Congrats President Ahtisaari

[A.F.F.]

http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/artikkeli/Martti+Ahtisaari+sai+Nobelin+rauhanpalkinnon/1135240129209

Former president of Finland Ahtisaari won Nobel peace prize. He has resolved international conflicts on several continents and over more than three decades. This is the first time Nobel peace prize is won by a Finn. :up:

I'm kinda proud hence I always liked that fat *astard :D

[janneppi]

Is that the good effort prize you get for being nominated 6 years in a row. :D

[gadjo_dilo]

He has resolved international conflicts on several continents and over more than three decades.
What conflicts? I've never heared of him.

[janneppi]

He's brokered deals for example in Kosovo 1999 and in indonesia, mostly using his patented "if you don't stop killing each other, I'll sit on you" method.

[gadjo_dilo]

... mostly using his patented "if you don't stop killing each other, I'll sit on you" method.
Now I see why he got a prize for peace.

[Eki]

He's brokered deals for example in Kosovo 1999 and in indonesia, mostly using his patented "if you don't stop killing each other, I'll sit on you" method.
In addition to those, he played a role in the independence of Namibia and the negotiations on Northern Ireland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martti_Ahtisaari


Following the death of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, on Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988 – on the eve of the signing of the Namibian independence agreement at UN headquarters – Ahtisaari was sent to Namibia in April 1989 as the UN Special Representative to head the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG). Because of an alleged incursion of SWAPO troops from Angola, the South African appointed Administrator-General (AG), Louis Pienaar, sought Ahtisaari's agreement to the deployment of SADF troops to stabilize the situation. Ahtisaari took advice from British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was visiting the region at the time, and approved the SADF deployment. A period of intense fighting ensued when at least 375 SWAPO insurgents were killed.[3]

Perhaps because of his reluctance to authorise this SADF deployment, Ahtisaari was alleged to have been targeted by the South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB). According to a hearing in September 2000 of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, two CCB operatives (Kobus le Roux and Ferdinand Barnard) were tasked not to kill Ahtisaari, but to give him "a good hiding". To carry out the assault, Barnard had planned to use the grip handle of a metal saw as a knuckleduster. In the event, Ahtisaari did not attend the meeting at the Keetmanshoop Hotel, where Le Roux and Barnard lay in wait for him, and thus escaped injury.[4]

After the independence elections of 1989, Ahtisaari was appointed an honorary Namibian citizen. South Africa gave him the O R Tambo award for "his outstanding achievement as a diplomat and commitment to the cause of freedom in Africa and peace in the world".[5]


In 2000, the British government appointed him to the team overseeing the inspections of IRA weapons decommissioning in Northern Ireland. Ahtisaari also founded Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), an independent, non-governmental organisation with a goal in developing and sustaining peace in troubled areas.

On 1 December 2000, Ahtisaari was awarded the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding by the Fulbright Association in recognition of his work as peacemaker in some of the world’s most troubled areas.

In 2005, Ahtisaari successfully led peace negotiations between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government through his non-governmental organization CMI. The negotiations ended on 15 August 2005 with a treaty on withdrawal of the armed Indonesian forces and dropped GAM demands for an independent Aceh.

In November 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ahtisaari as Special Envoy for the Kosovo status process which was to determine whether Kosovo should become independent or remain a province of Serbia. (Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since the 1999 Kosovo War). In early 2006, Ahtisaari opened the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo (UNOSEK) in Vienna, Austria from where he conducted the Kosovo status negotiations. Those opposed to Ahtisaari's settlement proposal, which involved an internationally-monitored independence for Kosovo, sought to discredit him. Allegations made by Balkan media sources of corruption and improper conduct by Ahtisaari were described by US State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, as "spurious", adding that Ahtisaari's plan is the "best solution possible" and has the "full endorsement of the United States".[6] The New York Times suggested that this criticism of Ahtisaari on the part of the Serbs had led to the "bogging down" of the Kosovo status talks.[7]

However, in July 2007, when the troika of the EU, Russia and the United States agreed to find a new format for the talks, Ahtisaari announced that he regarded his mission as over. Since neither the UN nor the troika had asked him to continue mediations in the face of Russia's persistent refusal to support independence for Kosovo, he said he would nonetheless be willing to take on "a role as consultant", if requested.[8]After a period of uncertainty and mounting tension, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008.[9]

In 2008 Ahtisaari was awarded an honorary degree by University College, London. That same year he received the 2007 UNESCO Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize, for "his lifetime contribution to world peace".[10] On October 10, 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts".[11]

[Eki]

Maybe George's buddies arranged the prize to Ahtisaari for being pro-war in Iraq:


Ahtisaari strongly defended the actions of United States at the crisis that preceded the current war of Iraq.[13] After the war has started, Ahtisaari gave a statement in November: "Since I know that about million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction".[14] (Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were the primary reason the USA gave to justify its attack).

Criticism

The Finnish intellectual and the professor of history, Juha Sihvola, who thinks current Iraq's war was not justified, criticized Ahtisaari's conclusions about the morality of the war saying that they were "astounding"[15]

Norwegian founder of peace studies, Johan Galtung, has criticized heavily Ahtisaari's way to handle peace processes. Galtung claims that "Ahtisaari does not solve conflicts but drives through a short-term solutions that please western countries".