JIMMY CARTER: PRESIDENT AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER
By Jason Sibert
Since leaving office in 1981, former President Jimmy Carter has worked for the causes of peace and democracy.
Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981. Just a year after the end of his presidency, he founded the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. Since the founding of the center, he travelled extensively to promote human rights, conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and to advance disease prevention and eradication in the developing world. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work with the Carter Center.
Former President Carter worked as a citizen diplomat since leaving office. He was sent to North Korea in 1994 by President Bill Clinton on a peace mission, and Carter negotiated an agreement with Kim II-Sung. He travelled to North Korea again in 2010 to secure the release of a student, Aijalon Gomes. In 1986, Carter secured the release of journalist Luis Mora while touring Nicaragua for three days. In 2006, he travelled to Cuba and met with Fidel Castro as well as political dissidents in an AIDS sanitarium, a medical school, and a biotech facility.
In July 2007, Carter joined Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa to announce his participation in The Elders, a group of independent global leaders who work together on peace and human rights issues. Following the announcement, Carter participated in visits to Darfur, Sudan, Cyprus, the Korean Peninsula, and the Middle East, among others. Carter attempted traveling to Zimbabwe in November 2008 but was stopped by President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Carter held summits in Egypt and Tunisia in 1995–1996 to address violence in the Great Lakes region of Africa and played a key role in negotiation of the Nairobi Agreement in 1999 between Sudan and Uganda. The signature achievement of his foreign policy as president was the Camp David Peace Accords, a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978.The agreement led to the normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt, as the two countries have been at peace since that time. Egypt invaded Israel three times between 1948 and 1973. President Carter’s human rights policy sought to blunt the appeal of Soviet Russia by placing the U.S. government behind the cause of human rights.
The former President’s political career stretches back to the 1960’s when he served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967. As a state senator, he supported the growing civil rights movement. He unsuccessfully ran for governor of Georgia in 1966 and was elected governor of Georgia in 1970. Carter defeated President Gerald Ford in 1976 and was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
