Former President Jimmy Carter, helping to dedicate a peace center that might be considered a granddaughter of the Camp David talks between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin, on Thursday, Dec. 6, urged President George W. Bush to reconsider the administration's plans to bring accused terrorists before closed military tribunals.

Carter acknowledged that it is unusual for former American presidents to criticize sitting incumbents, but said he had heard from Democrats in Congress who were concerned, but fearful politically, to speak out against what they consider to be an unwarranted erosion of defendants' civil rights.

Even though his stand might be unpopular, Carter said, he believed it is important to safeguard the right of persons accused of crimes to have a public trial and the possibility of appeal to a higher court - even if the crime they are accused of is terrorism.

Besides, Carter quipped, unlike the unnamed Democrats in Washington:  "I don't intend to seek public office in the future and I have Secret Service protection."

The former U.S. president participated in the first panel discussion sponsored by the new Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego, a Catholic university.   The Institute's Jewish director, Joyce Neu, used to work for Carter at the Carter Center at Emory University. 

Joining Carter on the panel were former Costa Rican president Rodrigo Carazo Odio, who now heads the Peace Action Council of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, a former foreign minister of Mauretania and special United Nations representative to Burundi, who now serves as executive secretary of the Global Coalition for Africa.

Both Corazo Odio and Ould-Abdallah had participated in Carter Center activities in the past, so the initial forum at the new Kroc center brought together people who all knew and had worked with each other.

Neu, who had helped Carter negotiate ceasefires both in the Bosnian conflict and in a running guerrilla war between Uganda and the Sudan, appeared to relish the moment when she, as executive director of the Institute, took her place at the dais between two former presidents.

In his remarks, Carter spoke of hosting Begin and Sadat at Camp David, noting that Sadat had spent most of his military career trying to wipe out Israel.  Begin, according to Carter, had been widely regarded as a former terrorist 

Notwithstanding those fierce reputations, Begin and Sadat were able to conclude a peace pact-with Carter's help.  The former president remembered shuttling between the two adversaries, always trying to craft a solution that afforded each of the negotiating teams the impression that it was extracting more compromises than the other. 

That was an important lesson to learn, said Carter.

With the insights that he developed into the art of negotiation at Camp David, he said, he was able to start the Carter Center which utilizes his prestige as a former U.S. President to help arrange ceasefires, or conduct international negotiations.

As Neu learned the art of peacemaking at Carter's side, then developed the program for the Kroc Institute, the USD center can be viewed as a granddaughter of that historic Camp David negotiation.

The easy camaraderie among panelists and members of the audience indicated that the demand for peacemaking expertise around the world is so great, that there is little sense of rivalry among the various peacemaking institutions.

Unfortunately, audience members agreed, there are plenty of conflicts in the world to go around.