Seasoned flair for treaties

The president will see you now,'' we were told and shown into the office of Martti Ahtisaari, the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Finland.

Far from being an awe-inspiring moment when you feel you must stand to attention all the time, there was a genuine atmosphere of being welcomed and encouraged to feel at home — even though the great man must receive dozens of visitors each week.

“Please take a seat,'' Ahtisaari said, inviting us to a conference table.

As befits a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Ahtisaari exudes an air of peacefulness and one immediately feels relaxed in his presence. There are no bodyguards around and no obvious signs of his importance on the world stage.

“Coffee or tea?'' he offered, indicating the beverages set out on the table. His modest office belied his position; most insignificant bank managers would insist on something bigger and better equipped.

A couple of modest paintings hang on a wall. They are not just any paintings though. They were given to him by African leader Nelson Mandela.

We asked him if he would mind our recording the conversation. “Please go ahead,'' he said.

We talked mostly about peace in the Middle East. It was impossible not to be impressed by his modesty. There was no pomposity and no ‘look at me, I am important' attitude often seen among the lesser mortals.

We felt as if we were sitting before a gentle guru, breathlessly waiting for his next profound statement that would simplify the world's afflictions.

How did he feel when receiving the Nobel prize, we asked. He said he saw the award as an instrument that could help him further his work of bringing about peace in troubled regions.

We suggested that being 71 years old and having worked tirelessly for peace's cause, he might now think of retiring.

Ahtisaari seemed saddened that such a thing was suggested: “Not at all,'' he said and added that he would continue to work for world peace for as long as he could.

In the hour and a quarter we got to interact with Ahtisaari, he made us think: “This man knows what he is talking about; he's not trying to pull the wool over our eyes.'' It was unlike what one often felt with politicians.

Ahtisaari's quiet, unassuming manner brings to mind other great peacemakers of the world, including Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan.

Getting internationalised

At a time when few Finns ever travelled outside their home country, the young Ahtisaari had taken a job with the Swedish Pakistani Institute for Technology in Pakistan, where he remained for three years.

Even after returning to his homeland in 1963 Ahtisaari retained his interest in the world outside Finland. He took the office of chairman of the International Students Association — an assignment that brought him into regular contact with foreign students of all nationalities.

One can say Ahtisaari became internationalised at a formative age. His rise was meteoric as his talents were recognised and, by 1965, he had joined the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in its department for International Development Aid.

He found his niche at an early age and, from then on, devoted his life to helping those nations less fortunate than his home country.

From 1973 to 1977 he served as the Finnish ambassador to Tanzania, Zambia, Somalia and Mozambique, followed by a stint from 1977 to 1981 as United Nations commissioner for Namibia, where he worked to secure independence for the country from the Republic of South Africa.

Following his success in Namibia, Ahtisaari returned to Finland where he accepted the nomination of the Social Democratic Party and become Finland's 10th president in 1994.

After serving a full term as president until 2000, he immediately went back to his love of helping promote peace in the world.

His involvement in peacekeeping covers a wide area — Namibia, Northern Ireland, Indonesia and the Balkans, including Kosovo.

He seems more popular in Finland now than when he was president and he has become Finnish public property, we observe. “That is what a Nobel prize does for you. I suppose it is unavoidable,'' he says, smiling.

Today this man of peace has founded the independent Crisis Management Initiative with the goal of bringing peace to troubled areas.

Far from retiring to a peaceful life, Ahtisaari is flying around the world every few weeks in an endeavour to secure a peaceful existence for future generations.

Ahtisaari is truly a man of the people with a feeling for people.
The conversation comes to the Palestinian conflict and we ask him what he felt about opening discussions on the conflict.

“We have to do something because the fact that we have not means it is destroying the efforts to find a solution in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a decent relationship with Iran and the region itself,'' he said.

“Perhaps my function now is more to use my position in the advocacy role, I was very pleased when they managed to get Senator [George] Mitchell to accept the position of envoy and I sincerely hope that [US] President [Barack] Obama will give the Middle East priority because the suffering in the region has continued for so long that I think we are losing a lot and spoiling the general atmosphere and relations between the West and the Islamic world.''

Stating that everyone knew roughly what the solution would be, Ahtisaari said there have been enough plans and they didn't vary so much.

“There are certain issues that are difficult for both parties. We simply have to lead them to a solution.''

We asked Ahtisaari if he saw himself as a trouble-solver or as a troubleshooter.

