Twenty-five years ago, on August 31, 1980, as waves of strikes spread outward from the Lenin shipyard, Polish Communist authorities signed an agreement with the underground opposition movement, giving workers the right to be represented by a democratically elected trade union. Drawing inspiration from Christianity and democratic socialism, Solidarity’s bloodless insurrection and subsequent triumph attracted support from across the political spectrum, both within Poland and throughout the West, contributing to the collapse of Communism. How can Solidarity’s experience be applied to nascent democratic movements around the world today? How have yesterday's freedom fighters fared as democratic leaders? What mistakes did they make and how could they have been avoided? Please join the New Atlantic Initiative, Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the Lech Walesa Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on August 30, 2005, in Gdansk, Poland, to honor the accomplishments of the Solidarity movement and to draw lessons for democratic movements in today’s outposts of tyranny.

8:40 a.m.
Registration
  
9:00
Welcome:
Lech Walesa, founder of Solidarity and former president of Poland introduced by
Radek Sikorski, executive director, New Atlantic Initiative
  
9:15
Presentation: What Solidarity Has Taught the World

Speaker:
Peter Ackerman, chairman, Board of Trustees, Freedom House; introduced by
Donald Jensen, director of communications, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Film:  Excerpts from the documentaries:  "A Force More Powerful," and "Bringing Down a Dictator" produced by Steve York

  
9:50
Panel I: Serbia and Ukraine—The Ingredients of Success
  
Speakers:
Adrian Karatnycky, counselor and senior scholar, Freedom House 
Vladyslav Kaskiv, founder, Pora Civic Campaign, Ukraine
Sonja Licht, director, Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence
Marko Djurisic, member, Serbian parliament; president, Executive Board, Democratic Party of Serbia
  
Moderator:
Radek Sikorski, New Atlantic Initiative
  
10:50
Coffee Break
  
11:00
Presentation: U.S. Role in Supporting Democratic Change
  
Speaker:
Dan Fried, assistant secretary of state, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. State Department, introduced by
Radek Sikorski, New Atlantic Initiative  

11:20
Panel II: Russia and Belarus—How to Change Course
  
Speakers:
Vincuk Viachorka, chairman, Belarusian Popular Front
Anatol Lyabedzka, chairman, United Civic Party, Belarus
Pavel Isaev, director, Center for Social Partnership, Yaroslavl, Russia
Maria Gaidar, leader, youth movement Da!, Russia
  
Moderator:
Zsolt Németh, member, Hungarian parliament; chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Hungarian parliament
  
12:00 p.m.
Panel III: North Korea, China and Vietnam—the Gulag Continues
  
Speakers:
David Hawk, author, The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps
Kang Cheol-Hwan, North Korean defector; author, Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag introduced by
Adrian Karatnycky, Freedom House
Harry Wu, executive director, Laogai Research Foundation
Tran Dieu Chan, human rights activist, Vietnam
  
12:35
Panel IV: Burma—Orwell Lives
  
Speaker:
Maung Maung, general secretary, Federation of Trade Unions, Burma; general secretary of the National Council of the Union of Burma introduced by
Radek Sikorski, New Atlantic Initiative
  
1:00-2:15
Luncheon  
  
Keynote Speaker:
Boris Tarasyuk, foreign minister of Ukraine introduced by
Lorne Craner, president, International Republican Institute  

2:30
Panel V: Democratic Change in the Middle East
  
Speakers:
Akbar Atri, member, Executive Committee, Tahkim Vahdat, Iran
Hafez Al-Bukhari, chairman, Yemeni Center for Polling & Communications Research; secretary general, Yemeni Journalists Institute
Ammar Abdulhamid, blogger based in Syria
  
Moderator:
Michael Rubin, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute
  
3:15
Panel VI: Promoting Reform in Cuba
  
Speakers:
Blanca Reyes, Cuban dissident living in Spain
Ernesto Ortiz, poet, Cuban dissident living in Spain
Susana Alvarez, representative, Consejo Unitario de Trabajadores de Cuba
Zbigniew Romaszewski, founder, Solidarity Resistance Radio; senator, Senate of Poland
  
Moderator:
Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute
  
4:00
Coffee Break
  
4:15
Panel VII: Preparing for Government
  
Speakers:
Zdzislaw Krasnodebski, sociologist, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University
Jacek Rostowski, professor, Central European University Budapest
Bronislaw Misztal, professor, Catholic University of America
Carl Gershman, president, National Endowment for Democracy
  
Moderator:
Radek Sikorski, New Atlantic Initiative
  
5:00
Panel VIII: Building Lasting Majorities
  
Speakers:
Christopher DeMuth, president, American Enterprise Institute
Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, president, Bank Pekao SA; former prime minister of Poland
Pavol Demes, director, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Bratislava office
Scott Carpenter, deputy assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Mart Laar, former prime minister, Estonia
  
Moderator:
John O’Sullivan, editor-at-large, National Review
  
6:00
Conference Adjournment
  
8:00
Dinner, Strategic Assessment: Solidarity to Democracy—A Geopolitical Perspective

Keynote Speaker:
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser introduced by
Pawel Adamowicz, mayor of Gdansk
   
Attendance at the conference and dinner is free. Travel and accommodations are at the attendees’ expense.

For further information contact Ms. Agnieszka Gratkiewicz in Warsaw at (+48 22) 622 2220, or Ms. Ida Garibaldi in Washington, D.C., at 202.862.7196 or igaribaldi@aei.org.