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Biographies of Key Participants

Mariclaire Acosta Urquidi (Mexico) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is Director of the Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas for the Organization of the American States (OAS). She is also the founder of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. During 2000-2003 Mariclaire Acosta served initially as Special Ambassador, and subsequently as Mexico’s Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Democracy in the Foreign Affairs Secretariat. She has also held various positions in human rights institutions, such as the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, the Center for Justice and International Rights, and the Mexican Section of Amnesty International, among others. She has been a consultant for international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank. In 2006 she joined the Organization of American States, where she headed the Department for the Promotion of Good Governance in the Secretariat for Political Affairs. In early 2007, Secretary General Insulza, commissioned her to establish a special program to achieve universal civil registration in the Americas, under the auspices of the OAS, and with the collaboration of the IDB and UNICEF. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Fund for Global Human Rights.

Mahnaz Afkhami (Iran) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is founder and president of Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP). Afkhami is also executive director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies and former Minister of State for Women's Affairs in Iran. She founded the Association of Iranian University Women and served as secretary general of the Women's Organization of Iran prior to the Islamic revolution. In exile in the United States, Ms. Afkhami has been a leading advocate of women's rights for more than three decades, having founded and headed several international non-governmental organizations focused on advancing the status of women. Most recently, she was President of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute. She created the concept and mobilized support for the establishment of the Asian and Pacific Centre for Women and Development (APCWD) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). She served as a member of Iran's High Council of Family Planning and Welfare, the board of trustees of Kerman University, and the board of trustees of Farah University for Women.

Igor Blazevic (Bosnia) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and a Bosnian human rights campaigner who works for the People in Need Foundation. The foundation operates extensively throughout the world's trouble spots and disaster zones, attempting to bring relief to the victims and raise awareness of their plight back home. As well as his humanitarian work with People in Need, Igor is also the founder and co-coordinator of the foundation's One World film festival - a festival devoted to documenting human rights abuses wherever they happen, from Afghanistan to Columbia.

Francesca Bomboko ( Democratic Republic of Congo) is a member of the Wo rld Movement Steering Committee and has been working in the political arena since 1990, when she founded the Bureau d'Etudes, de Recherche et de Consulting International (BERCI) along with Olivier Kamitatu. The Kinshasa-based research center and polling organization has produced numerous public opinion polls of ordinary Congolese regarding their perspectives on important political issues. BERCI became an innovator in its field by publishing the results of such polls locally on a free, monthly basis, made possible by a National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grant. In 2002 Ms. Bomboko participated in the Inter Congolese dialogue as an expert on President Masire's Facilitation Team. In 2004-2005, she was a consultant to the National Steering Committee of poverty reduction in the DRC, a special unit of the ministry of planning. That committee drafted the Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper to be presented to the World Bank as part of their program for debt reduction in highly indebted countries.

Martin Bútora ( Slovakia) is president of the Institute of Public Affairs in Bratislava, an independent public policy research institute established in 1997. Mr. Bútora was one of the founders of Public Against Violence, the leading Slovak force in the Velvet Revolution. From 1990 to 1992, he served as an advisor on human rights issues to former Czech president Václav Havel. He received the Democracy Service Medal from the National Endowment for Democracy in 2000 and a Celebration of Freedom award from the American Jewish Committee in 2002. He served as Slovak Ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2003.

Rindai Chipfunde (Zimbabwe) is the national director of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a leading pro-democracy network of 36 non-governmental organizations promoting democratic elections in Zimbabwe. She is the current Zimbabwe representative for the Election Support Network hosted by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa. Chipfunde is a former Country Coordinator for Southern African Human Rights NGOS and Programs Coordinator for the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association. She has been on a number of international election observer missions, and is interested in learning about the promotion of democratic elections, transparency, and the rule of law in civil society.

Kavi Chongkittavorn (Thailand) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is assistant group editor of Nation Media Group, publisher of English-language, The Nation and vernacular, Krungthep Turakijand Kom Chat Luek in Thailand. He has been a journalist for more than two decades covering Thai and regional politics. He was a bureau chief in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 1988-1990 and Hanoi, Vietnam from 1990-1992. He also served as special assistant to the secretary general at the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 1993-1994 before returning to journalism until the current position. In 1993, he was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2001. He was named the Human Rights Journalist of 1998 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of UNDHR by Amnesty International, Thailand. From 1999-2003, he was the president of Thai Journalists Association. Since 1999, he has chaired the Bangkok-based regional free media advocacy group, Southeast Asian Press Alliance. He also serves as President Jury of Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, UNESCO.

