Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter shouted his way back into the news Wednesday (Oct. 3, 2007), confronting Sudanese security officials who tried to block him from meeting with ethnic African refugees in a town in Darfur. The former president made it to a school in the town before the local security chief yelled that he couldn't go any farther.
"You can't go. It's not on the program!" the local security chief yelled. An angry Carter shot back, “We're going anyway! You don't have the power to stop me."
U.N. officials told Carter's entourage the Sudanese state police could block his way and his Secret Service detail urged him to get into a car and leave.
"I'll tell President Bashir about this," Carter said, referring to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Carter agreed to a plan to meet tribal representatives at another location later Wednesday. But the delegates never showed up.
Carter was in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as "The Elders, " which also includes billionaire businessman Richard Branson and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela.
The Darfur conflict began when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government four years ago. More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced.
James Earl Carter, the 39th president (1977–81), was born in Plains, Georgia, USA. He trained at the US Naval Academy (1946) and served in the navy until 1953, during which time he worked under Admiral Hyman Rickover on the naval nuclear reactor project.
He left the navy to take over the family's peanut business, which he expanded. He served two terms as a Democrat in the Georgia legislature (1963–67), and after serving as a liberal governor of Georgia (1970–75), began campaigning for the presidency and won the Democratic nomination of 1976, narrowly beating President Gerald Ford.
In contrast to recent administrations, he had promised an open and progressive government responsive to the public, but despite a Democratic Congress, his presidency was notable more for good intentions than achievements. He did effect the Panama Treaty and the historic Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt (1979), but his initial popularity waned during 1979–80 as a result of mounting economic difficulties and the seizure of US hostages in Iran, and he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan.
Back in private life, he was active in national and international social concerns, taking a hands-on approach to everything from building homes for poor Americans to mediating between hostile parties, notably in the 1994 crisis in Haiti. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002 for his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.
He is the first U.S. president to write a novel, The Hornet's Nest (2004).
In contrast to recent administrations, he had promised an open and progressive government responsive to the public, but despite a Democratic Congress, his presidency was notable more for good intentions than achievements. He did effect the Panama Treaty and the historic Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt (1979), but his initial popularity waned during 1979–80 as a result of mounting economic difficulties and the seizure of US hostages in Iran, and he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan.
Back in private life, he was active in national and international social concerns, taking a hands-on approach to everything from building homes for poor Americans to mediating between hostile parties, notably in the 1994 crisis in Haiti. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002 for his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.
He is the first U.S. president to write a novel, The Hornet's Nest (2004).
Source :- http://www.biography.com/
