Finland’s former President and Nobel peace prize winner AHTISAARI dies at 86

 

Monday, October 16, 2023 – Finland’s former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari has died in Helsinki at the age of 86 after battling Alzheimer’s disease.

Ahtisaari was celebrated around the world for brokering peace in conflict zones in Kosovo, Indonesia and Northern Ireland. He refused to accept that wars and conflicts were inevitable.

“Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal,” Ahtisaari said when he accepted the Nobel award in 2008.

The former UN diplomat oversaw the 2005 reconciliation of the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, bringing an end to a three-decade conflict that killed some 15,000 people.

Ahtisaari also helped lead Kosovo down the path toward independence, even though his intense efforts failed to clinch an agreement with Serbia before Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Ahtisaari withdrew from public life in September 2021 as he struggled with Alzheimer’s disease.

“It is with deep sadness that we have received the news of the death of President Martti Ahtisaari,” the current president, Sauli Niinisto, said in a statement on Monday, October 16.

He was president in times of change, who piloted Finland into a global EU era.”

Niinistö described Ahtisaari in a televised speech as “a citizen of the world, a great Finn. A teacher, diplomat and head of state. A peace negotiator and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.”

He is survived by his wife, Eeva, and son, Marko, a tech entrepreneur and former head of design at Nokia.