Martti Ahtisaari

Politician

Martti Ahtisaari was born in Vyborg, Leningrad Oblast, Russia on June 23rd, 1937 and is the Politician. At the age of 86, Martti Ahtisaari biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
June 23, 1937
Nationality
Finland
Place of Birth
Vyborg, Leningrad Oblast, Russia
Age
86 years old
Zodiac Sign
Cancer
Profession
Diplomat, Politician
Martti Ahtisaari Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 86 years old, Martti Ahtisaari physical status not available right now. We will update Martti Ahtisaari's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

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Weight
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Hair Color
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Eye Color
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Martti Ahtisaari Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
University of Oulu
Martti Ahtisaari Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Eeva Hyvärinen
Children
Marko Ahtisaari
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
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Martti Ahtisaari Life

Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (born 23 June 1937) is a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland (1994–2000), a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediator recognized for his international peace work. Ahtisaari, a UN special envoy for Kosovo, was charged with organising the Kosovo status process talks aimed at resolving a long-running conflict in Kosovo, which then declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

He was given the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2008 for his "important attempts, on several continents and for more than three decades, to end international conflicts."

According to the Nobel Laureate, Ahtisaari has played a vital role in settling serious and long-running conflicts, including ones in Namibia, Aceh (Indonesia), Kosovo, and Iraq.

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Martti Ahtisaari Career

Youth and early career

Martti Ahtisaari was born in Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia). Oiva Ahtisaari (whose grandfather Julius Marenius Adolfsen immigrated with his parents to Finland in 1872 from Tistedalen, Southern Norway), obtained Finnish citizenship in 1929 and Finnicized his surname from Adolfsen in 1936. Martti's father was sent by the Continuation War (World War II), while his mother, Tyyne, was able to flee immediate danger from the war. Ahtisaari spent the bulk of his childhood in Kuopio, before attending Kuopion Lyseo high school.

Martti Ahtisaari and his family migrated to Oulu in 1952 to seek jobs. He continued his education in high school, graduating in 1956. He also joined the local YMCA. He began to study at a distance-learning program at Oulu's teachers' college after finishing his military service (Ahtisaari holds the rank of captain in the Finnish Army Reserve). Although attending a two-year degree that made him qualify as a primary-school teacher in 1959, he was able to live at home. Ahtisaari also speaks in Finnish, French, English, and German, as well as Finnish.

In 1960, he moved to Karachi, Pakistan, to lead the Swedish Institute's physical education department, where he was introduced to a more international environment. Ahtisaari's job required more than merely governing the students' home, and she also included tutoring students. In 1963, he returned to Finland and became involved with non-governmental groups that support poor countries. He joined AIESEC, a worldwide students' group, where he discovered new interests in diversity and diplomacy. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its Bureau for International Development Aid in 1965, eventually becoming the assistant chief of the department. He married Eeva Irmeli Hyvärinen in 1968. Marko Ahtisaari, a technology entrepreneur and musician, is the couple's one son.

Diplomatic career

Ahtisaari served as Finland's diplomatic representative for many years. He served as Finland's Ambassador to Tanzania from 1973 to 1977. Working to ensure the unification of Namibia from the Republic of South Africa as UN Deputy Secretary-General 1977–1981 and as United Nations Commissioner for Namibia from 1976 to 1981.

Ahtisaari served as the UN Under-Secretary-General for administration and control from 1987 to 1991.

Following the death of Bernt Carlsson, the United Nations Special Representative for Namibia, on the eve of the signing of the Tripartite Accord at UN Headquarters, Ahtisaari was sent to Namibia in April 1989 as the UN Special Representative in charge of the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG). SWAPO troops from Angola's unlawful incursion of SWAPO troops, Louis Pienaar, the South African proclaimed Administrator General (AG), wanted Ahtisaari's involvement in the deployment of SADF troops to help the situation. Ahtisaari took advice from British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was visiting the area at the time, and approved the SADF deployment. When at least 375 SWAPO rebels were killed, a period of ferocious fighting ensued. "There is a widespread belief that too many compromises were made to South African employees and preferences, as well as the fact that Martti Ahtisaari was not influential enough in his dealings with the South Africans," Glenys Kinnock and Tessa Blackstone of the British Council of Churches said in July 1989.

