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Publications >> Democracy Newsletter
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National Endowment for Democracy News and Information Spring 2002 Newsletter
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Tokyo Meeting Calls for Specific Steps to Improve Human Rights in North Korea
"We believe that the North Korean regime is the paramount human rights violator of our time." This was the conclusion of the participants at the Third International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees held in Tokyo, Japan, on Feb. 9-10. The gathering featured chilling, first-hand accounts of escapees from North Korea including a former bodyguard for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, as well as testimony from many human rights and humanitarian relief experts and scholars from around the world. "At a time when world attention is focused on North Korea and other rogue states, this conference is an important forum to expose the terrible reality of life in the world's most secretive, totalitarian state," said NED President Carl Gershman. NED was one of the funders of the Tokyo conference and the two previous meetings organized by the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights based in Seoul. Co-sponsored by the Citizens' Alliance and Japan's Society to Help Returnees to North Korea, the Tokyo conference focused on the plight of North Korean refugees in China; kidnappees and detainees in North Korea as well as returnees from Japan; and actions that can be taken by the international NGO community. Gruesome details emerged from Kim's former bodyguard, Lee Young-kuk. He had witnessed first-hand people shot or tortured to death by the agents of the North Korean regime. One of them was buried alive at Yo-dok political prison, where Lee was detained from 1995 to 1999. Another detainee "was tied to a vehicle and dragged for four kilometers (2.5 miles) at high speeds" to his death. Lee Jae-kuen, a fisherman accused of spying for South Korea, was detained for 30 years and subjected to torture, death threats and indoctrination along with other fishermen. Jung Choon-hwa and five other women escaped the famine and misery in North Korea only to fall into the hands of three traffickers, men who sold North Korean women into sexual slavery in China. She recounted a story of a woman who was raped in turns by the man who bought her, his father and his brother. In the keynote address, Marcus Noland, a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Institute for International Economics and member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said that the decade-long famine that has killed about a million North Koreans is the product of a cynical act of man and a tragedy made possible only by totalitarian repression unparalleled in the world today. "If anything," Noland said, "the events of September 11 underline the lesson that countries marked by cultures of violence beget violence in dissent, and governments that repress domestic dissent externalize that dissent, in effect exporting their internal problems to the rest of the world." Many shared this assessment, including Gershman, who told the conference: "Extremism is a threat to us all. Whether it takes the form of a global terrorist network or a state that terrorizes its own people, the end result is a threat to human security and world peace." Conference details can be found at the Citizen's Alliance Web site (www.nkhumanrights.or.kr). The next conference is scheduled to be held in Paris next year. [Top]
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NED Grantees Strengthen Inter-Congolese Dialogue
After a war causing more than two and a half million deaths, the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD), which lasted eight weeks and ended on April 21, sought to identify policies for sharing political power that could bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Meeting in Sun City, South Africa, more than 300 representatives from the DRC government, two major rebel groups, political parties, and civil society came close to resolving their differences but could not agree on the composition of an interim government. Despite an inconclusive end to the ICD, it is clear that civil society groups will continue to play an important role in encouraging peace and reconciling competing interests around the country. In recognition of this, Congo remains NED's top priority in Africa. Currently more than 30 grants totaling about $1 million aid groups promoting human rights, women's political empowerment, conflict resolution, an independent press and civic education in every part of the country. Many of the groups NED supports are involved directly or indirectly in the ICD and its efforts to end suffering in the DRC.
"Congo remains NED's top priority in Africa."
