Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for his determination to end a civil war that killed over 200,000 residents of his country.
“I receive this with great emotion,” Santos said in an audio post on Facebook account. “I am eternally grateful.”
“I receive this award in their name: the Colombian people who have suffered so much in this war,” Santos continued. “Especially the millions of victims that have suffered in this war that we are on the verge of ending.”
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Santos, 65, went to Harvard and the Associated Press called him an “unlikely peacemaker” because of his mishaps as the country’s defense minister.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia leader Rodrigo Londono and Santos signed a peace deal last month to end a half-century of hostility, but the agreement was voted down six days later.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee did not honor Londono with an award. The Committee said it believes that Santos, “despite the ‘No’ majority vote in the referendum, has brought the bloody conflict significantly closer to a peaceful solution,” according to the AP.
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize winners have consisted of five different types of winners: dissidents, peacemakers, institutions, statesmen and grassroots activists.
Watch the Associated Press video on the history of the Nobel Peace Prize above.
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