Juan Manuel Santos
President of Colombia 2010–2018, Nobel Peace Prize 2016
Born 1951
Photo: File:Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Juan Manuel Santos.jpg: Image Luiz Inacio Lul · CC BY 3.0 br
«The war in Colombia is over. Now we must build peace, which is much harder.»
Juan Manuel Santos negotiated the peace agreement that ended more than fifty years of civil war between the Colombian state and the FARC guerrillas. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, days after voters narrowly rejected the deal in a referendum.
Key achievements
- Nobel Peace Prize, 2016, for ending Colombia's civil war
- President of Colombia, 2010–2018
- Signed the peace accord with the FARC after four years of talks
Universities
London, Holborn
Took a master's degree in economics and later studied public administration, returning to LSE for further study in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Took a master's in public administration at the Kennedy School.
Facts
- He had been defence minister and was known as a hardliner before becoming the president who negotiated with the guerrillas.
- After the referendum defeat he renegotiated the agreement and had it approved by congress instead.
- He said he would give the Nobel Prize money to the victims of the conflict, and did.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.