Larry Diamond (United States) is a founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, both at Stanford University. During 2002-3, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Since then, he has lectured and written extensively on U.S. policy in Iraq and the wider challenges of post-conflict stabilization and reconstructing, and was one of the advisors to the Iraq Study Group. He has also participated in several working groups on the Middle East. During 2004-5, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on United States Policy toward Arab Reform. His newest book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World, explores the sources of global democratic progress and stress and the prospects for future democratic expansion.

Ivan Doherty (Ireland) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and Director of Political Party Programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) in Washington, DC. Mr. Doherty leads NDI's participation in a number of global and regional initiatives, including the World Movement for Democracy, the Community of Democracies, and the OAS Inter-American Forum on Political Parties. Mr. Doherty has an extensive background in political party development and international affairs. He worked for more than 15 years with Ireland's Fine Gael Party in a number of senior positions, including assistant national director of organization, deputy general secretary, and general secretary from 1990 to 1994. Appointed government program manager in 1994, Mr. Doherty was assigned to Ireland's Ministry of Tourism and Foreign Trade. He has served as senior advisor to the European People's Party parliamentary grouping in the European Parliament; played a role in the Irish Presidency of the EU and the WTO Ministerial in 1996; and conducted Irish trade promotion missions around the world.

Han Dongfang (China) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is Director of China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based labor rights group. He is a frequent speaker at international labor movement, NGO, and government-sponsored conferences around the world. Mr. Dongfang is also a broadcaster for Radio Free Asia. He presents a thrice-weekly radio program from Hong Kong, focusing on workers' struggles in mainland China. The number of regular listeners in China is estimated by RFA to be around 40 million. Mr. Dongfang has also worked as a railway maintenance worker on long-distance cargo trains and has served in People's Liberation Army, rose to rank of squad leader.

Nadia Diuk (United States) is the director for Europe and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy. At the NED, Ms. Diuk supervises the democratization efforts in Russia, Ukraine, the Southern Caucasus, and the countries of Central Asia. Before joining the NED, Ms. Diuk taught Soviet politics and Russian history, and she was a research associate at the Society for Central Asian Studies in England. She was also editor in chief of the London-based publication Soviet Nationality Survey.

Yuri Dzhibladze (Russia) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is President of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights. Dzhibladze is a specialist in political science, human rights, international law, and development of civil society. Medical doctor-cardiologist by training, he received his second degree in international relations in 1998 from Columbia University in New York. Mr. Dzhibladze started his participation in social movements in mid-1980s as an activist in anti-nuclear movement. In 1980s-first half of 1990s he created several Russian and international NGOs concerned with civil society development, non-violent social change, intercultural dialogue and conflict resolution. He acts as a consultant to a number of Russian and international NGOs as an expert in democratic institution building, development of civil society and rule of law, human rights and conflict resolution. As a coordinator of and consultant to a number of grant programs of charitable foundations, he has developed and implemented grant programs for NGOs totaling several million US dollars.

João Carlos Espada (Portugal) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee is the director of the Institute for Political Studies of the Portuguese Catholic University. He is also Guest Professor at the Faculty of Economic and Entrepreneurial Sciences and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Catholic University; in the latter, he is responsible for the Area of Social and Political Studies. Espada was President of the Portuguese Political Science Association (2002-2006). He is the President of the Executive Committee of the Portuguese chapter of the International Churchill Society, and vice-president of the Michael Oakeshott Association. He contributes a weekly opinion column to the Portuguese weekly newspaper EXPRESSO. He is political adviser to the President of the Portuguese Republic, Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva (since March 2006), having held a similar position during the first term of the former President Mr. Mário Soares (1986-1990).

Carl Gershman (United States) is President of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, congressionally supported grant-making institution with the mission to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts, a position he has held since 1984. In addition to presiding NED’s grants program, he has overseen the creation of the quarterly Journal of Democracy, International Forum for Democratic Studies, and the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program. Prior to assuming the position with the Endowment, Mr. Gershman was Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations, in which capacity he served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Third Committee that deals with human rights issues, and also as Alternate Representative of the U.S. to the U.N. Security Council. He serves, ex officio, on the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy.

