Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be the 97th prize winner when he receives the world’s most prestigious peace prize in Oslo City Hall today.
The solemn award ceremony happens traditionally on December 10th on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
Oslo City Hall has been decorated for the occasion with well over 10,000 carnations and roses from Colombia, and the royal couple, the Crown Prince
and Princess, members of parliament and government and other dignitaries will be present.
The ceremony started precisely at 13.00, with a musical performance. Then the committee deputy, Berit Reiss-Andersen will climb the rostrum to present the prestigious gold medal, and handwritten diploma to the laureate.
Committee Chairman, Kaci Kullmann Five, has signed a declination to this year’s ceremony due to illness.
Thereafter, Santos will hold his Nobel lecture, the ceremony’s highlight.
A gift from heaven
Santos received the prize for his efforts to achieve a peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas in Colombia. The agreement put an end to 50 years of civil war.
During a press conference on Friday afternoon, Santos said that the Peace Prize award came as ‘a gift from heaven’ in a very difficult stage of the process.
Only four days before the announcement, the Colombian people said no to the negotiated agreement, and the whole process could have collapsed.
‘It came as if it was sent from heaven, and gave us the push we needed. It was a great help to me, the negotiators and the Colombian people’, said a humble and happy President Santos.
The announcement of the Nobel Committee stated that the award is also to be understood as a tribute to the Colombian people and to the civil war’s countless victims.
Santos has already announced that the 7.5 million in prize money he receiveswill go to victims of the conflict.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
