© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

KU Graduate, Colombia’s President, Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Ministerio TIC Colombia
/
flickr Creative Commons
Juan Manuel Santos.

A graduate of the University of Kansas has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia, was honored for his efforts to reach a peace agreement with the FARC rebels in his South American country. During a visit to KU in 2012, Santos credited his time at the university with teaching him some important lessons about America’s values.

“Your commitment to democratic values, principles like freedom, defense of human rights, and that is something that I learned to value here at the University of Kansas,” Santos said.

The award comes almost a week after Colombians narrowly rejected a peace agreement with the left-wing rebel group the FARC. Santos says they are still very close to a lasting peace agreement and he hopes the award will help end the decades-long conflict.

“The message is that we have to persevere until we reach the end of this war," he says. "We are very, very close. We just need to push a bit further to persevere."

Stephen Koranda is the managing editor of the Kansas News Service, based at KCUR. He has nearly 20 years of experience in public media as a reporter and editor.