MARTTI AHTISAARI played a low-key yet vital role in the peace process in relation to the question of IRA weapons. His was not an instantly recognisable face in Northern Ireland over the course of the last 10 years. But there is little doubt the success of the political process to date would have been hindered without him.
Progress remained stalled following the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Unionists were wedded to the policy position of "no guns, no government" and had demanded the surrender of the IRA's arsenal before it would enter a powersharing agreement with Sinn Féin. The IRA, for its part, had vowed "not a bullet, not an ounce" would be handed over.
The diplomatic void between the two sides was filled in part by Mr Ahtisaari and Cyril Ramaphosa, the Sowetan-born union leader, politician and businessman. They provided three independent arms inspections beginning in 2000, designed to build unionist confidence that IRA weapons were safely stored and could not be unearthed without detection. Simply put, their task was to ascertain if IRA explosives and arms were indeed "put beyond use".
The first of those reports, in June 2000, was handed over to the independent decommissioning body headed by Gen John de Chastelain as part of the complex architecture of oversight designed to assure that the IRA ceasefire was verifiable and that there would be no recourse to violence.
"We observed that the weapons and explosives were safely and adequately stored," that first report said. "We have ensured that the weapons and explosives cannot be used without our detection. We are satisfied with the co-operation extended to us by the IRA to ensure a credible and verifiable inspection. All our requests were satisfactorily met."
It concluded: "We plan to re-inspect the arms dumps on a regular basis to ensure that the weapons have remained secure. The process that led to the inspection visit, and the way in which it was carried out, makes us believe that this is a genuine effort by the IRA to advance the peace process." The concluding line was of a tone and style not unlike that used repeatedly by "P O'Neill", signatory of IRA statements.
The IRA did not fully decommission all its weapons and explosives until 2005 - that process was again overseen by independent church observers. The fact that political progress was made in advance of total arms decommissioning stands as testament to the work of the former Finnish president.