Monday morning was: ‘Did you vote?’ because the turnout was so incredibly low! This is the only thing people have been talking about all week. Some of the biggest universities in Bogotá organised a march against the result attended by thousands of people and there were candles and white flowers everywhere, but despite all of this there is a general air of hopelessness and many students say they want to leave the country.”

Fran continues to explain that although former president and peace deal opposer Álvaro Uribe is in talks with Santos about an alternative, many on the Colombian left do not trust Uribe and Fran has met very few people who actually expect something to come out of it as FARC are unlikely to accept harsher punishments.

It will be interesting to see who the peace prize committee decides on next year. Trump, perhaps?