By Lennart Simonsson Oct 10, 2008, 12:39 GMT
Oslo - Veteran Finnish peace broker and former president Martti Ahtisaari was Friday awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in Oslo.
UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari gestures during a news conference in Pristina, Kosovo, 03 March 2006. EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ
Ahtisaari, 71, was cited 'for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts,' the committee said.
Nobel Committee Chairman Ole Danbolt Mjos said Ahtisaari has been an 'outstanding international mediator.'
In addition to Namibia and Aceh in Indonesia, Ahtisaari has also been active with issues related to Northern Ireland, the Balkans and Iraq, Mjos said.
Minutes after the announcement, Ahtisaari said he regarded 'Namibia as the most important achievement' in his long career, referring to his work as a United Nations envoy that helped the southern African nation win independence in 1990.
'It took such a long time,' he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Ahtisaari worked on the Namibia issue 1977 until 1990 when he served as special representative to the United Nations secretary general and head of the UN's transition assistance team.
The one-time German colony, previously known as South West Africa gained independence from South Africa in March 1990.
But he said his efforts to forge a peace deal in 2005 between the government of Indonesia and separatists in the province of Aceh, as well as recent attempts to solve the status of Kosovo were also important.
Many observers had believed Ahtisaari would win the prize in 2006 for the Aceh deal, but the Nobel Committee opted for micro-banker Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh instead. That choice has been seen as part of a wider peace concept adopted by the committee.
Ahtisaari said the 10 million kronor (1.5 million) cash prize will offer 'many opportunities,' and provide funding for his organization Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) that has been engaged in various mediation efforts.
Mjos said the committee had wanted to highlight the role of mediation and underlined the need for 'efforts to seek peaceful solutions' in today's world, mentioning Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq as examples.
Speculation before the prize had centred on dissidents in China and activists in Russia. Mjos refuted that the committee members had avoided controversy by picking a 'safe' candidate like Ahtisaari.
Over the years, the committee has 'dared' to select candidates that have generated wrath from the powers that be, Mjos said, citing German peace activist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935, Russian dissident Andrei Sacharov in 1975, the Dalai Lama in 1989 and Iran's Shirin Ebadi in 2003.
The Finnish laureate has worked in 'a long tradition,' Mjos said, drawing the line back to 1906 when US president Theodore Roosevelt won the prize. Other laureates in that vein were former US president Jimmy Carter and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, he said.
Mjos also lauded Ahtisaari's never-tiring work, 'he never gives up.'
In Oslo, politicians from across the political spectre as well as peace researchers welcomed the selection of a traditional laureate.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Ahtisaari 'was a peace builder who has given hope to many people' while former Norwegian premier Kjell Magne Bondevik said Ahtisaari was a believer in 'dialogue instead of military solutions.'
Former Norwegian diplomat Jan Egeland, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said Ahtisaari's work in Namibia was an example of 'classic mediation.'
Ahtisaari is the first Finnish national to win the peace prize awarded since 1901.
Finnish President Tarja Halonen, who succeeded Ahtisaari in 2000, congratulated Ahtisaari to the award and said it gave credit to his many years of work to solve difficult conflicts.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said it was 'a well- deserved recognition for his long career and his great efforts as mediator.'
In 2007, the peace prize was shared by the United Nations climate body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore of the United States for their work on climate change.
For this year's award, the five-member Nobel Committee had received 197 nominations, including 33 organizations.
The peace prize is one of the awards endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
The peace prize is awarded in Oslo. The other prizes - for medicine, physics, chemistry and literature - are handed over at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's 1896 death in San Remo, Italy.
The economic sciences prize - a prize not endowed by Nobel and awarded since 1968 - is scheduled to be announced Monday.
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