Social media cries nonsense after Nobel Peace Prize goes to Colombian president | McClatchy Washington Bureau

The Nobel Peace Prize committee is again drawing criticism after awarding the world’s highest honor based on expectations and not necessarily achievement.

Recalling the 2009 award for President Barack Obama, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end a half-century of war – despite the Colombians’ rejection of the agreement he struck with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC.

In announcing the award, committee chair Kaci Kullmann Five said the group hopes Santos will not let the failed public referendum deter his work.

“The committee hopes that the peace prize will give him the strength to succeed in this demanding task,” she said. “Further, it is the committee’s hope that in the year’s to come, the Colombian people will reap the fruits of the reconciliation process.”

The award is likely to be added to the list of most controversial winners.

After the announcement, Santos sought to appear humble and deflected the praise he received from Latin American and world leaders. But online, as often happens, criticism is festering about whether the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its meaning.

The Nobel Peace Prize is meant to recognize significant impact, and not just good intentions, critics contend. Getting an “E for effort” doesn’t actually happen in real life.

“Always count on the Nobel Peace Prize to continue to be a strong argument for its own irrelevance,” author and Arab Spring activist Iyad El-Baghdadi wrote on Twitter Friday morning.

The decision is a reminder of the award given to Obama in 2009, less than a year into his first term in office, for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” That award was largely criticized as premature even by some Obama supporters, who said he should decline the award for not having the time to do what he had set to accomplish.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is no stranger to this kind of controversy. In 1973 U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was honored for his efforts to achieve a cease-fire in the Vietnam War, which dragged on for three more years. Two members resigned from the committee in protest.

The committee again sought to influence peace in 1994 when it honored Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who depending on your perspective was a freedom fighter or terrorist, along with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres as they sought peace in the Middle East. The accords collapsed.

The committee acknowledged that the failed referendum “created great uncertainty” about Colombia’s future. But it emphasized that the vote against the agreement was not a vote against peace, but a specific agreement.

“There is a real danger that the peace process will come to a halt and that civil war will flare up again,” the award said. “This makes it even more important that the parties, headed by President Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londoño, continue to respect the cease-fire.”