“It depends on the situation. Very often I land the role of implementing a plan that is — as in the case of Namibia — planned by Western powers and approved by the United Nations Security Council. Sometimes it is mediation.

"Very often the outcome of the mediation process is known from the beginning.''

Preset outcome

Ahtisaari cites Kosovo as an example. “All the parties involved — the Serbs and the Kosovan Albanians — knew from the beginning what the outcome was going to be because I had told them and had consulted with the contact group, which included Americans, British, Germans, French, Italians and Russians.

I insisted that the contact group members pass the message on to the parties so that they knew from the beginning, from the first quarter of 2006, what the outcome would be.

This meant that we were actually negotiating how we could guarantee the security of the minorities, particularly the Serbs in Kosovo, and not what the outcome of the status was,'' he said.

“It was the same in Namibia's case. In the case of Aceh in Indonesia, perhaps the role of troubleshooter is not very far away in the sense that I encouraged the GAM [Free Aceh Movement] to sit with the government and see whether the government's offer was something it could live with.

“If at the end of the process they had decided to say ‘No, we still want to fight', I would have said ‘Go ahead and you will probably die, because I didn't see any other sort of offer coming.

"They decided to accept peace. So these tasks have to be understood because very often people think we start talking when parties are prepared to sit with me and that there is no history to the conflict.

"But very often the history dictates the outcome of the negotiations — as it did in the case of Namibia when it was very clear from the beginning that it had to have independence.''

Often, problem solvers arrive at the wrong answers because they change the problem to suit their preconceived answers. Is that the way with Ahtisaari?

“It is very important to have the main actors' support during negotiations. “That is why I say I wouldn't take any assignment if I don't have the main countries backing me and telling me that they are prepared to support a particular line of action.

The second thing is that it is very difficult to find a solution without American participation and support,'' he said.

What about the importance of Russian participation? The Russians are important to solutions. But without the Americans it is nearly impossible.

“Looking back, they [the Americans] were instrumental in Namibia; they were very important in Kosovo because whatever one may have said about the George W. Bush administration, its Kosovo policy was very clear and firm. I couldn't have asked them for more.''

Talking of support

“That they had a first-class person, Ambassador Frank Wisner as Condoleezza Rice's personal envoy, was an indication of their serious intent. He was a businessman but did it pro bono. I had also worked with him previously on Namibia. His clarity helped the Western members of the contact group work in unison.

"It's good to have Russians there and there are some conflicts when we will need the Chinese. In certain cases I think India's assistance will be needed. In Namibia, before we succeeded in implementing the UN plan we needed the support of not only Russia but also Cuba because they had to withdraw their troops from Angola.

"So it was an unholy alliance that suddenly brought together the Americans, the Cubans, the Russians, the South Africans and everyone who could actually cooperate. That facilitated my going to Namibia in April 1989 for a year for the implementation of the plan.''

We asked Ahtisaari if he thought problem solvers at times changed the problem to suit the answers they thought they had found.

“You have raised a very important point because one has to first clarify what constituted the issues. Very often people try to bring up issues that are important for them but are nevertheless not the ones that can be solved during mediation.

"You often need to create structures that can enable the process to continue because the peace agreement is only the beginning,'' he said.

Over a fresh cup of tea we moved to the subject of Iran and its nuclear programme, including the danger of pollution it can cause in the waters of the Gulf — a subject dear to the countries that depend on it for water.

“In today's world, nuclear power is making a comeback. We are building a new nuclear power station in Finland and there are two or three applications for new ones.

"Even the environmentalists are supporting them because the other option is often coal, which is definitely not in the interest of the environment. The important thing is, how can you limit the use of nuclear power for civilian use? And that, I think, is the issue with Iran.

“It would be very difficult to argue that they don't have the right to nuclear power for civilian purposes. And to guarantee that this is the case you need the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspections in a normal fashion. It is competent in doing so and it has been competent all along.

"There have to be discussions. Of course, the new [American] administration has approached Iran and I welcome that. Isolation is a different story. I don't believe in isolating. No matter how difficult it is to speak, I believe in dialogue.''

Coming back to the subject of peace negotiations in general, Ahtisaari said deadlines must be set whenever a process is started.

“What worries me is that processes last for ages and there is no end. I think you have to carry out talks in such a manner so that there is some result,'' he said.

“Simply having processes hasn't produced anything tangible. But if you don't engage the parties you will never get the answers to these questions. Your guess is as good as mine — most probably better than mine — and that is why I very seldom engage in guesswork.

