Former Finland President Dies At 86

Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a renowned peace broker, has died at age 86 after battling Alzheimer’s disease.

Reports say the Social Democrat was president of Finland between 1994 and 2000.

According to the report, after a lengthy career that earned him a global reputation as a peace mediator and the Nobel Peace Prize, he retired from public life in September 2021 owing to dementia.

Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, paid tribute to his predecessor, who he said: “lived a great, remarkable life”.

“We have received the news of the death of President Martti Ahtisaari with deep sadness,” Niinistö said. “Martti Ahtisaari believed in people, civilization, and goodness, and he lived a great, remarkable life.”

Ahtisaari will receive a state funeral, with the date to be announced later, the Crisis Management Initiative he founded said.

He played a key role in negotiating peace on multiple continents, including agreements related to Namibia’s independence in the 1980s, Serbia’s withdrawal from Kosovo in the late 1990s, and autonomy for Aceh province in Indonesia in 2005.

When the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Ahtisaari in October 2008, it lauded “his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”.

“Peace is a question of will,” Ahtisaari said while accepting the award. “All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.”

Born on June 23, 1937, in Viipuri, which is now part of Russia, Ahtisaari began his career as a primary school teacher before joining Finland’s foreign ministry in 1965. As a diplomat, Ahtisaari served as ambassador to Tanzania, Zambia, Somalia, and the United Nations in New York.

After being named Namibia’s special representative by UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim in 1978, Ahtisaari helped secure the African country’s independence, for which he was granted honorary citizenship.

In 1994, Ahtisaari was elected as the 10th president of Finland as the country transitioned from an electoral college system to direct elections.

His international prominence peaked in 1999 when he negotiated the end of the conflict in Kosovo alongside Russia’s Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin.

During his time in office, he was a fervent advocate for Finland’s membership of the European Union and NATO, both of which the country eventually joined.

Al-Jazeera