Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, died on 16 October at the age of 86. Born in eastern Finland, he was two years old when his family fled from the Russian invasion at the outbreak of the second world war.
A trained school teacher, he moved in 1960 to the Swedish Pakistani Institute in Karachi. In 1965 he joined the Finnish foreign service. His posting as a diplomat in Tanzania in 1973 was the beginning of lasting bonds to the African continent. Only two years later, he started his commitment to the struggle for self-determination of the Namibian people.
Namibia, then called South West Africa, was under the illegal control of apartheid South Africa. According to the United Nations, it was “a trust betrayed”.