Myroslava Gongadze (Ukraine) is a Ukrainian journalist, human rights activist, and founder of the Gongadze Foundation. Ms. Gongadze was trained as a lawyer at Lviv State University and has worked for several Ukrainian publications. Since the murder of her husband, journalist Georgiy Gongadze, in 2000, she has been a prominent advocate for freedom of the press and protection of the safety of journalists in Ukraine, and has continued to work for justice in the case of her husband’s murder. Gongadze was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and a visiting Scholar at George Washington University, both in Washington, D.C. She has also worked as a correspondent for Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Paul Graham (South Africa) is a Member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is Executive Director of IDASA (the Institute for Democracy in South Africa), an independent public interest organization committed to promoting sustainable democracy based on active citizenship, democratic institutions, and social justice.

Sharon Hom (United States) is the Executive Director of Human Rights in China and Professor of Law Emeritus at the City University of New York School of Law. She has over 14 years of experience in USA-China legal exchanges and training programs. Ms. Hom was a Fulbright Scholar in the People's Republic of China and a Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. She also participated as an independent expert at the World Summit on the Information Society’s (WSIS) International Symposium on the Information Society and Human Dignity. As a delegate of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Ms. Hom also presented at several parallel NGO events at the WSIS, and participated in the EU-China Human Rights Seminar in Venice, Italy. She served on the USA-China Committee on Legal Education Exchange with China, and sits on the board of Human Rights Watch/Asia, and on the Committees on Asian Affairs and International Human Rights of the Bar Association of the City of New York.

Jana Hybásková (Czech Republic) is a Member of the World Movement Steering Committee and Member of the European Parliament. She currently heads the Inter-parliamentary Delegation for Relations with Israel. Ms. Hybásková is also a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. She is a substitute member of the Sub-committee on Security and Defense, the Committee on Economic and Financial Issues, Social Affairs and Education, the Committee on Budgets, the Delegation for Relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, and the Delegation for Relations with Iran. Since October 2004, Ms. Hybásková has been a member of the Czech liberal conservative party "European Democrats (ED)," by which she was nominated for the European Parliament. In 2005, she was elected Chairwoman of the Czech liberal conservative party SNK-ED. Ms. Hybásková began working for the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic and the Czech Republic in 1990. She has also served as Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Slovenia, and Ambassador to Kuwait and Qatar. Ms. Hybásková was awarded with the Cross of Merit by the Czech Minister of Defense in 2003.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Egypt) is the chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies at the American University in Cairo. Mr. Ibrahim is a leading Egyptian pro-democracy activist who founded the Ibn Khaldun Center in 1988 to create one of the few independent research institutions in the Arab world. He also founded the Arab Organization for Human Rights. Dr. Ibrahim gained global attention after he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment at a trial Amnesty International described as politically motivated to punish him for his human rights activism. His conviction was overturned in 2003 . Professor Ibrahim is a former adviser to the Egyptian government. He has also served as a board member and head of Arab Affairs at the state-affiliated Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Professor Ibrahim is well-known for his work both as a scholar and a champion of democracy and human rights. In addition to the various positions he holds in organizations such as the Club of Rome and the World Bank's Advisory Council for Environmentally Sustainable Development, he has been a leading proponent of democratic reforms in Egypt, particularly with regard to religious minority rights. As secretary general of the Egyptian Independent Commission for Electoral Review, Professor Ibrahim has monitored, documented, and publicized the election process in Egypt, including allegations of electoral fraud.

Yang Jian-Li (China) is the Chairman of the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century, a non-profit think tank that promotes constitutional democracy for China, and a well-known leader in the Chinese Democracy movement. Given his political activism, he was blacklisted by the government of the People's Republic of China, who also refused to renew his passport. Dr. Yang returned to China in April 2002 on a friend's passport to view labor unrest in northeast China. He was detained when trying to board an internal flight and was sentenced in 2004 to five years in prison for espionage and illegal entry. In April of 2007 he was released from Chinese prison and finally returned to the United States in August 2007. As a veteran of the Tiananmen Square movement and June 4, 1989, Beijing, Dr. Yang responded to the concerns of the United States Congress on a variety of issues by testifying and giving his eyewitness accounts many times. He is one of 49 prominent dissidents blacklisted by the Chinese government. As a scholar and an intellectual dissident, Dr. Yang has published numerous works all aimed at achieving an open, free, and democratic China under the constitutional rule of law. His work has covered issues such as multi-ethnic co-existence and constitutional democracy in China.

