Gaza – Bring in Nobel Peace Prize Winner Martti Ahtisaari to Negotiate Peace

January 12, 2009 8:04 AM

Gaza – Bring in Nobel Peace Prize Winner Martti Ahtisaari to Negotiate Peace
A simple petition about an important issue, but the initiators of this project have good contacts and plan to get this to high level.

We (our research group) built this as a favor for our friends, served from Google's AppEngine. We've had a few DNS-problems, hope it stays up.

posted by Free word order! (1 comment total)

Great idea, but his Wikipedia entry makes me cautious. Upon reading it a few times over, is it a snub job? Can anyone rework it? There's a lot of negative stuff in there that looks like some kid trying to grind an axe. I don't know enough about him to feel comfortable changing things but perhaps someone else does? Specifically:

"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."

Worded oddly. He served "from 87 to 91 during an internal investigation of massive fraud" and made a controversial decision during that time. The way it's worded makes it sound like he was part of the fraud. Was he?

The WIDER Institute issue is also weird. They say he should have been able to spot corruption in a research institute under the UN's research arm when he was working in the Finish Government? Twice? Was everyone else in the Finish government aware of it? I get that it's in Helsinki, but this seems unlikely. I can see the one where he was working at the UN though. Accounting and audits should have identified the issues and he could have checked them before speaking out. Was his defense said in the spur of the moment and then retracted? We don't know.

What was his case for the medals of honour issue? It isn't stated at all. Is this really big enough to even be in here?

The Kosovo issue is written very oddly too. After several rereads it is apparent he wasn't finding support due to Russia and quit, forcing Kosovo to act unilaterally and declare independence. Why focus so much on the oppositions efforts to discredit him? By quitting did he signal Kosovo to go it alone?

Seriously... the whole thing is awards he's received + gossip about how he's a bad person. They don't connect at all!
posted by jwells at 12:15 PM on January 12, 2009