• NED Honors Russian Activists
• Chairman's Message
• Activists Work to Ensure Local Governance in Colombia
• North Korean Activists Speak Out for Human Rights
• 2004 Democracy Award Recipients
• Forum Welcomes New Class of Reagan-Fascell Fellows
• New Board Members
• NED Grantee Wins Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty
• Solidarity Activist Kuron Dies

2004 Democracy Award Draws Attention to Russian Setbacks

(from l to r) NED President Carl Gershman, Mara Polyakova, Senator Paul Sarbanes, Ludmilla Alekseeva, Arseny Roginsky, Aleksei Simonov, and Assistant Secretary Lorne Craner.

On Wednesday, June 9 the National Endowment for Democracy honored four longtime Russian activists with the Endowment’s annual Democracy Award. The event, which included a panel discussion featuring prominent Russia experts, highlighted not only the courageous efforts of the four honorees to advance democracy and human rights in Russia, but also grave concerns about the erosion of democratic gains in what panelist John McCain (R-AZ) described as a "creeping coup."

The four honorees, who are all NED grantees, included Ludmilla Alekseeva and Arseny Roginsky, both prominent dissidents from the Soviet era who today lead organizations that work tirelessly to investigate human rights abuses both past and present. The other honorees, Aleksei Simonov and Mara Polyakova, became prominent activists after the demise of the Soviet Union and focus the efforts of their respective organizations on protecting journalists and freedom of the press, and providing the best available legal assistance to the human rights community.

The panel discussion, entitled "Prospects for Democracy and Human Rights in Russia," preceded the award ceremony. Moderated by Librarian of Congress, James Billington, the discussion included presentations and comments from leading Soviet dissident Elena Bonner, Michael McFaul of Stanford University, Ludmilla Alekseeva, John McCain, Aleksei Simonov, Steve Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations, Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post, and Nadia Diuk of NED.

Panel members (from l to r) Steve Sestanovich, Jackson Diehl, and Aleksei Simonov.

Throughout their remarks, panelists detailed the many democratic rollbacks taking place under President Vladimir Putin’s semi-authoritarian regime, citing threats against civil society and human rights activists, manipulated elections, attacks on independent media, and the war in Chechnya. Michael McFaul commented that "if you add up the totality of Putin’s record, there can be no doubt that democracy has been overturned in the last 4 years." Panelist Elena Bonner, commenting on the gap between Putin’s democratic rhetoric and his undemocratic behavior said, "Illusions never help correct reality," and cautioned that "the West must watch this process; it must not give some advances to it on the basis of words but in the absence of deeds. And there are no deeds aside from various acts of destruction."

On a more optimistic note, Ludmilla Alekseeva said that the growth of civil society in Russia was a reason for hope. She noted that her Moscow Helsinki group "used to be the only human rights organization in Russia – now there are hundreds." She also commented that Putin’s recent thinly veiled threats against certain NGOs “proves that NGOs are a force to be reckoned with…..It is possible that harder times await us, and yet I am totally convinced that civil society has been born in Russia and it will continue to develop.”

Soviet dissident Elena Bonner with Librarian of Congress James Billington.

Though not intentional, the timing of the event served to highlight struggles of both the past and present in Russia. The proceedings began just before the body of President Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington and was brought to the Capitol Building where he was to lay in state. Reagan, who was one of NED’s principal founders, was fondly remembered by honorees and other panelists for the critical role he played in bringing communist rule to an end in the USSR. Panelist Elena Bonner particularly emphasized the importance of Reagan’s willingness not only to engage with the Soviet regime on the issue of reform, but also with dissidents, whom he met with both in the Soviet Union and the White House.

Also concurrent with the event was the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-8 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Senator McCain, among others, voiced concern that Putin’s constant tightening of political and economic freedoms in Russia made his membership in the forum of leading industrial democracies inappropriate. Following the panel, the Democracy Awards were presented by NED President Carl Gershman after remarks by NED Vice Chairman Tom Donahue, US Senator Paul Sarbanes, and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Lorne Craner. Assistant Secretary Craner made a strong statement in support of the honorees and all those working for democracy in Russia, assuring them on behalf of the US Administration that "we will be watching."

In his tribute to the honorees, Gershman said, "Together with countless others in the human rights and democracy movement in Russia, these individuals are working to build a free society of free people….their work should be honored, not demeaned; their patriotism lauded, not questioned." Reflecting the sentiments of all the winners in accepting his award, Arseny Roginsky expressed his gratitude to NED for its support and said, "We have a common cause, and I hope as a result of our common efforts Russia will have a little more freedom in the future, a little more democracy, and an end to the curse of the Chechen conflict."

More information about the Democracy Award and a video of the panel and presentations can be found at www.ned.org/events/demaward/demaward2004.html.

