Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to end a five-decades-long civil war with a guerrilla group that killed more than 200,000 people in the South American country, served as president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018.

Known as a tenacious negotiator, Santos said, “The big challenge in the 140 conflicts currently in the world is that leaders need to sit down and talk in very constructive ways.”

Titled “The Power of Long-View Leadership,” the event included opening remarks from Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), as well as a brief response followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Héctor Hoyos, director of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Díaz-Cayeros said, “This discussion is especially timely and vital today as we confront global challenges – not only here in the United States but throughout the hemisphere and around the world – that demand both moral courage and a strategic vision.”

Listening, talking

In November 2024, Santos was appointed Chair of The Elders, the organization founded by Nelson Mandela to advocate for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet.

In his address, Santos explained the process of bringing the guerrilla group – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or “FARC” — to the peace negotiating table. A meeting in the late 1990s with Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, was particularly inspirational.

“He taught me why that program (in South Africa) to bring victims and perpetrators together to reconcile for the future was so important,” said Santos, who described it as the most interesting conversation he’s ever had about peacemaking.

So, he started studying peace processes all around the world — the ones that were successful, the ones that failed, and the ones that still held out hope. Gradually, he identified the conditions that were necessary to begin an authentic peace process with the FARC.

“What had my predecessors done wrong? What could I bring from other examples around the world?” He came to understand that three key conditions existed in the Colombian dynamic.

“As long as the guerrillas think that they will win through violence,” Santos said, “they will never sit down in good faith. They have to be convinced that they will never achieve power through violence. Second, the leaders of the guerrillas themselves personally have to be involved in the negotiations.”

Finally, he said, Colombia’s neighbors needed to support the peace process, or the guerrillas would always use those neighbors as safeguards and not commit to the peace process.

Santos brought on advisors who had successfully negotiated peace deals in other global hotspots. Some of the advice was especially sage.

“I was told to treat the FARC not as our enemies but as our adversaries. Enemies you eliminate. Adversaries you beat.” So, he instructed his military to make policy changes and to be conscious of all their actions, which they would live with forever.

“Treat them (FARC members) as human beings,” Santos said. “They have mothers, they have fathers, so while you fight with them, understand that they're human beings. So, I changed the whole military doctrine.”

A 2016 national referendum in Colombia rejected the peace deal by a narrow margin. Since then, the government and FARC have largely upheld the ceasefire and called for a broader national dialogue to continue the peace process.

Today, Santos is concerned that the gains from Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC are unraveling. “The difficult path in every peace process is how to reconcile in order to have peace in the long run.”
 

Humanity’s clock ticks

In January, Santos was invited to deliver an address at the annual unveiling of the Doomsday Clock’s time, which is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He noted that the only criteria that existed through the 1990s was the possibility of nuclear war. Now, existential threats to humanity’s fate have rapidly expanded, including climate change, AI, pandemics, and biological threats.

At 89 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its 77-year history, Santos said. The clock speaks to the threats that confound and confront us — and the need for cooperation, unity, and bold leadership to turn back its hands.

Unfortunately, what is happening around the world reflects the contrary, Santos said. The multilateral system, the respect for the rule of law, and the respect for protocols are all under attack.

Long-term leadership that makes decisions — not according to the next election, but according to the well-being of future generations — is what the world truly needs, Santos noted.

“How can we do what we did in Colombia on the world stage? That is the great challenge, and that’s when dialogue is imperative,” he said.
 

Instead of competing amongst each other to see who wins this or who wins that, Santos urged that “world leaders need to sit down and talk about how to work together to avoid nuclear war, control climate change, regulate AI, and more.”

“Every second counts,” he concluded.

Student and community engagement

Following the lecture, Professor Héctor Hoyos praised Santos for his unwavering commitment to education, both as President and throughout his career. Reflecting on a personal experience, Hoyos shared a formative moment from his own childhood, when he received a letter from then-Secretary of Education Santos, recognizing him as one of Colombia's most promising young students. "I want to thank you publicly for that gesture, which went a long way," Hoyos said of the experience that inspired him to pursue the scholarly path he follows today.

