ATHENS, GA --The history-making 2004 election in Ukraine was the focus of a special symposium at the University of Georgia on March 31. The panel of guest speakers, all of whom were involved in the “Orange Revolution,” shared their experiences and also discuss their perspectives on the election’s meaning to Ukraine’s future.

“The Orange Revolution: Emerging Democratic Values in Ukraine” was held in Master’s Hall at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education from 9:30-11:30 a.m. on March 31. The symposium was cosponsored by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s International Center for Democratic Governance (ICDG), the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), and the Center for Humanities and Arts.

Guest speakers included William Green Miller, who was the United States ambassador to Ukraine from 1993 to 1998 and presently is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Miller spent six weeks in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution and was an election observer for all three rounds of Ukraine’s presidential election. Other speakers will be Anatoliy Matvienko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament who was part of the coalition supporting the Orange revolution; Nadia McConnell, president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; and Christina Redko, coordinator of Znayu, a nonprofit organization that provided grassroots education on voter rights. A question and answer period followed the presentations.

Faculty members from the Vinson Institute and SPIA have been active in Ukraine since 1994, when they provided a summer program on teaching public administration for faculty members at Uzhgorod State University, notes ICDG program director Dan Durning. “In the past decade, the Vinson Institute has hosted more than fifty faculty members and practitioners from Ukraine and sent more than thirty faculty members and local government practitioners to work with partners there,” he adds.

“Because of our close ties to friends and colleagues in Ukraine, we were first scared about what would happen to the many people who were risking their lives in nonviolent opposition to the stolen election,” Durning explains. “We were thrilled with the resulting honest election that reestablished Ukraine as a functioning democracy. We believe that the Orange Revolution was a turning point in the history of Ukraine, with important implications for the world.”

For more information, visit the ICDG Orange Revolution Web site.

U.S.-Ukraine Foundation President Nadia McConnell greets an audience member at the conclusion of the Orange Revolution Symposium. McConnell shared her experiences as a member of the United States delegation present for the inauguration of President Viktor Yushchenko.