Among all the richly deserved tributes to President Reagan, there was surprisingly little written or spoken of his role in helping to establish the National Endowment for Democracy, one of the lasting legacies of his administration.

For the record, the idea of NED was not entirely his. In the celebrated Westminster Address of June 8, 1982, quoted extensively following President Reagan’s death for its vision of the demise of Communism, he pointed out that the bipartisan American Political Foundation was initiating a study to determine how our country could "best contribute—as a nation—to the global campaign for democracy now gathering force."

He understood so well that American resolve could not only help consign communism to the "ash heap of history," it could also help new democracies build the "infrastructure" of a free press, unions, political parties, universities and other institutions "which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means."

The Reagan Administration’s endorsement would prove critical to the success of that initiative, which brought together members of Congress, party leaders, and representatives of the American labor movement, business community, and other major institutions of our society. With strong support from both the Administration and the bipartisan congressional leadership, NED was established the following year.

At the White House ceremony held to celebrate the launching of the Endowment, President Reagan put his finger on the significance of this new venture,

"Speaking out for human rights and individual liberty and for the rule of law and the peaceful reconciliation of differences, for democratic values and principles, is good and right. But it’s not good enough. We must work hard for democracy and freedom, and that means putting our resources—organizations, sweat, and dollars—behind a long-term program…All Americans can be proud of this initiative and the congressional action which made it possible."

For the last 40 years Colombia has experienced an intense, prolonged internal armed conflict between government forces, leftist guerrillas and rightist paramilitary groups. As a result of the violence, Colombia has been deemed one of the most dangerous places to live and work in the world. As the atrocities committed by armed groups against the civilian population increase in intensity, local government struggles to survive. When insurgent groups called for massive boycotts of local elections held in October 2003, nine municipalities in seven states lacked a single candidate, and at least fifty candidates for council were killed.

As the conflict between the government and armed insurgents intensifies, civil society’s efforts to strengthen democratic governance are crucial. The Federación Nacional de Concejos (FENACON) is a membership association of local municipal councilors that works to serve and represent the needs of its elected constituents throughout Colombia. A NED grantee since 2001, FENACON is the only national organization actively seeking to promote better working conditions for Colombia’s 12,200 council members, thereby providing citizens with more prepared, responsible and transparent local governments. Since being granted greater autonomy in legislative, administrative and budgetary matters in 1991, Colombia’s municipal councils have served as the base of political representation, community participation and civil society initiatives. It is through these elected bodies that citizens are directly allowed to exercise their legislative rights. These municipal councils serve as the cornerstone of effective local government and represent the essence of the democratic state functioning—even in the midst of national chaos—at its most basic, grassroots level. Councilors receive no financial incentive to serve, and are often marked as military targets by armed groups. FENACON’s mission is to help these elected officials perform their duties in a more professional, effective and safe environment in order to support democratic government at the local level.

Since municipal councils also serve as governing bodies in remote regions throughout the country, members are often targeted by guerilla forces in an attempt to thwart democratic efforts and to continue to keep the country unstable and ungovernable. Elected council members are easy targets for armed groups; within the last year, more than 75 council members have been assassinated. To maintain democratic governance in areas where guerillas have come to assert their power requires the support of prepared, united and intact local governments. FENACON is working to improve the safety and security of councilors by creating a communications office and training regional human rights coordinators in 21 departments to form an early alert network to provide timely alerts on the whereabouts of the guerrilla and paramilitary fighters. Also, within the last year, FENACON has taken on a more active role in collaborating with the Ministry of the Interior and other government offices to provide protection and economic support to displaced council members and their families. In 2003, FENACON successfully relocated more than 1,300 councilors to secure locations where they could effectively govern without fear of retribution.

FENACON is also providing councilors the proper training so they will have the tools they need to govern effectively. Throughout the year, FENACON provides numerous trainings for new and current members on legislative matters, human rights, computer technology, and municipal management. In order to better meet the needs of members in remote areas, the Federation established a website where useful information, such as legislative issues, security alerts, and a schedule of upcoming trainings are published. In addition, it provides legal advice to councilors and serves as an advocate on their behalf before the national government, Congress, and the nation’s courts.

With a membership of over 3,000 council members, FENACON’s visibility and activity on the national level continues to grow. FENACON took an active role in tracking national legislation on budgetary issues, local development, and environmental sustainability in the municipalities. The organization has also expanded its outreach to the private sector, social organizations and international organizations.

By providing a much needed lifeline to municipal councilors throughout Colombia, FENACON is ensuring that democratic governance continues at the local level even in the midst of civil war. “[These] council members were democratically elected” stated Fabián Sarria, FENACON’s former Director of Human Rights. “Maintaining them in their municipalities with a minimum of guarantees helps preserve democracy throughout the country.”