"However, everyone knows what the outcome of these talks will be, what we are aiming at, and when it comes to Israel and Palestine everybody in their right mind knows what the parameters have to be.''

We wondered whether Ahtisaari thought the achievements of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates were a good model for the rest of the Arab world to follow.

He said he regretted that he had to decline an invitation to visit Dubai this spring because of prior engagements. But he hopes to visit the emirate in November, when he also wanted to go to Kuwait to meet old friends.

While working for the UN Ahtisaari had to do an assessment on the need for humanitarian assistance for Iraq and Kuwait after the war.

“Kuwait did not need the humanitarian assistance because reconstruction was going on. The UN advised me to go to Iraq first and said, ‘They are in need'.'' Ahtisaari is fascinated by the countries in the Gulf region.

“Qatar has been involved in finding solutions. It has also been prepared to utilise its financial resources to try to improve the employment possibilities for young people. It's a very positive act.

"In the next decade we may have 1.2 to 1.3 billion youngsters under 30 looking for work. Experts say that with traditional means we can provide work only for 300 million. So what do we offer the remaining nearly one billion?''

If we want to have a peaceful world we had better look for employment possibilities for them — try to make as many entrepreneurs as we can of them,'' Ahtisaari said.

According to him it is not an impossible task and “if we don't do that, they become criminals and terrorists, because somehow they have to earn their living. So let us provide some hope for these people.''

The Nobel laureate said he was going to be involved in this programme started in Doha. “I find it such a positive initiative that I want to support it.''

We asked Ahtisaari about the widely differing press reports coming out of the Middle East.

“How can we have a balanced coverage of issues that are so divisive?'' he asked.

“If we don't solve the Palestine-Israel question it will spoil everything else we have tried to do. I think that is the argument I am going to repeat.

"I will use the position that the Nobel Peace Prize gives me because I find it totally unacceptable that this has been going on for such a long time.''

Ahtisaari narrated a recent incident when he met a South African friend.

“I said, ‘If I were you and we from the West — either from the European Union or the United States — come to South Africa and ask: ‘Why haven't you done anything useful with Mugabe and Zimbabwe?', I would say: ‘What you are saying is very interesting but come back when you have solved the Middle East crisis and then let us discuss the issue again.'

“I find it very difficult lecturing others about what they should be doing when we cannot solve the issues which we, as an international community have — and must have — the capability to solve,'' Ahtisaari said.

“We have lost a lot of credibility in trying to influence positive change towards democracy and rule of law in the world.''

Faruk Abu-Chacra is an author and senior lecturer at the University of Helsinki.

Geoffrey White is an English language consultant.

Unique approach to negotiations

Expressing his views on liberation movements being tagged as terrorist entities, Martti Ahtisaari said: “Very often before you have a settlement, the so-called liberation movements are branded terrorists.''

Referring to the negotiations in Iraq, he said he was intrigued when his South African friends asked whether it would be possible to have former opposing parties from South Africa and Northern Ireland to help bring the Iraqi political parties together and whether he could help in organising such a meeting.

Ahtisaari talked to the Finnish foreign minister, who agreed to the proposal and even promised financial aid.

Six people from South Africa, including the chief negotiators of former opponents, Nelson Mandela's ANC and South African apartheid president, F.W. de Klerk, sat together with bitter enemies Martin McGuinness and Jeffrey Donaldson from Northern Ireland.

So there were 12 people telling the Iraqi political parties the mistakes they had made in their peace negotiations.

They then withdrew, letting the Iraqi parties talk among themselves. “I mention this because most of these people were once branded terrorists by one party or another.

"I thought this was a unique enterprise and that is why I wanted to help them. They had two meetings in Finland and they agreed on certain things and signed the agreement in the Iraqi parliament,'' Ahtisaari said.

Ahtisaari wondered whether this sort of exercise had reinforced the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland, because the people there were sitting together at weekends and were more relaxed.

Branding groups is ill-advised, he warned, because these groups have to be taken into account if differences are to be resolved.

Ahtisaari said a settlement in the Middle East cannot be reached if the peaceful existence of Israel is not guaranteed. “Everyone realises that,'' he said. “Yes, that's one important element. But there are others also that need to be discussed.''

The Palestine issue from a peacemaker's perspective

The UN Security Council's resolution in 1947 declared that there are two states on the Jewish front.

When ‘Weekend Review' asked Martti Ahtisaari whether he thought that this was still valid, he replied: “The American administration has said very clearly that it is a two-state solution that they are advancing. I don't think you can have a political settlement without that.''

