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BOGOTA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos opened the 16th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates on Thursday by urging the world to unite as one people and one race to allow humanity to reach peace.
Santos called for "a radical change of paradigm: to go from fear, exclusion and separation to love, compassion and unity...We must work for truth, justice, and from the heart to defeat fear and make ... hope a reality."
The Colombian president won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to his country, marked by an important peace agreement with his country's largest rebel group -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Santos said the world is undergoing a difficult time and urged the ruling classes to promote values such as love and compassion.
"Faced with terrorism, war, racial or religious fights, discrimination, the refugee crisis and the growing rejection of migrants....faced with a discourse of hate and exclusion which conquer terrified hearts...what can we say to humanity?" he said.
Some of the laureates said Colombia deserved to host this summit as it has ended a long armed conflict, setting an example for the world.
Jose Ramos Horta, who received the 1996 Nobel Peace Price for his fight against Indonesia's invasion of Timor-Leste, said that the path to peace is long and difficult, but ends up bringing a better quality of life to all citizens.
Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni journalist and the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, praised the victims of the Colombian civil war and called them the true heroes of the peace process.
Oscar Arias, Costa Rica's former president who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his participation in Central American peace processes, said the planet is facing both a rise in xenophobia and extremism and successful processes such as those in Colombia.
"I am certain all of us are waiting to see what will happen in ...the USA, a country where insensitivity, xenophobia and hate have grown in a startling way, a country where exclusion and trade protectionism have reached the heart of government," said Arias.
The major absentees from this summit are former U.S. President Barack Obama, who won in 2009, and former head of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, who won in 1990 and founded this international gathering.
