AFP - In the absence of
rock icon Bob Dylan, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be the star of
Saturday's Nobel ceremonies when he receives his Peace
Prize in Oslo, crowning
an achievement that came close to failing at the finish line.
After a first peace
deal rejected by the Colombian people, Santos's government and the Marxist FARC
rebels renegotiated a new peace accord that was signed on November 24 to end a
five-decade conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people, left 45,000
missing and forced nearly seven million to flee their homes.
"Something that
was for many Colombians and for many Latin-Americans and for the world an
impossible dream just a few years ago is now reality," Santos told
reporters in the Norwegian capital on the eve of the prize ceremony.
The peace process
had suffered a major setback on October 2 when Colombians narrowly rejected a
first peace accord in a referendum.
While the
"no" vote appeared to send Santos's chances of winning the Nobel up
in smoke, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stunned world watchers five days later
by awarding him the prize, arguing that Colombians had rejected the peace deal
but not peace itself.
"It shows that
peace is not made in one day," Berit Reiss-Andersen, deputy chairwoman of
the Nobel committee, said on Friday.
The 65-year-old
laureate called the prize a "gift from heaven" that gave a
"tremendous push" to reach a new agreement with FARC.
"People in
Colombia interpreted it as a mandate from the international community to
persevere, to continue striving to achieve a peace agreement," Santos
said.
"It encouraged
me, it encouraged our negotiators, but particularly it encouraged the Colombian
people to press" for a new deal, he said.
The peace deal,
amended to include proposals from the opposition, calls for the rebels'
disarmament and FARC's transformation into a political movement.
The Peace Prize will
be presented early on Saturday afternoon at Oslo's City Hall at a ceremony
attended by the royal family, members of the Norwegian government,
representatives of victims of the conflict, and two high-profile former FARC
hostages, Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas.
The Nobel prize
consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a cheque for eight million Swedish
kronor (824,000 euros, $871,000), a sum Santos promised to donate to the
victims of the war.
- Dylan's snub -
Later on Saturday,
another ceremony will be held in Stockholm where the Nobel laureates in the
sciences, economics and literature will be honoured -- a ceremony marked by the
notable absence of this year's literature laureate, Bob Dylan.
The first songwriter
to win the prestigious award, he has declined to attend the glittering ceremony
due to "pre-existing commitments".
The no-show has
created a stir in Sweden, where it has been perceived as a slight towards the
Swedish Academy that awards the literature prize and the Nobel Foundation.
Announced as the
winner on October 14, Dylan waited almost two weeks to publicly acknowledge the
accolade, a silence one Academy member termed "impolite and
arrogant".
Dylan did ultimately
say he was honoured to win, but then informed the Academy in mid-November that
he would not be travelling to Stockholm to accept his prize.
"A slap in the
face," remarked editorialist Lena Mellin at one of Sweden's biggest
dailies, Aftonbladet.
"Anyone who has
ever received a prize, even if it's just for being the best neighbour in the
apartment building, knows that the least one can do is go and accept it,"
she wrote.
On social media,
opinions were mixed
"If it were me,
I would probably... collect a Nobel Prize and $900,000. But it's Bob, and
that's part of what makes him Bob," wrote fan Evan Sarzin on the singer's
Facebook page.
"He is 75, give
him a break," argued another, Karen Lunebach.
"But what is
Bob Dylan doing instead of going to the Nobel ceremony," asked daily
Svenska Dagbladet on Friday, joking about his "pre-existing
commitments" even though no concert was scheduled for Saturday.
The singer-songwriter
has sent a thank-you speech to be read at the gala banquet at Stockholm's City
Hall, attended by around 1,300 guests and the Swedish royal family.
And just before
that, American rock star Patti Smith will sing Dylan's "A Hard Rain's
A-Gonna Fall" during the formal prize ceremony at Stockholm's Concert
Hall.
According to the
Nobel Foundation, his prize should be presented to him in person sometime in
2017, either in Sweden or abroad.
AFP
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