A New Zealander pilot Phillip Mehrtens was released on Saturday after more than a year and a half of imprisonment in West Papua. Local guerrillas had taken Mehrtens hostage in the highlands of West Papua.
HS news on Saturday, that in Finland With Juha Christensen played a major role in the liberation negotiations. Christensen visited the depths of the rainforest several times to negotiate with armed guerrillas.
The experienced peace mediator was once the president involved in the Aceh peace agreement negotiations Martti Ahtisaaren with.
For peace mediation CEO of the specialized CMI organization Janne Taalas doesn’t know the details of that case, but speculates that there are several reasons behind Christensen’s success.
“He has been in Indonesia for a long time and has very good relations with the administration. He speaks the local language and understands the local culture.”
CMI CEO Janne Taalas thinks that Juha Christensen’s good relations with the Indonesian government helped him to free the kidnapped pilot.
According to Taalas, the operating environment in the rainforests of West Papua is very difficult, as it is both difficult and dangerous to travel there.
“There, you have to make an accurate safety assessment of where you should and can go. And what is worth taking someone’s risk.”
A buck reminds us that the release of hostages is very rarely a one-man show.
“Peace mediation is not an individual sport, but rather a team sport.”
According to Taalas, the background is usually the cooperation of many parties. The central role is played by the authorities and the so-called ministries of power, i.e. ministries that have a lot of power in, for example, defense and security matters.
This is also what Christensen himself said in a previous HS story: “In a situation like this, there are always many parallel channels. We have worked closely together.”
However, according to Taalas, individual persons can have the power to take things in the right direction, as in this case.
Christensen’s According to Taalas, foreignness, and from the point of view of West Papuans exotic foreignness, may have been a significant factor here. In an earlier story, it was mentioned that the guerrilla movement agreed to hand over the hostage only to a foreigner, not to a representative of the Indonesian government.
“I’m speculating now, but when the group’s goal was to gain international visibility for this own fight, then international-looking guys are interesting to them.”
Taalas thinks that the guerrilla group estimates that with the help of Christensen, they would get more publicity for their cause.
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According to Taalas, individual people can have the power to take things in the right direction.
Finnish According to Taalas, a peace mediator is also a good option in the sense that Finns are perhaps not as valuable hostages as some other nationalities.
“Perhaps the citizens of the great powers might be a better leverage than the Finns.”
According to Taalas, Finland could play a bigger role as peace mediators, but at the moment it seems that the trend is different.
“For example, in the Middle East, in Gaza, the negotiations take place between the intelligence services. This seems to be a trend now.”
The trend for the taala is worrying.
“In my opinion, it is better that parties with experience and expertise act as peace mediators or negotiators.”
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