Maina Kiai (Kenya) , an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, is the Chairperson of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). Kiai is also the Founding Executive Director of the nongovernmental Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) where he led the revitalization of the constitutional reform process in Kenya. He has served as Africa Director at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International and Director of Africa Programs at the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington, DC (now called Global Rights). Kiai was named Jurist of the Year in 2005 by the International Commission of Jurists and is a member of the Management Committee of the African Democracy Forum, the World Movement’s Africa regional network.

Ivan Krastev (Bulgaria) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is Chairman of the Board and Research Director of the Center for Liberal Strategies based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Through sophisticated in-depth analytical reports, Krastev has influenced the policies of the Bulgarian government on key issues such as establishing a primary election system in Bulgaria and fostering international and regional cooperation. He has led a number of major policy research projects in Bulgaria which included reports on human security in Southeastern Europe and the prospects for NATO enlargement into the Balkan region. In recognition of his work, he has received a number of international research awards, including the Manfred Woerner Fellowship and the Woodrow Wilson Policy Fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Budapest University. Mr. Krastev holds an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Sofia.

Laith Kubba (United States) is the Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment of Democracy. Throughout 2005, he was a senior advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari and a spokesman for the Iraqi government. From 1993 until 1998, he was the Director of International Relations at the Al Khoei Foundation in London. Mr. Kubba has had extensive involvement in Iraqi politics. In 1992, he helped found the Iraqi National Congress, coordinated its first meeting in Vienna, acted as its spokesman and served on its first executive committee. He also served on the boards of regional institutions including the Iraq Foundation and the Arab Organization for Human Rights.

George Mathew (India) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is founder and director of the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi. Additionally, he is a member of several committees of the federal government of India and on the board of governors of national and international organizations. He has participated and presented in international conferences on political processes, democracy, federalism, human rights, religion, and society. Dr. Mathew received his Ph.D in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was a visiting fellow of the University of Chicago South Asian Studies Center from 1981- 1982 and Visiting Professor at the University of Padova in 1988. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the summer of 1991 at the University of Chicago. His areas of specialization are grassroots democracy, local government system (Panchayati Raj), decentralization, gender equity, and human rights.

Michael McFaul (United States) is the Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a member of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Editorial Board for the Journal of Democracy. Dr. McFaul co-directs the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution, also located at Stanford University. He is a non-resident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Eurasia Foundation, the Firebird Fund, Freedom House, and the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX).

Roel von Meijenfeldt (Netherlands) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is Executive Director of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy. A political scientist by training, von Meijenfeldt has worked on international co-operation and globalizing markets within the trade union movement, and in the management of a national educational institute. In 1984 he moved to Harare, Zimbabwe, as the Regional Representative for southern Africa for the Netherlands Organization for International Development Co-operation (NOVIB). He became the Secretary General of the Standing Committee of NGOs in Brussels in 1988, and managed an EU program in support of the eradication of apartheid and the transition to democracy in South Africa and Namibia. In 1996 he was appointed Program Director of the newly established International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm. In this position he designed and directed programs aimed at the consolidation of democracy in countries around the world. The program developed an innovative framework for democratic development to guide international assistance for advancing democracy and produced national assessments for several countries. In March 2002, Roel von Meijenfeldt was appointed Executive Director of the new Institute for Multiparty Democracy (IMD) in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Ayo Obe (Nigeria) chairs the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy. A prominent Nigerian human rights activist, Ms. Obe is a Lagos-based legal practitioner who has recently been working as the Senior Program Manager for Elections in Nigeria for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. She is a past President of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), where education and empowerment were among her key strategies to address basic human rights issues in Nigeria, including prison conditions, police brutality, and the condition of women. Ms. Obe is a lawyer and is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association and the International Bar Association.

Omar Faruk Osman (Somalia) is a Somali journalist. He was elected in 2002 to be the Secretary General of the Somali Journalists Network (SOJON). Under his leadership, the SOJON became an authoritative and strong voice that defends press freedom and journalists’ rights in the war ravaged Nation. Omar also headed the successful process of transforming SOJON to a trade union movement called the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) in 2005. In 2005, he received on behalf of NUSOJ the RSF International Press Freedom Award honored to the union. In 2006, he was chosen to be a member of the international jury of the RSF Press Freedom Award, and was re-elected to be the Secretary General of NUSOJ. In 2007, the World Congress of the IFJ elected him as a member of the Executive Committee. In September 2007, Omar Faruk Osman was elected as Secretary-General of the Eastern Africa Journalists Association.