An Hyuk spoke to the crowd about his experience in the North Korean prison camps.

During the week of April 27, 2004, a delegation from a new Korean NGO that is working to provide the international community with accurate information about North Korea’s gulag system, as well as the human rights abuses that are taking place there, came to Washington, DC. The Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag (NKGulag), a current NED grantee, was launched in Seoul, South Korea in June of 2003. Its two co-founders, Kang Cheol-hwan and An Hyuk, are both survivors of the No. 15 “Yodok” prison camp.

Concerned about the lack of knowledge and indifference in South Korea regarding human rights violations, lack of religious freedom, and the existence of the political prison camps in the North, Kang and An founded NKGulag to arouse the concern of the South Korean public for their fellow countrymen in the North. Among their activities, NKGulag collects accounts of human rights violations from recent defectors, maintains a "list of the missing," holds public events on university campuses, and maintains a website. For their courageous work, Kang Cheol-hwan and An Hyuk were among four Korean human rights activists who received the NED Democracy Award in July of 2003. The delegation of more than 15 defectors from North Korea, including several survivors of the gulag prison camps, carried out a week-long campaign in Washington to raise awareness about human rights abuses in North Korea. In addition to testifying at a congressional hearing and staging several demonstrations in the DC area throughout the week, delegation members met with interested parties in Washington to discuss the organization, its goals and activities, and what international supporters can do to complement and assist their work, and also gave personal testimonies of their experiences in the gulag camps.

The week’s highlight was the "North Korea Freedom Day" rally at US Capitol on April 28th, which drew endorsement from a wide range of supporters. Messages of solidarity came not only from democratic activists around the world, but also from the government of Japan and US policy makers.

Rally speakers included Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Congressmen Trent Franks (R-AZ), Joe Pitts (R-PA), and Ed Royce (R-CA). "We have learned about the great human rights tragedies of the 20th century – the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda, just to name a few," stated Brownback. "We criticize the contemporaries of those tragedies, asking, why didn’t you act? Future generations will look at us and ask us the same questions. This is our time to act." NED President, Carl Gershman also spoke at the rally saying, "It is necessary to shine the light of human rights on these crimes. It is North Korea’s hope that the security crisis it has caused will force the world to overlook the crimes it is committing against its own citizens. But these crimes are the source of the security crisis, and peace will not come without human rights."

Demonstrators called for the immediate passage of HR- 4011, The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, introduced by Congressman James Leach (R-IA). The goal of the Act is to promote human rights and freedom, and to help bring about peaceful changes for and by the people of North Korea.

Demonstrators came from around the world to protest the human rights abuses in North Korea.

NKGulag actively campaigns for human rights and democratization in North Korea and its members have dedicated themselves to speaking out on behalf of their compatriots who still suffer daily the horrors of North Korea’s gulag and the totalitarian repression that dominates North Korean society as a whole. “It is time for North Korea to be free and to end the tyranny and the suffering of its people,” said An Hyuk.

More information about NKGulag can be found at its website: www.nkgulag.org.

(Standing from l to r)Fidaa Shehadaa, Oleksandr Fisun, Maria Lisitsyna, Chee Soon Juan; Enkhtuya Oidov and Lyudmila Georgieva are seated.

Recently, the International Forum for Democratic Studies welcomed the arrival of its spring 2004 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows. New fellows hail from Bulgaria, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Singapore, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The fellowship program is designed to help democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of and enhance their ability to promote democracy in their own countries and throughout the world.



Mohamed Al-Yahyai is an Omani journalist who has worked to promote press freedom in the Arab Gulf states. He has served as an editor, correspondent, and columnist at a wide range of Arab-language newspapers and magazines, including Al-Bayan (Dubai), Al-Hayat (London), Al-Etihad (Abu Dhabi), and Akhbar al-Adab (Cairo). During his fellowship, Mr. Al-Yahyai will study the role of the internet in accelerating political reform and informing the public about democracy in the Arab Gulf region.

Chee Soon Juan is secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party and director of the Open Singapore Centre, an NGO that promotes accountability in all sectors of Singaporean society. Imprisoned twice for championing democratic change, Dr. Chee continues to be a powerful voice of dissent in his country. He plans to write a book on civil resistance and political change in Singapore while working at the Forum.

Oleksandr Fisun is an associate professor of political science at Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. Dr. Fisun is working on a comparative study of post-Soviet political regimes. During his time in residence at the Forum, he plans to explore the emergence of what he considers a “neo-patrimonial” system in post-Soviet states.