For example, the Bureau d' Etudes, de Recherche et de Consulting International is conducting polling across the country that has demonstrated the strong public desire for peace and, as recently reported in the Washington Post, has signaled to the belligerents and other participants in the ICD that their popularity and credibility is largely dependent on their commitment to the success of the ICD. Another group, the Ligue des Electeurs, provided technical assistance to the civil society delegation at the ICD and provided daily reports on its proceedings. The civil society delegation was the only honest broker in the ICD, and was courted by all sides. Its strength, unity and effectiveness were therefore perceived as critical to the process. Several Endowment grantees were official civil society delegates to the ICD, including Marie Bapu Bidibundu, from West Kasai province, who is director of Promotion de la Femme Rurale, which has held a series of workshops to solicit the views of women and present an agenda for women's rights at the ICD. Other NED grantees such as Medias pour la Paix and the Ligue Nationale pour les Elections Libres et Transparents in Kinshasa, Synergie pour la Paix, in Kisangani, and Radio Maendeleo in Bukavu are building strong public support for dialogue and providing necessary public information. The greater the public demand for peace, democracy and development, the harder it will be for the warlords and politicians to continue misleading the population into violence. Some NED grantees were already prepared for the aftermath of the ICD, whether it succeeded or failed. The Center for Human Rights in Lubumbashi, Haki za Binadamu in Kindu, and SolidaritŽ pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix in Goma (whose offices were destroyed in January by the Nyiragongo volcanic eruption) are building the foundations for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. The Centre Mater Misericordiae is rehabilitating child soldiers in South Kivu, Promotion et Appui au Developpement Communitaire is focusing on the resolution of land disputes that have generated much of the conflict, and the ComitŽ d' Action pour le DŽveloppement IntŽgral is attempting to overcome the ethnic divisions that have plagued Uvira and Fizi. These programs are just a small sample of the Endowment's assistance to civil society groups in the DRC. NED grantees are working not only to take advantage of the strategic window of opportunity presented by the ICD, but also to provide a concerted response to the enormous catastrophe that has occurred in the DRC. [Top]
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Chairman's Message
As Chairman of NED, I am sometimes asked how the events of September 11 and the fight against terrorism relate to our work. I begin by telling them that countries that are democratic do not, by their very nature, export terrorism. So the best long-term solution to the problem is one that goes to the very heart of NED's mission.
Still, the events of September 11 have given a new urgency to that message. Coincidentally, we were in the process of drafting a new strategy when the terrorists struck our country. The plan adopted by the NED Board in January notes how critical it is for us to help democracy take root in those countries where terrorism is bred, whether in the Middle East, Africa, South or Central Asia, or any other country where terrorism feeds off tyranny and repression. This is particularly true for the Muslim world, a vast area that extends from Morocco to Indonesia, for three principal reasons: its relative lack of functioning democracies, its increasing challenge from influential Islamist movements that preach intolerance, and the fact that its soil has been fertile ground for terrorist activity. NED, with its multi-sectoral structure and the emphasis it has placed on encouraging democratic values and ideas, has the capacity to meet the challenges in the Muslim world of helping to liberalize its political systems, modernize its state and economic structures, establish the rule of law, and end the political abuse of religion. It is critical that we continue to seek ways of working with groups in the region which can reconcile Islam with modern concepts of pluralism, citizenship, and individual rights. But as the strategy document makes clear, meeting these challenges in the Muslim world in no way represents a retreat from our global approach. Indeed, the fact that we have a track record in a number of countries with substantial Muslim populations is due to the fact that we have always been ready to help fellow democrats, no matter the magnitude of the challenge. As September 11 made clear, in a globalized world, cancer in any part of the international body politic can spread to the detriment of us all.
Vin Weber [Top]
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Although the events of September 11 have focused international attention on the global fight against terrorism, there is much unfinished business for the international community in the unstable Balkan region. This was the message delivered by a delegation of prominent think tank leaders who visited Washington in early February to present a draft of a joint report, developed with support from NED, on the state of democracy in the Balkans. Led by Ivan Krastev of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, the delegation was composed of independent policy analysts from Bulgaria, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. Entitled "The Inflexibility Trap: Frustrated Societies, Weak States, and Democracy," the report lays out new strategies for overcoming the major impediments to democracy in the region, which include state weakness, a lack of security, crime and corruption. The report argues that although the U.S. is handing over many responsibilities to its European allies for ensuring the long-term stability and economic development of the region, it still has an important role to play in the Balkans, particularly in democracy promotion. At a conference sponsored by NED, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Dayton Peace Accords Project, the analysts addressed the topic, "Securing the Balkans: The Unfinished Agenda," and argued that there is a glaring gap between political elites and the public in virtually every Balkan state. This chasm is the result of governments' failure to provide physical and economic security for their citizens. The analysts pointed out that all available polling data show that citizens have little trust in political institutions and display growing anti-party sentiments. Thus, elections simply become an opportunity for the public to lodge a protest vote. This tendency was clearly displayed in Bulgaria last year when a reformist government was voted out of office in favor of a three-month old movement led by former King Simeon. The report calls on Western institutions promoting democracy in the region to take into account citizens' perception of the status quo and their expectations for a better life. The efforts of political elites to meet Western criteria for democracy and economic reform often create public resentment and lead to a situation where the leadership shapes one message for its Western supporters and another for its electorate. This apparent political hypocrisy leads to what the report calls "hollow democracies" which are devoid of genuine participatory political processes. The delegation is expected to release the final version of its report later in the spring at an international conference in the Balkans. [Top]
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Cox, Elshtain, Garment and Novak Join NED Board
The NED Board of Directors elected four new members at its January and March 2002 meetings. "We are proud to welcome these committed individuals whose incredible intellectual distinction, wide experience and extraordinary drive will help guide the Endowment to promote democracy around the world," said NED President Carl Gershman.