The lecture also sparked lively engagement among students, many of whom lined up to ask thoughtful questions about applying Santos’ insights to current global challenges. Their inquiries reflected a desire to connect lessons from Colombia’s peace process to diverse contexts around the world. Santos, practicing the very principles of dialogue he had emphasized, listened attentively, responded thoughtfully, and demonstrated a genuine willingness to engage in a constructive exchange of ideas.

After the event, Santos joined more than twenty students from the Graduate School of Business and other programs for a lunch, where discussions continued on leadership, peacebuilding, and the importance of dialogue in addressing contemporary issues.

President Petro, an economist by training who specializes in environmental and population development, said, “We have an economic system that links cheap labor, carbon-based fuels, and profits” and “we’re facing a very serious global political problem — the problems of World War II, the Cold War are nothing compared to what we’re facing now.”

Humankind, Petro said, must “join together in a revolution against capital.” He called for more “power to the people” and that all states around the world operate in a multilateral approach to address ways to alleviate the climate crisis.

“The markets will not fix the climate crisis and save humanity,” and a new type of economy, one that’s not driven by carbon-based profits but by the general welfare of all people, must emerge to ensure the survival of future generations.

He said the origins of the crisis began with the current Anthropocene Era, which describes the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems. The “greedy and never-ending consumption of products related to fossil fuel energy” has landed humanity in its current predicament.

“We, the consumers, are the guilty and the ones to blame,” Petro said.

The Colombian president said that fossil fuels are used to maximize profits and that the climate crisis is the logical result of the accumulation of capital in the hands of a few.

And on top of this, he added, the political and economic establishments haven’t historically listened to the science about what happens when carbon is issued into the atmosphere and the social imbalance that follows. He expressed doubt that the current system of capitalism can achieve environmental progress based on the current data he observes.

“To leave markets with free reign will not lead to the maximum well-being of all, but virtually to extinction,” he said.

He concluded, “We are running out of time.”

On April 20, President Joe Biden will host President Petro for a bilateral meeting at the White House to discuss topics such as climate change, and economic and security cooperation.

Petro won Colombia’s presidential election in June 2022 with the support of voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence. He has vowed to bring peace to his nation of 50 million after decades of conflict. Time magazine recently named him one of the “100 Most Influential People of 2023.”

Under Petro, Colombia earlier this year announced that it will not approve any new oil and gas exploration projects as it seeks to shift away from fossil fuels and toward a new sustainable economy.

Student-driven event

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), affiliated faculty at CDDRL, and director of Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies, participated in a questions-and-answers session with the audience and Petro after the president’s address. Michael McFaul, director of FSI, and Kathyrn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, both introduced Petro before his remarks.

In an email interview, Díaz-Cayeros explained that Colombia has weathered a four-decades-long civil war. Now, Petro will manage various high-stakes issues in his country, including an ambitious overhaul of the health system, a restart of the peace process, and the role of the mining and oil industries, among others.

“This visit is important as Stanford considers its engagement with Latin America and our hemisphere,” said Díaz-Cayeros, adding that it can refocus attention to a region of the world that is fundamentally important for California, the U.S.,  Stanford, and even Silicon Valley.

Héctor Hoyos, Professor and Director of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, and Professor of Comparative Literature (by courtesy), added that “it was great to see Stanford students come together to engage with an influential figure for hemispheric politics." Hoyos went on to note that civility and openness to different points of view were hallmarks of the event, which also included Bay Area community members.

Tara Hein, ‘23, CDDRL honors student and co-founder & co-president of the Stanford Society for Latin American Politics, led the student-driven effort to host the Colombian president.

Born and raised in Costa Rica, Hein was inspired to host Petro due to her goals of strengthening democracy, realizing the promise of political equality in Latin America, and connecting Stanford's expertise to the world beyond campus. “This can make life better for millions,” she said.

Highlighting the need to bridge academia and policy, Hein explained, “At Stanford, we’re tremendously privileged to have leading scholars and abundant resources to tackle the world’s most pressing issues. But if these learnings stay here on campus, or within intellectual circles, the impact will remain limited. We must not forget that there are real people being affected by the very events that we research and study.”

By inviting Colombia’s president to Stanford, her student community hopes to spark a larger dialogue between academic spaces such as CDDRL and democratic world leaders like Petro, she said.