UNTAG's Martti Ahtisaari took advice from British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was visiting Southern Africa at the time, and authorized a limited contingent of South African troops to assist the South West African Police in restoring order.

His father, Oiva Ahtisaari ( whose grandfather Julius Marenius Adolfsen had emigrated with his parents to Finland in 1872 from Tistedalen in Southern Norway ) took Finnish citizenship in 1929 and changed his surname from Adolfsen in 1937.

Ahtisaari was a UN Special Envoy at the Kosovo status process negotiations, aimed at resolving a long-running dispute in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.

Ahtisaari spent several years as a diplomatic representative from Finland.

Ahtisaari served as UN undersecretary general for administration and management from 1987 to 1991 causing mixed feelings inside the organization during an internal investigation of massive fraud.

When Ahtisaari revealed in 1990 that he had secretly lengthened the grace period allowing UN officials to return misappropriated taxpayer money from the original three months to three years, the investigators were furious.

During the campaign, there were rumours spread by some political opponents of Ahtisaari that he had a drinking problem or that he had knowingly accepted a double salary from the Finnish Foreign Ministry and from the United Nations while trying to negotiate an end to the Bosnian War.

Often encountering resistance from the Finnish parliament, which preferred a more cautious foreign policy, as well as from within his own party, Ahtisaari did not seek re-election in 2000.

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.

Ahtisaari was chairman of the Interpeace Governing Council from 2000-2009.

* Other Club de Madrid members involved in the diplomatic process include Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany who oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany, who was a signee to the Dayton Accords, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who urged support for Canada's participation in Operation Allied Force, and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari who, along with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, convinced Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to retreat from Kosovo in accordance with NATO's demands.

The UN Secretary-General pressed for the removal of all ex-Koevoet elements from SWAPOL, with Ahtisaari bringing to Pienaar's attention many allegations of misconduct by them.

PON has recognized a diverse cast of distinguished negotiators from their respective fields: Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former President of Finland ( 2010 ); Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the artists who created “ The Gates ” in Central Park ( 2008 ); Bruce Wasserstein, Chairman and CEO of Lazard, an international financial advisory and asset management firm ( 2007 ); Sadako Ogata, former United Nations high commissioner for refugees ( 2005 ); Richard Holbrooke, former United States ambassador to the United Nations ( 2004 ); Stuart Eizenstat, former U. S. ambassador to the European Union ( 2003 ); Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations ’ special envoy for Afghanistan ( 2002 ); Charlene Barshefsky, U. S. trade representative in the second Clinton administration ( 2001 ); and former U. S. Senator George Mitchell for his work in Northern Ireland ( 2000 ).

In July 1989, Glenys Kinnock and Tessa Blackstone of the British Council of Churches visited Namibia and reported: " There is a widespread feeling that too many concessions were made to South African personnel and preferences and that Martti Ahtisaari was not forceful enough in his dealings with the South Africans.

However, Ahtisaari then told the Finnish state broadcaster YLE that " he wished the mission would fall on someone else " which it ultimately did in the person of Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and longtime U. N. diplomat.

Nevertheless discussions proceeded with UN Commissioner for Namibia N ° 2 Martti Ahtisaari who played a key role in getting the Constitutional Principles agreed in 1982 by the front-line states, SWAPO, and the Western Contact Group.

During the three-week campaign between the two rounds of presidential elections, Ahtisaari was praised by his supporters for being more compassionate towards the many unemployed Finns than Rehn, who as Defence Minister had to officially support the Aho government's strict economic policies.

He was followed by President Martti Ahtisaari, who was also a supporter of EU membership.

The person most conspicuously not appearing on the list is the international diplomat and former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, who has been a perennial favourite in Finland for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was finally awarded it in 2008.

Ahtisaari later told the press that the meeting resulted in no breakthroughs, but added that the discussion was " frank and candid " and the atmosphere was better than he could have expected.

Concluding that there was little hope of the two sides reconciling their positions independently, Ahtisaari said he would submit to the UN Security Council his own proposed status arrangements, including an explicit recommendation for the status outcome itself, by the end of March.

Martti Ahtisaari was born in Viipuri, Finland ( now Vyborg, Russia ).

Kuopio was where Ahtisaari spent most of his childhood, eventually attending the Kuopion Lyseo high school.

Following the death of a later UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, on Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988 – 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 to head the United Nations Transition Assistance Group ( UNTAG ).

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 ).

After the independence elections of 1989, Ahtisaari was appointed an honorary Namibian citizen.

In January 1998 Ahtisaari was criticized by some NGOs, politicians and notable cultural figures because he awarded medals of honour to the Forest Minister of Indonesia and to the main owner of the Indonesian RGM Company, a parent company of the April Company.

Ahtisaari was the last " strong president ", since the 2000 constitution slightly reduced the president's powers.

On December 1, 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 November 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ahtisaari as Special Envoy for the Kosovo status process which was to determine whether Kosovo, having been administered by the United Nations since 1999, should become independent or remain a province of Serbia.

In 2008 Ahtisaari was awarded an honorary degree by University College, London.

In August 2012, Ahtisaari opined on the sectarian violence in Syria and was mentioned as a possible replacement as Joint Envoy there to succeed former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

On October 10, 2008 Ahtisaari was announced as that year's recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Holkeri was awarded the highest Finnish honorary title of Valtioneuvos ( Counselor of State ) in 1998 by the President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari.

In later years of his career, Sorsa went into his Social Democratic Party's primary elections as candidate for president in 1993, but was defeated in a humiliating way by the relatively unknown international civil servant Martti Ahtisaari.

As one of the most radical political organizations in Kosovo, the party opposes the Ahtisaari plan and the current presence of the United Nations and European Union in the region, advocating total independence for Kosovo.

She started her campaign for the presidency at the beginning of 1999 after President Martti Ahtisaari announced that he would not stand for a second term in the office.

Ahtisaari briefed Contact Group foreign ministers on 20 September 2006, in New York City at a meeting chaired by U. S. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

On Monday, 16 July 2007, after many weeks of discussions at the Security Council, Russia rejected a fifth draft of a Security Council resolution based on the Ahtisaari proposals.

After completing his military service ( Ahtisaari holds the rank of captain in the Finnish Army Reserve ), he began to study through a distance-learning course at Oulu teachers ' college.

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 Ahtisaari escaped injury.

Ahtisaari received the prize on December 10, 2008 at Oslo City Hall in Norway.

In the event, Ahtisaari did not attend the meeting at the Keetmanshoop Hotel, where Le Roux and Barnard were laying in wait for him, and thus escaped injury.