Ahtisaari was reportedly targeted by the South African Civil Cooperation Bureau due to his reluctance to authorize this SADF deployment. According to a hearing of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in September 2000, two CCB agents (Kobus le Roux and Ferdinand Barnard) were not supposed to murder Ahtisaari but rather to give him "a safe hiding." Barnard intended to use a metal saw's grip handle as a knuckleduster in order to carry out the assault. Ahtisaari did not attend the meeting at the Keetmanshoop Hotel, where Le Roux and Barnard waited for him, and Ahtisaari recovered from injury, although Le Roux and Barnard were able to attend, so Ahtisaari did not appear, and Ahtisaari avoided injury.

Ahtisaari was named an honorary Namibian citizen following 1989's independence referendum. "His outstanding contribution to the cause of democracy in Africa and world peace," South Africa gave him the O R Tambo award for "his lifetime as a diplomat and ambassador for the cause of freedom in Africa and world peace."

During an internal probe into widespread fraud, Ahtisaari served as the UN undersecretary general for administration and leadership from 1987 to 1991, triggering mixed reactions within the organization. When Ahtisaari revealed in 1990 that he had illegally extended the grace period allowing UN officials to return misappropriated taxpayer funds from the original three months to three years, the investigators were furious. 340 of the 340 people found guilty of fraud were able to return funds even after their criminal conviction had been established. The dismissal of twenty corrupt officials was the harshest punishment.

Post-presidential career

Ahtisaari has stressed how crucial it is for Finland to join NATO in Finnish politics. According to Ahtisaari, Finland should be a full member of NATO and the EU in order to "lift off once and for all the burden of Finlandization." Politicians should apply and make Finland a member, according to him. He claims that the way Finnish politicians avoid expressing their opinion is troubling. He has claimed that the so-called "NATO option" (having membership when Finland is threatened) is an illusion, similar to trying to get fire insurance when the fire has already started.

Ahtisaari has been employed in a variety of multinational companies since leaving office. He became Chairman of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, an NGO to whom he pledged $100,000 in government funding in 1994, just a month after being elected President of Finland. He is still Chairman Emeritus.

Ahtisaari has also founded the independent Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) with the intention of strengthening and maintaining stability in impoverished areas. The Fulbright Association announced the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding in recognition of his efforts as a peacemaker in some of the world's most difficult areas on December 1, 2000. Alexander Stubb, the Finnish politician who represents Finnish conservatives in May 2017, was appointed as the new CMI leader by Ahtisaari in May 2017. The National Coalition Party is a national coalition party.

As part of the Northern Ireland peace process, Ahtisaari and Cyril Ramaphosa inspected IRA weapons dumps for the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning in 2000–01.

Ahtisaari's non-governmental group CMI led peace negotiations between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government in 2005. The talks came to an end on August 15th, with the signing of the Helsinki MOU on disarmament of GAM rebels, the disarmament of GAM rebels, the downing of GAM demands for an independent Aceh, and the withdrawal of Indonesian forces.

In November 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ahtisaari as Special Envoy for the Kosovo status process, which was to determine whether Kosovo, which had been under UN supervision since 1999, will become independent or remain a province of Serbia. Ahtisaari opened the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo (UNOSEK) in Vienna, Austria, from where he carried out the Kosovo status talks in early 2006. Many critics of Ahtisaari's settlement plan, which involved an internationally monitored Kosovo, sought to discredit him. Allegations made by Balkan media outlets of misdeeding and inappropriate conduct by Ahtisaari were described as "spurious" by US State Department spokesperson Tom Casey, who added that Ahtisaari's scheme is the "right option available" and has the "ful endorsement of the United States." According to the New York Times, this criticism of Ahtisaari on the part of the Serbs resulted in the "bogging down" of the Kosovo status talks. Following his meeting with Serbia's vice president Bozidar Djelic, Serbian media reported Pierre Mirel, the head of the EU's western Balkans division, saying "The EU has approved the deployment of EULEX must be approved by the United Nations Security Council, and the mission cannot be linked to the Ahtisaari initiative."