Inna Pidluska (Ukraine) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and is co-founder and, since 1998, President of the Europe XXI Foundation, the local partner organization of the Fifth Assembly. She has been involved in building a number of national NGO coalitions, including the National Public Monitoring Committee, the New Choice 2004, and the Democracy League. She has held fellowships from a number of institutions, including the Chevening Scholarship, International Policy Fellowship in European Integration at the Open Society Institute, NATO Democracy Fellowship, and a fellowship at the Advocacy Institute (USA). She is an adviser to a member of the Ukrainian parliament, a member of the Board of the International Renaissance Foundation, and a member of the Ukraine-UK Professional Network.

Jacqueline Pitanguy (Brazil), a member of the World Movement Steering Committee, is a sociologist and political scientist. Pitanguy currently coordinates the course Saber Medico, Corpo e Sociedade at the Medical School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. From 1986 to 1989, she held a cabinet position as President of the National Council for Women's Rights (CNDM), designing and implementing public policies to improve women's conditions in Brazil. In 1990, she founded CEPIA - Cidadania Estudo Pesquisa Informação Ação - a nongovernmental organization based in Rio de Janeiro, and has served as its director since then. CEPIA conducts research on gender relations and advocacy work mainly on violence against women, access to justice, and reproductive health. Ms. Pitanguy is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Commission on Citizenship and Reproduction, based in Sao Paulo. She is a member of the Boards of the Inter-American Dialogue, the Society for International Development, and the Women's Learning Partnership, and is currently the Chair of the Boards of the Global Fund for Women, and of CARE-Brazil, where she recently assumed the presidency.

Carlos Ponce (Venezuela) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and has over 15 years of professional experience in the field of political analysis, environmental justice, Latin American studies, sustainable development, economic and social development. He is committed the development and attainment of democratic institutions and human rights advocacy. He has researched and written about the phenomena of Latin American political and social behavior directly from the frontlines, an opportunity only a select prestigious few analysts are afforded. He is lecturer at Tufts University and is a professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Roland Rich (Australia) is the executive head of the United Nations Democracy Fund and a former Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. Prior to his appointment to UNDEF, Mr. Rich was a member of the directing staff at the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies of the Australian Defence College, teaching and mentoring colonel-level officers undertaking a master’s degree in international relations. In 2005, Mr. Rich performed research for his latest book, Pacific Asia in Quest of Democracy (released in 2007), during his fellowship at the NED. Between 1998 and 2005, Mr. Rich was the Foundation Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions at the Australian National University, Australia’s democracy promotion institute undertaking projects in the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Rich joined the Australian foreign service in 1975 and had postings in Paris, Rangoon, Manila and, from 1994-1997, as Australian Ambassador to Laos.

Chee Siok Chin (Singapore) is a member of the Singapore Democratic Party and the sister of Chee Soon Juan, Secretary-General of the SDP.

Alejandro Toledo (Peru) is the former president of Peru, and is currently the president of the Global Center for Development and Democracy (GCDD). Born in a small Andean village, Toledo financed his undergraduate degree at the University of San Francisco with a soccer scholarship and by pumping gas. Toledo went on to earn three advanced degrees at Stanford University, including a Masters in Economics and a Ph.D. in Education. Toledo’s professional career focused on economic development, with positions at the UN, the World Bank, and Harvard University’s Institute for International Development. Toledo was elected President of Peru in 2001. As President, Toledo oversaw a transition back to stability in Peru, pursuing policies marrying free markets and social justice.

Elizabeth Ungar (Colombia) is a member of the World Movement Steering Committee and a full professor of Political Science, Political Science Department, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, where she has been professor since 1978 and director of both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Elisabeth Ungar has written numerous books and articles and lectured extensively on the role of political parties and Congress and on political reform. She was advisor to the president of Colombia, Virgilio Barco. She has promoted and participated in several citizen and civil society initiatives to promote public interests, electoral transparency and political accountability. Currently she directs the project Congreso Visible - Candidatos Visibles, a congressional and electoral monitoring project whose objectives are to foster conditions for citizen follow up of congresspersons' activities and access to their elected representatives, improve the information available to citizens regarding legislators, disseminate information on congressional procedures and promote institutional reforms in order to recuperate politics.

Sakena Yacoobi (Afghanistan) is the president and founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning, provides more than 350,000 Afghan women and children with education, health care, and human rights training annually. Ms. Yacoobi is also co-founder and Vice-president of Creating Hope International, a Michigan based non-profit organization. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Global Fund for Women. She is advisor to Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) and a member of WLP’s Roaming Institute for Women’s Leadership. She is a member and past steering committee member of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief . She received the National Endowment for Democracy’s Democracy Award in 2005.