Lyudmila Georgieva is the founder of Foundation Common Cause, a Sofia-based NGO that educates citizens in the art of political advocacy. She is also a member of the public council to the parliamentary committee on civil society affairs, the first committee in Bulgarian parliamentary history established to advance legislation strengthening civil society. While in Washington, she plans to examine the principles and methods of political lobbying in order to assess their applicability in Bulgaria. Her research will culminate in a paper comparing U.S. and Bulgarian approaches to political advocacy.

Maria Lisitsyna is director of the Youth Human Rights Group, a nongovernmental organization that monitors human rights abuses and conducts human rights educational programs in Kyrgyzstan. During her fellowship, she intends to study the American experience of involving youth in human rights activities (promotion, recruitment, and training) and plans to produce training materials for increasing the participation of youth in human rights monitoring in Central Asia.

Enkhtuya Oidov has been a pioneer in the struggle for democracy in Mongolia since the 1980s. A founding member of the Mongolian Party for National Progress, one of Mongolia’s first political parties to advocate free-market reform, she served as a member of Mongolia’s parliament between 1996 and 2000 where, as head of the Women’s Caucus, she organized training programs aimed at advancing women to top-level government posts. During her fellowship, she will study the rise in human rights abuses and other setbacks that have followed in the wake of Mongolia’s 2000 election and identify ways of reversing them.

Fidaa Shehadaa is a project coordinator in crisis management at the Palestinian Institution for the Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development, a Ramallah-based nonprofit organization that seeks to strengthen Palestinian civil society through community development. During her fellowship, Ms. Shehadaa plans to explore the trends that facilitate and impede the democratization process in Palestine.

Muborak Tashpulatova is executive director of the Tashkent Public Education Center, a leading civic education organization in Uzbekistan that trains teachers in interactive methods of education, produces textbooks on teaching human rights and civic education, and conducts “town hall”-style civic forums for parents, youth, and the government. Ms. Tashpulatova was also a recipient of NED’s 2002 Democracy Award. During her fellowship, she plans to study U.S. methods of teaching civic education. Through a series of on-site visits and interviews, she plans to survey the work of the Department of Education, state and local education bodies, and teachers’ professional associations and unions. The results of her investigation will be published in a report for use in teaching democracy in Uzbekistan.

ASADHO Executive Director, Amigo Ngonnde-Funsu.

L’Association Africaine de Défense des Droits de l’Homme (ASADHO) has been awarded the 2004 Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty from Human Rights First, formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. A NED grantee since 1993, ASADHO is the one of the leading human rights monitoring organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Chosen unanimously by a distinguished international panel of judges, ASADHO was selected this year to draw international attention to the continuous human rights atrocities that are taking place in the Congo.

While in Washington to accept the award, ASADHO Executive Director, Amigo Ngonnde-Funsu commented, "One has not only the right, but an obligation to promote and defend human rights," a perfect expression of ASADHO’s dedication to its very important work.

Founded in 1991, ASADHO’s network of monitors makes an estimated 7,000 investigations of human rights abuses each year. ASADHO publishes a quarterly bulletin and compiles an annual human rights report that documents all cases of human rights violations throughout the year for distribution locally and internationally. The information ASADHO collects has been used by the Special Rapporteur for the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations and will also be used to prosecute human rights offenders at the International Criminal Court. At the local level, ASADHO also sponsors various other activities at schools, churches, and community groups aimed at human rights promotion and protection.

The Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty is named in honor of Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the International League for Human Rights, and a leading voice for human rights both in the United States and internationally. The award is jointly administered by Human Rights First and the ACLU. It is made every two years to an individual or organization outside the United States that has made a distinguished contribution to the protection and promotion of human rights.

Former President George Bush congratulates Jacek Kuron (right) and Monica Jimenez de Barros (left), NED’s 1989 Democracy Award recipients.

Jacek Kuron, key advisor to the Polish trade union Solidarity, died June 17 at the age of 70. In 1976, as the principal founder of the Committee to Defend Workers (KOR), he led one of the first organizations in Poland that provided aid to prisoners and fought communist repression. The KOR provided a forum where Polish intellectuals, cultural figures and students could raise awareness about the need for political reform and support the industrial workers, miners and farmers who were trying to build an independent labor union.

In 1980, Kuron became an advisor to Lech Walesa, then the leader of the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland. Nine years later he played a leading role in the negotiations between Solidarity and the communist authorities that led to Poland’s first free election and the peaceful removal of the communists from power.

In 1989 Kuron received NED’s Democracy Award for his contributions to Solidarity’s struggle and the democratic cause in Poland. While accepting the award, Kuron stated that Solidarity’s success proves that “the assumption that totalitarianism can be broken only from the outside, since there are no internal forces capable of breaking the system, is false. Self-organizing society can overcome totalitarianism from within.”

"Without Jacek, Solidarity would never have seen the light of day," stated Lech Walesa, after hearing of Kuron’s death, “There would have been no success or victory without him, without his intellect.”