Ahtisaari said he regretted his mission in July 2007 after the EU, Russia, and the US agreed to find a new format for the talks, but in July 2007, he thought his mission had been complete. Since neither the United Nations or the troika had asked him to continue negotiations in the face of Russia's continuing refusal to endorse independence for Kosovo, he said he would nevertheless be able to serve as a consultant, if asked. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008 after a period of confusion and rising tension.

He has stressed the importance of the US in the peace process, saying that "There will be no peace without America" in his writings.

Ahtisaari served as chairman of the Interpeace Government Council from 2000 to 2009. Ahtisaari has served as Chairman Emeritus and a Special Advisor since 2009.

Ahtisaari is the ImagineNations Group's board director.

University College, London, gave Ahtisaari an honorary degree in 2008. He received the 2007 UNESCO Félix Houphout-Boigny Peace Prize for his lifetime service to world peace that was honoured."

Ahtisaari joined The Elders, a group of global leaders who work together on peace and human rights issues in September 2009. In April 2011, he and fellow Elders, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, and Mary Robinson, traveled to the Korean Peninsula, and in July 2012, he and Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined South Sudan with Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Ahtisaari is a member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Ibrahim Prize Committee. He is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations' board.

Ahtisaari weighed in on the sectarian unrest in Syria in August 2012 and was named as a potential replacement for Joe Jones as the Joint Envoy sent to replace former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. However, Ahtisaari later told the Finnish state broadcaster YLE that "he wished the mission would fall on someone else," but it did in the case of Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and longtime United Nations diplomat.

Martti Ahtisaari reiterated allegations he had earlier made in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in early 2013 against members of the UN security council on the omission of a political solution to the conflict in Syria. In an interview in September 2015, Ahtisaari said that he held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in Syria. During a meeting with Ahtisaari, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, three points were discussed: not arming the Syrian opposition, starting negotiations between Syrian president Assad and the opposition, and finding "an elegant way for Assad to pull out." However, the United States, Britain, and France did not accept the plan at the time. "Nothing happened because I suspect all these people and some others that Assad would be ousted from office in a few weeks, so there was no need to do anything."

Ahtisaari had tested positive for the disease on March 24, 2020, during the massive outbreak of COVID-19. Eeva Ahtisaari, his husband, was diagnosed with the same virus on March 21. While infected with Eeva Ahtisaari, she attended the International Women's Day concert at the Helsinki Music Centre on March 8.

Martti and Eeva Ahtisaari are recovering from the coronavirus infection, which was announced on April 14th, 2020.

Ahtisaari is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and has been banned from public life since being confirmed on September 2nd, 2021.

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Martti Ahtisaari Awards

Awards

  • 1995: Zamenhof Prize for International Understanding, of the World Esperanto Association
  • 1998: Honorary doctorate from Helsinki University of Technology, and from National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
  • 2000: J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding
  • 2000: Freedom medal
  • 2000:  Germany: Hessian Peace Prize
  • 2004: OR Tambo Award
  • 2006: Gold Medal of The American-Scandinavian Foundation
  • 2007:  Germany: Manfred Wörner Medal of the German Ministry of Defense
  • 2007: Honorary degree, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
  • 2008: Delta Prize for Global Understanding
  • 2008: Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize
  • 2008: Nobel Peace Prize
  • 2008:  Netherlands: Geuzenpenning
  • 2011: Honorary degree, University of Calgary, Canada