http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/the-nobel-give-peace-a-chance-prize.html 2016-10-08 21:04:18 The Nobel ‘Give Peace a Chance’ Prize With its award to President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, the committee has wisely applied the founder’s bequest. === The history of second-guessing the Nobel Peace Prize is a rich one. The awards to Yasir Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Le Duc Tho (who refused to accept it), Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Barack Obama, among others, all caused a stir in their day. So is not surprising that the decision to give The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps its deliberations confidential. But it is abundantly evident from the names above and from the committee’s citations that the Nobel jurors have generally seen the prize not only as a recognition of achievement, but also as encouragement and endorsement of ongoing actions — even if that means implicit criticism of the alternatives. Mr. Carter, for example, was awarded the peace prize in 2002 just as President George W. Bush was preparing to go to war with Iraq; the award to Mr. Obama, a scant nine months after he took office as president, was clearly intended to strengthen the new leader’s political hand. It may be that the Nobel committee at first presumed, like most everyone else, that the plebiscite on Oct. 2 would uphold the peace agreement that President Santos had reached after long and arduous negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a leftist guerrilla group. But the language of the announcement made clear the committee was fully aware of the narrow defeat of the agreement in the referendum last Sunday and the danger this posed of resumed civil warfare, and it was unambiguous in declaring that the award was intended to “encourage all those who are striving to achieve peace, reconciliation and justice in Colombia.” The referendum, the committee noted, was against specific elements of the peace agreement, and not against peace. However imperfect, and however unsatisfactory to the many victims of the 52-year insurgency, the agreement was an extraordinary achievement for both sides, and especially for Mr. Santos. As defense minister from 2006 to 2009, he presided over major strikes against the FARC, but on becoming president in 2010 he launched the peace process to end the war. Whether the Peace Prize can help breathe life into the peace efforts remains to be seen. But there is no question that Alfred Nobel’s bequest has been wisely applied.