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Was a peace agreement ever possible in a country as complicated as Colombia?

Easy to imagine the president sizing up how that Nobel Prize would look on his mantelpiece. But the impact of the No vote will only become known in the fullness of time.

By Matt Kennard and Nick MacWilliam
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Flowers decorate the statue of Simon Bolivar In Bogota’s main square on Friday, Oct. 7, 2016 – the day Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Fernando Vergara/Press Association. All rights reserved.The shock registered everywhere.   

On October 2, Colombians rejected the government’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). To say it caught the government by surprise would be an understatement: foreign minister María Ángela Holguín said in the aftermath of the plebiscite result that ‘there is no Plan B’.

With President Juan Manuel Santos’ eggs all in the basket of the Colombian people ratifying the peace process – to the extent that a lavish signing ceremony had already taken place – a return to war now constitutes a real possibility.   

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0