Martti Ahtisaari, Finland’s former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in Helsinki at the age of 86 following a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Around the world, Ahtisaari was lauded for mediating peace in crisis zones such as Kosovo, Indonesia, and Northern Ireland. He refused to accept wars and conflicts as unavoidable.
“Peace is a matter of will.” “There are no excuses for allowing conflicts to become eternal,” Ahtisaari declared when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.
The former UN official handled the 2005 reconciliation of the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, bringing a three-decade conflict that killed around 15,000 people to an end.
Despite his efforts to reach an agreement with Serbia before to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, Ahtisaari was instrumental in guiding the country toward independence.
Ahtisaari retired from public life in September 2021 due to Alzheimer’s disease.
“We have received the news of President Martti Ahtisaari’s death with deep sadness,” the current president, Sauli Niinisto, stated in a statement on Monday, October 16.
He was a change-agent president who guided Finland into the global EU era.”
In a televised statement, Niinistö praised Ahtisaari as “a citizen of the world, a great Finn.” A teacher, diplomat, and state leader. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate and peace negotiator.”
His wife, Eeva, and son, Marko, a software entrepreneur and former Nokia design director, survive him.
