Martti Ahtisaari 1937—2023
Photo: Tuukka Koski
Martti Ahtisaari 1937 – 2023
Martti Ahtisaari, President, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the CMI, has died on the 16th of October 2023. Martti Ahtisaari was 86 years old. He was born in Vyborg on 23 June 1937.
In many ways, his life was marked by emigration. He made his first evacuation at the age of two, from Viipuri near Savonlinna during the Winter War, from where the family later moved to Kuopio and later to Oulu. Ahtisaari graduated as a school teacher from the Oulu Teacher Training Institute in 1959. However, his curiosity and interest led him to travel the world. When, after a year on the job, the newly graduated teacher was offered a permanent position, he opted to go to Pakistan to work in development cooperation. In 1960, the only destinations from Oulu were Sweden, some people went to America, but seldom to Pakistan.
After three years in Pakistan, Ahtisaari returned to his studies in Helsinki and became involved in the activities of international student organisations, including as the executive director of Students’s International Relief (YKA ). He continued to follow international politics actively: at weekends, he bought the Observer magazine from a newsstand at Helsinki’s railway station and regularly listened to the BBC World Service on the radio. Eeva Hyvärinen, a history graduate, was impressed by this, and she and Martti soon became engaged . They married in 1968, and their son Marko was born the following year.
Ahtisaari’s career in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs began in the mid-1960s at the new development cooperation department headed by Jaakko Iloniemi. In 1973, the 36-year-old Ahtisaari was appointed Finland’s ambassador to Tanzania, and the Ahtisaari family moved to Dar es Salaam. During his time there, Ahtisaari became familiar with the whole African continent, its liberation movements and its leaders. Although the temperature outside Dar es Salaam was often close to that of a sauna, the sauna in the official residence was a favourite relaxation ritual for Ahtisaari. Presidents and politicians from all over the world visited the sauna.
From Tanzania, the Ahtisaari family moved to New York in late 1976, when Ahtisaari became the UN High Commissioner for Namibia and later the UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim’s Special Representative to Namibia. During his years in New York, Ahtisaari became a respected UN official and international diplomat. In 1987, Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuellar appointed him Under-Secretary-General in charge of administrative and economic affairs at the UN while continuing his work on Namibia. Thanks to his and the UN’s determined efforts, Namibia gained independence in 1990. Martti and Eeva Ahtisaari became honorary citizens of Namibia in 1992.
He returned to Finland in 1991 and served as State Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In 1994, he became the first President of Finland to be elected by direct popular vote. During his presidency, from 1994 to 2000, Finland joined the European Union and halved the unemployment rate amidst the recession.
Following his presidential term, his focus returned to conflict prevention and peace mediation.
Ahtisaari had extraordinary powers of personal resilience. He saw opportunities in situations that seemed to be completely unyielding. The Aceh and Kosovo negotiations are examples of this. In 2005, he led the peace talks between the separatists in Aceh province and the Indonesian government, brokered by CMI. After seven months of negotiations, a peace agreement ending a nearly 30-year conflict was signed in Helsinki in August 2005.
In late 2005, Ahtisaari was appointed Special Envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead negotiations on the status of Kosovo. The negotiations continued until March 2007, when Ahtisaari submitted his plan for Kosovo’s future to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Kosovo eventually declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
In 2008, Ahtisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifetime achievements. He was one of the world’s most successful peace mediators of all time. His work will remain part of national history in many countries. Ahtisaari remains one of the best-known Finns worldwide.
One of his lasting achievements was the establishment of his own peace mediation organisation, CMI, in 2000. He was the heart and soul of the organisation, a wise advisor and a role model for justice. He was also a strong advocate of equality, Nordic values, bilingualism and education.
Ahtisaari was driven by a strong vision that all conflicts can be resolved. Addressing the root causes of conflict was therefore close to his heart – that no one should have to flee because of war. He knew from experience that no one leaves home unless they are forced to, which is why you have to keep working for peace.
Martti Ahtisaari knew how to read people and situations, and he was adept at anticipating what lay ahead. His vision was clear, and he understood how big things affect smaller ones and how small things are often crucial. Everyone who worked with Ahtisaari knows that he was an excellent leader who treated all people equally and warmly. He appreciated the opportunity offered by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to work independently on international issues. His family was his mainstay, and he was profoundly appreciative of their support.
The CMI and the Finnish foreign policy that emphasise the importance of peace mediation are Ahtisaari’s living legacy. In 20 years, the CMI has grown to become one of the world’s leading peace mediation organisations. CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation continues the work of its founder around the world. Ahtisaari’s vision from the outset was to make CMI an independent organisation that would continue to resolve conflicts where official agencies cannot, that would broadly involve society as a whole, especially women and young people, in peace processes, and that would work in partnership with international organisations and leaders.
Although CMI was always the closest to Ahtisaari, he also had a significant impact on the development of international peace mediation more broadly. He chaired the boards of numerous international organisations and foundations, including the International Crisis Group, the East-West Institute and Interpeace. He also co-founded the European Council on Foreign Relations and was active in The Elders, among others.
Great peace mediators like Martti Ahtisaari are few and far between. He will be greatly missed not only by his wife Eeva and son Marko but also by the international community and many organisations; by politicians and heads of state, friends in Finland and around the world, and all current and former CMI staff.