Former President of Columbia Teaches in the Keough School

“Peace is a great and precious value, the object of our hope, and the aspiration of the entire human family,” said Pope Francis in his 2020 World Day of Peace message. “Hope is thus the virtue that inspires us and keeps us moving forward, even when obstacles seem insurmountable.” 

Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia, knows that desire for peace well. While in office, he helped his country sign the historic 2016 Colombian peace agreement that ended his country’s 52-year armed conflict between the Colombian government and Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). For his role in that peacebuilding process, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

This fall, Santos came to Notre Dame as a distinguished senior policy fellow of the Keough School to share his perspective on war, peace, and leadership. During his weeklong visit, Santos co-taught a master’s-level course titled From Colombia to Global Peacebuilding, and guest lectured in an undergraduate global affairs course. He met with Keough School faculty and students, President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and the Keough School’s advisory council. He also offered the 29th annual Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy.

“Building peace is much harder than making war,” Santos said in his speech. “I made a tremendous effort to treat my enemies as human

 beings, to call them not enemies but adversaries. Enemies, you eliminate, but adversaries—you defeat them but have to live with them for the rest of your life, earn their respect, and protect their human rights.”

 

Santos also touched on other subjects like drug trafficking and the environment, and noted that open-mindedness and a willingness to change were critical to his effective leadership. He spoke directly to Notre Dame students and encouraged them to do the same:

“Be successful in making a difference, in creating a more inclusive, tolerant, and loving world, even if that means changing your course,” Santos said. “Let it be said about you that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.”

Santos is the third Nobel laureate to offer this annual lecture, a signature event of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Santos and Notre Dame have a long history. As part of the 2016 peace agreement, Notre Dame assumed responsibility for technical verification and monitoring of the implementation of the process using the Peace Accords Matrix Barometer Initiative. This marked the first time a university research center played an essential role in the implementation of a peace agreement. In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Santos cited the Kroc Institute’s role and research.

Santos is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Cartagena and the University of Kansas, and also conducted postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and as a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University.