马尔蒂·阿赫蒂萨里/Martti Ahtisaari
马尔蒂·阿赫蒂萨里（Martti Ahtisaari），社民党人。1994年3月任芬兰总统，2008年获得诺贝尔和平奖。阿赫蒂萨里出生于芬兰维普里（Viipuri，今俄罗斯维堡）。其曾祖父为挪威移民，其父亲奥伊瓦（Oiva）是一名军士。奥伊瓦·阿赫蒂萨里1929年加入芬兰国籍，1935年将姓由“阿多尔夫森”（Adolfsen）改为“阿赫蒂萨里”（Ahtisaari）。
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear Friends and Colleagues around the world,
I feel both humility and gratitude at receiving this year' s Nobel Peace Prize. It is the greatest recognition anybody working in this field can be given.
What I am feeling now can only be compared with the joy I have felt when seeing the changes that peace has brought to the lives of people. When people, who have endured wars and crises, begin to build their lives in an atmosphere of peace—When faith in the future returns.
I too was a child affected by a war. I was only two years old when, as a result of an agreement on spheres of interest between Hitler' s Germany and Stalin' s Soviet Union, war broke out, forcing my family to leave soon thereafter the town of Viipuri. Like several hundred thousand fellow Karelians, we became refugees in our own country as great power politics caused the borders of Finland to be redrawn and left my home town as part of the Soviet Union. This childhood experience contributed to my commitment to working on the resolution of conflicts.
Mediators do not choose the conflicts they became involved in but the parties to the conflict choose the mediator. Their participation as intermediaries is based on the trust of all the conflicting parties. The task of the mediator is to help the parties to open difficult issues and nudge them forward in the peace process. The mediator' s role combines those of a ship' s pilot, consulting medical doctor, midwife and teacher.