Hours after he was declared the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari told FRANCE 24 that his early childhood experiences, shortly after World War II, played a critical role in shaping his career as a diplomat and peace negotiator.
Born in the city of Viipuri – today known as Vyborg – in 1937, Ahtisaari and his family were forced to flee shortly after the war, when Soviet troops annexed the region.
“I’m an eternally displaced person myself,” he told FRANCE 24 in a phone interview from Helsinki. “When the Soviet Union attacked, I and 400,000 other (Finnish) nationals had to move to the rest of Finland. That experience explains my sensitivity for peace issues and the will to help those who have gone through similar events.”
Negotiating peace across three continents
The 71-year-old Finn spent 30 years negotiating peace agreements across three continents in troubled areas ranging from Namibia, to Indonesia and Kosovo.
“The most important experience for me may be Namibia, because it’s the longest experience in my career, from 1977 to 1990,” said Ahtisaari, who was UN special envoy in the Namibia, helping guide the country to independence. “It was my first effort in peace mediation.”
The Nobel laureate and former UN negotiator also oversaw the 2005 reconciliation between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement rebels, a 30-year-long conflict in which 15,000 people were killed.
“In Indonesia it was a totally new experience. I wasn’t running negotiations as a UN employee, because the Indonesian government didn’t want to internationalize the issue, but at the head of a Finnish NGO. And we took the initiative,” Ahtisaari told FRANCE 24.
A return to traditional values of the peace prize
In 2005, Ahtisaari was appointed UN special envoy for talks on the final status of the Serbian province of Kosovo. After failing to clinch a deal between Serbia and the breakaway province, Ahtisaari turned into the chief architect of a European Union-backed plan for Kosovo's independence from Serbia.
“Kosovo was a UN-led mission. I hope that the peace prize will lead more countries to recognize its independence,” said Ahtisaari. “I was very impressed by the clear line and strong support I received from France on Kosovo. It was vital for the final success even if Russia declined to recognize Kosovo’s independence.”
A longtime candidate on the list of potential Nobel Peace Prize winners, Ahtisaari said his selection probably reflected a return to the core values of the prize. Last year, former US Vice President Al Gore bagged the prize for his work on global warming.
“My name has indeed been up and has been proposed to the committee for a number of years. Perhaps the reason I received it this year is that the committee decided to give the prize to a more traditional peace mediator, which they haven’t done for some time. Therefore my name came up.”