President Jimmy Carter and Uppsala University
Professor Emeritus Peter Wallensteen, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala universitet. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
"I am sad to learn that President Jimmy Carter has passed away," says Professor Emeritus Peter Wallensteen, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, who cooperated with Carter and the Carter Center for 30 years.
Wallensteen first met Carter in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1984 when he was invited to be part of the International Negotiations Network (INN) which Carter had established as a base for his mediation efforts after he had lost the elections in 1980.
"INN consisted of both academics and practitioners and Carter told us that when he called people around the world, nobody hung up the phone," Wallensteen remembers.
"Our assignment was to suggest whom to call."
INN was active in conflicts in e.g. the Horn of Africa and in North Korea and helped to establish the Carter Center as a globally respected actor in mediation and humanitarian work.
The Camp David agreement
One of President Carter’s main achievements as President was the Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt, according to Wallensteen:
"It still remains intact, more than 40 years later, quite unique in modern peacemaking, particularly as these two countries had fought four wars in the previous 25 years."
President Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and the Nobel Committee pointed to achievements by the Carter Center as well.
"A great moment was when I convinced Carter to agree to speak to Uppsala’s students after having received the prize in Oslo. There was a packed auditorium in the Main University Building and three bright students on the podium with Carter," Wallensteen recalls. Since then Nobel Peace laureates have regularly been invited to Uppsala University to meet the students.
Uppsala Conflict Data Program
An important part of the department’s cooperation with the Carter Center was to provide the latest annual updates from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP).
"Carter was constantly following the conflict trends, sincerely hoping to find a decline. In fact that was the case for much of the 1990s, but unfortunately is no longer the case, since the mid-2010s."
In his later years Carter emphasised local grassroots work like building affordable quality housing and fighting the Guinea worm in Africa, activities bringing more immediate and concrete results.
His commitment to conflict resolution will surely be missed, Wallensteen concludes.