Christopher Cox As Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, a post he has held for eight years, Cox is the highest ranking member of the California congressional delegation, and is the fifth-ranking member of the Republican House leadership. Prior to his election to the Congress, Cox served as Senior Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, practiced law, and taught at Harvard Business School. Throughout his career Cox has demonstrated a deep interest in International Relations and has earned international recognition for his efforts to assist nations of the former Soviet Union in their transition to democracy and free markets. His interest in the region was evident as early as 1984, when, together with his father, he began a four-year stint publishing an independent English translation of the Soviet daily Pravda.
Jean Bethke Elshtain She has also served as chair of the Council on Civil Society and has written extensively on such topics as democracy and its problems, as well as sovereignty and international relations. "My goal as a board member will be to deepen my own appreciation of the democratic initiatives, including the difficulties and complexities, underway throughout the world and to do what I can to add my insight as a political theorist whose work focuses on questions of social and political ethics to those initiatives," said Elshtain.
Suzanne R. Garment "The end of the Cold War, while affording new opportunities to advance democracy, has not meant the end of threats to democracies and the democratic idea," she remarked. "The Endowment has proven to be a highly effective vehicle for making the most of the opportunities and meeting the threats. I am immensely pleased to have the chance to be a part of its efforts."
Michael Novak "For nearly 30 years, I have been writing about democracy in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and worldwide," said Novak. "My wife and I cheered for and supported the original founding of NED. So this will be a great opportunity both to learn and to try to help the many new democratic movements around the world." [Top]
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Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program Formally Launched
The National Endowment for Democracy formally launched the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program on March 14 at a Capitol Hill luncheon cosponsored with the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). Established in the fall of 2001 in honor of President Ronald Reagan and the late Congressman Dante Fascell (D-FL), two leading figures in the founding of NED, the fellowships enable democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to enhance their ability to promote democracy. Funding for the program, which is authorized and appropriated by the Congress, is provided through a grant from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The highlight of the event came when the initial group of five Reagan-Fascell fellows gave brief, but compelling descriptions of their work. Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Dr. Mehrangiz Kar received a standing ovation after speaking passionately of the persecution she and her family were withstanding in the struggle for human rights and democracy in Iran. Kar was imprisoned last year in Iran after speaking out against Iranian human rights violations at an international conference in Berlin in 2000. Sentenced to four years in prison, Kar was released on bail in 2001 and allowed to leave the country for medical reasons and is currently in the U.S. undergoing treatment for cancer. Her 73-year old husband, Siamak Pourzand, was arbitrarily detained last November and was held without charge for four months. On May 3, 2002 the Tehran press court sentenced him to eight years in prison for espionage and threatening national security. "We are not guilty of anything. We have only stood for basic civil rights and freedoms of men, women, and children in Iran," said Kar, who is researching the impediments to political participation in Iran. "I will not be silent and will continue to do everything I can to speak the truth. In the face of everything, I believe in a better future for Iran, and I will continue to work for that future." Kar's remarks were followed by those of Ukrainian democracy and human rights activist Myroslava Gongadze. She is the widow of journalist Georgiy Gongadze whose suspicious and brutal murder in September 2000 was believed to be politically motivated and was a major factor contributing to Ukraine's recent political crisis. Gongadze has used her fellowship to analyze the role of the media in the current crisis in Ukraine. "Every time a journalist is killed, it silences a million other voices," she said.
The three other fellows who spoke were South Korean scholar Dr. Chaihark Hahm, who is examining the role of the Korean Constitutional Court in building democracy in South Korea; Iranian scholar Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo, who is studying the role of intellectuals in promoting democracy in Iran; and democracy activist and former Member of Parliament in Moldova, Vladimir Solonari, who is studying the state of communist parties in post-communist world. Former Democratic Congressman from Indiana and now Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center and NED Board Member, Lee Hamilton, presided at the event, which included remarks by several Members of Congress who praised President Reagan and Rep. Fascell for their commitment to the promotion of democracy around the world, which led to the establishment of NED in 1983.
