Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos wins 2016 Nobel Peace Prize

FILE – In this Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2016 file photo Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos delivers a statement to the press after meeting with former President Alvaro Uribe and other opposition leaders at the presidential palace in Bogota, Colombia. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has won Nobel Peace Prize it was announced on Friday Oct. 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

OSLO—Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist rebels, a surprise choice after Colombians voted against the accord in a referendum.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Santos had brought one of the longest civil wars in modern history significantly closer to a peaceful solution but there was still a real danger the peace process could come to a halt.

“The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people,” committee leader Kaci Kullmann Five said. Voters did not say “No” to peace but to the agreement, she said.

The award pointedly excluded FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, who signed the accord with Santos.

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.”

Santos has promised to revive the peace plan even though Colombians narrowly rejected it in the referendum on Sunday. Many voters believed it was too lenient on the FARC guerrillas.

Santos, 65, is an unlikely peacemaker. The Harvard-educated scion of one of Colombia’s wealthiest families, as defense minister a decade ago he was responsible for some of the FARC rebels’ biggest military setbacks.

Under the peace deal he negotiated, rebels who turn over their weapons and confess to war crimes will be spared time in jail and the FARC will be reserved 10 seats in congress through 2026 to smooth their transition into a political movement.

Some Nobel watchers had taken Colombia off their lists of favorites after the referendum “No.” —The wires