Question: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 will be given to which personality or institution?
a) Juan Manuel Santos
b) National Dialogue Quartet
c) Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
d) European Union (EU)
Ans: (a)
Related facts:
- On 7th October, 2016 The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
- He awarded for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.
- The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process.
- President Santos initiated the negotiations that culminated in the peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas (leader- Rodrigo Londoño) and he has consistently sought to move the peace process forward.
- The civil war in Colombia is one of the longest civil wars in modern times and the sole remaining armed conflict in the Americas.
About ceasefire agreement- - On 23 June, 2016 the Colombian government and country’s rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have signed ceasefire agreement to end of one of the world’s oldest wars which led to a more than 50 years of bloodshed.
- Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and Farc commander Timoleon Jimenez signed the agreement in Cuba.
- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will disarm within six months under the supervision of United Nations.
- It is the longest running civil war in Latin American countries.
- About 7000 FARC Soldier will be demobilize, who have bases in the mountains and forests.
- Although, the Voters in Colombia’s referendum have narrowly rejected a peace accord between the government and the Marxist group, FARC.
- President Juan Manuel Santos, who had promoted the “yes” campaign, said after results were announced that the bilateral ceasefire with FARC “is still in effect and should continue to be in effect. I won’t give up. I’ll continue to search for peace until the last moment of my mandate”.
About Nobel Peace Prize- - The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 97 times to 130 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2016, 104 individuals and 26 organizations.
- Since the International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times (in 1954 and 1981), there are 23 individual organizations which have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- It is to be noted that the the prize was established by the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel in 1895.
- The prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901.
- The related Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was established by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.
Reference:
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2016/press.html
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/index.htm