On whether there could be any solution without having Hamas at the same table as Israel and whether he thought the former was willing to sit at the same table, Ahtisaari said he was sure Hamas was willing.

“Why I say this is because I'm still the chairman of a Swiss organisation called Interpeace and we facilitated talks between Hamas and the Swiss authorities. I wasn't personally involved, I was a bystander.

"I had informed the main countries of what we were doing, so that everyone knew. It was quite clear that Hamas knew what was expected of it.''

Referring to the election of the Hamas government he said: “My point is if you organise elections, somebody wins and everyone says it was a fair election, you can't then say — if you believe in democracy — ‘Sorry, but the wrong guy's won.'

"So you have to deal with them one way or another. The negotiations will then show whether the party is actually capable of advancing the interests of the people. But their election performance was very impressive and you will only get an answer to your question when you deal with them.

"I won't say, ‘We are not talking to you because we don't like what your ideas are.' I think only the negotiation process will reveal whether they understood what we thought was expected of them.''

When it was pointed out that Hamas was widely regarded as a “terrorist'' organisation by the Western world and did not recognise the existence of Israel, Ahtisaari said: “There are still a fair number of countries who do not recognise Israel.

"You remember there was this prisoners' document that was the basis for the cooperation agreement between Fatah and Hamas? This Swiss organisation was involved in helping that process as well.

“So I don't believe you can have a peaceful future for Palestine if these two elements are not able to see eye-to-eye. And without negotiating you are delaying the peace activity. Making people responsible is extremely important.

"As I said, I have seen it in my own country and elsewhere. [Ahtisaari was referring to when former Finnish president Kekkonen accepted the Communist Party into a coalition government. At that time, the communists had 25 per cent support. Today they have between 8 and 9 per cent.]

“The sooner the Palestinians are united, the better. Because I'm afraid that if they don't, this will be used as an excuse — a convenient excuse by those who are not interested in finding a solution for a two-state solution. I believe that you only know whether people are capable of living next to each other when you engage them.

"It's too easy if you try artificially to isolate those who win in the elections; I think you are then creating many more problems. But very often it's only a question of a power game. And this is not only in Palestine.''

On the question about the agreement to give back territories occupied in 1967, Ahtisaari said both parties should be advised that tough decisions have to be made before any settlement can be reached.

There were certain elements that have to be there and others that can't be there, he added.

Asked about former British prime minister Tony Blair's role, Ahtisaari said: “He has been involved—as far as I understand — in efforts to reinforce the administrative structures in Palestine. I don't think his role has been settled in the political process. There hasn't been any political process.''

Was it a good idea to send Blair to an area where he has previously been involved?

“I would rather see that he's supported by the quartet. That to me is important. He's a competent man and has the trust of those who decided to ask him to do it — because he has many other things [on his hands]; this is not the only thing,'' Ahtisaari replied.

On some people looking at Blair as a part of the problem, he said he didn't know anybody who wouldn't be a suspect by one party or another.

“I usually say very often that if one party doesn't like you, then both parties don't like you. Then one must be doing something right. We can't do it if we don't have the support of the major players.

"The United States is a typical example. We need the European Union because it has the financial ability to assist. But without America's firm line, we do not move. That is a reality one has to recognise. When there is a crisis, I always think, ‘What good can come out of this?' I did the same after 9/11.''

Drawing a parallel with the present financial downturn, he said: “Now too, I thought ‘What good can come out of it?' The Americans need the Chinese and the Chinese need the American and European markets for their products.

"Russians need Western investments because oil prices have gone down dramatically. So, strangely enough, cooperation between the main players in the world arena might be improved by the financial crisis because we need each other and we can't do without each other.

"Perhaps this doesn't do any harm for the Middle East either — there's less confrontation. I tend to say there are fewer external threats in the world. There are many more internal threats in different societies.''

Asked if any a peaceful solution in the Middle East was likely while Israel continues to build new colonies, Ahtisaari emphatically rejected the possibility.

“Their [Israel's] own leaders have criticised that, so I don't think it is helping. The whole issue of colonies will have to be decided when one looks for a solution.''

Yasser Arafat once said that if former American president Bill Clinton had had one more year to negotiate with Syrian president Hafez Al Assad, the problem could have been solved. Now that Clinton's wife, Hillary, and Obama are in charge, could a solution be found?

“I think you have to give them a bit of time. I would start looking towards the other half of this year and see where we are then: Has there been a serious effort to tackle the issues?'', Ahtisaari said.