Victor Yushchenko (Ukraine) is the President of Ukraine. Prior to his election in 2004, he was Chairman of the Our Ukraine political coalition and served as Ukraine’s Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. President Yushchenko has also been a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities, and International Relations. He served as the Head of the Supervisory Council of the Ukraine 3000 International Foundation from 2003 to 2005. He graduated from Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute and has held several prominent positions during his career in banking, including Chief Acting Economist of the Ulyanovsk department of the Soviet State Bank and Chairman and Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.

Courage Tribute Honorees:

The Legal Community of Pakistan, the Independent Journalists of Somalia, and the Monks of Burma have been selected to receive Democracy Courage Tributes at the John B. Hurford Memorial Dinner. The three selected honorees have all shown exceptional courage in their work for freedom and democracy, often struggling in isolation and against some of the most difficult challenges to democracy and human rights in the world today.

The Legal Community of Pakistan

Pakistan’s President and Army Chief Pervez Musharraf triggered the most severe crisis of his tenure when he sacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on March 9, 2007. The ensuing protests by dark-suited lawyers across the country were unprecedented and unexpected. The subsequent police crackdown on the lawyers and other protesters were broadcast live, giving ordinary Pakistanis direct evidence of both civil resistance and the government’s heavy-handed suppression as it occurred. The lawyers’ efforts to promote the rule of law and preserve the sanctity of the Constitution have provided the inspiration and momentum for a broader democratic movement in Pakistan.

The Independent Journalists of Somalia

Over the past year, independent Somali journalists, who are accustomed to working in a difficult and dangerous environment, have come under severe and often deadly threats. The Somali government has carried out a widespread crackdown on journalists, repeatedly shuttering print and broadcast outlets, taking equipment and detaining journalists, often accusing independent stations of siding with anti-government insurgents. But the anger and violence directed against Somali journalists have come from all sides in the conflict, leaving them particularly vulnerable. At least seven Somali journalists have been killed in apparent targeted assassinations in the past year.

The Monks of Burma

Reacting to the suffering of the Burmese people after government-imposed price increases brought impoverished Burmese citizens to their breaking point, revered Buddhist monks led peaceful demonstrations in Burma in July and August 2007. The monks became a powerful symbol of the loss of legitimacy of the ruling junta when they began to refuse alms from members of the military and led protests calling for political reconciliation in the country. Although the demonstrations were met with a brutal crackdown by the Burmese junta, which included the deaths of a still unknown number of protestors and the detention of at least 2,000, the monks’ peaceful protests captured the imagination of both the Burmese people and the international community and hopefully have begun a process of transition in Burma that will eventually lead to democratic rule.

• The Venerable Sayadaw U Pannya Vamsa (Burma) was ordained as a novice at the age of fourteen and received higher ordination as a Bikkhu (Monk) on April 16, 1948. He studied Pãli and Buddhism in Wakhema, Rangoon and Mandalay and was awarded the degree of Sãsanadhaja Siripavara Dhammãcariya and the Religious Titles of Agga Mahã Pandita and Agga Mahã Saddhamma Jotika. He began his missionary work in 1954 in places such as Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands and Southern India. He has since built Burmese Buddhist Monasteries in Los Angeles, Sydney, Chicago, Toronto, Singapore Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Auckland. He founded the International Burmese Buddhist Sangha Organization in 1985 and he is currently the chief monk of the Burmese Buddhist Temple in Penang, Malaysia. He is the Chairman of the International Burmese Monks Organization (IBMO), a worldwide organization of Burmese monks formed after the recent crackdown in Burma. U Pannya Vamsa is the author of Mahã Paritta Pãli Scared Verses, The Dawn of Buddhism and The Ten Perfections.
  


• U Uttara (Burma) is Secretary General of the International Burmese Monks Organization. He is the chief monk (Sayadaw) of the Sasana Ramsi Vihara monastery in London, which he established in 1995. U Uttara is President of the Punna Ramsi Vihara trust in Netherlands, Dhamma Ramsi Buddhist Communit in Denmark, Buddha Dahmma Ramsi Trust in Finland and Buddha Sasana Ramsi Buddhist Trust in Germany. U Uttara fled Burma after the military junta threatened his life in the wake of the 1988 democratic uprising. He has lived in London since 1992 and became the first ever Buddhist monk appointed as a Buddhist chaplain in the British National Health Service.

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