Other speakers included Reps. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), and John J. LaFalce (D-NY), who were co-chairs of the event, Christopher Cox (R-CA) and Connie Morella (R-MD) who is also the Secretary of NIAF's Board of Directors. Fascell's daughter Sandra Fascell Diamond represented the Fascell family, reading a letter from her mother, Jeanne-Marie Fascell, who noted that Reagan and Fascell "shared a deep and profound dedication to the founding principles of our republic, to the importance of working to strengthen democracy everywhere." And in a message read by Rep. Cox, former First Lady Nancy Reagan said: "The advancement of democracy will always stand as an important part of my husband's eight years at the White House. It is an honor to have his name associated with such a vital program that is not only non-partisan and non-government, but one that promotes the cause of democracy throughout the world." [Top]
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Democracy Forum for East Asia Meets in Bangkok
Over the past decade, many governments and international donors have invested heavily in the emerging structures of civil society in East Asia. The results of these investments vary by country and continue to evolve, but some general trends are already clear. Non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups have become stronger and more effective throughout the region. At the same time, new questions have arisen about relations between civil-society organizations and the state. Whom do these organizations represent? To what extent are they rooted in public and domestic-government support? Does their heavy financial dependence on international donors reflect a possible detachment from social and political forces within their own societies? To address these questions and exchange experiences, the Democracy Forum for East Asia, a partnership project of the NED's International Forum for Democratic Studies and Korea's Sejong Institute, held the fifth in its series of conferences on February 14-16 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting, entitled "Civil Society, Political Parties, and the State: Balancing Democratic Development in Asia," included the participation of 30 NGOs, political-party and business leaders, members of parliaments, government officials, and other democracy experts from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States, and was cosponsored by the Asia Foundation of San Francisco, and King Prajadhipok's Institute of Thailand, which served as the local host. The two-day conference included four working sessions. The first session focused on how relations between state agencies and civil society actors vary within Asia, and how these relations affect the development of democratic governance. The second session explored the extent to which civil society organizations and leaders in Asia are becoming active in party and electoral politics, and the impact of this on the development of effective democratic governance. The third session considered how Asian NGOs might increase the involvement of citizens of their own societies, while also drawing support from transnational civil society alliances and from the international donor community. The final session was devoted to a critical review of current reform proposals and to the evolving strategies of civil society groups, political parties and state actors, and the international donor community. A narrative report on the Bangkok conference is in preparation and will be made available in print and also published on the Democracy Forum Web site in the near future. [Top]
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Jesus Diaz, Editor of Cuban Journal Encuentro, Dies
Diaz, a celebrated writer, journalist and cinematographer died on May 2, 2002 at the age of 60 in Madrid, where he has lived in exile since leaving Cuba in the 1970s. Through his work at Encuentro Diaz promoted dialogue among a broad spectrum of writers, artists and academics in Cuba and in exile, and provided a forum for the discussion of political change and the future of Cuba. [Top]
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Russian Civic Activists Demonstrate Their Ability to Influence Putin’s Government
During the third week of November, 2001, hundreds of NGOs from all over Russia, including current and former NED grantees, gathered at the Kremlin in Moscow to exchange views and meet with government officials at the first Civic Forum, the largest single such gathering ever held in Russia. When it was first announced, this Kremlin-sponsored initiative provoked enormous controversy within Russian civil society, especially among human rights organizations, who feared that it would be used for propaganda by President Vladimir Putin. Moreover, the objective of the Civic Forum, as originally described by the Kremlin, was to form a centralized body to coordinate relations between NGOs and the government. The outcry this plan provoked among civil society activists led the Kremlin to invite independent organizations, including former and current NED grantees like the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, and the Memorial Society, to take part in the organizing committee. These organizations’ patient, persistent efforts secured a number of important concessions from the government, resulting in an event which allowed for a more substantive exchange of views between government officials and civic activists than the government had originally envisioned. Furthermore, the Forum did not adopt any resolutions or attempt to set up a single, corporatist civil society organization. Although some major human rights groups refused to take part in the Forum, those that did demonstrated a much greater ability to influence government policy than they had expected at the outset. Thus, although the Russian government remains suspicious of independent NGOs, the Civic Forum is an important demonstration of the influence that civil society organizations have acquired over the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union. [Top]
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Highlights of Recent NED Grants
Burma
Egypt
Sierra Leone
Mexico
Slovakia [Top]
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Board of Directors
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