An unprecedented and potentially historic conference took place last week in Prague.

Unprecedented, because a number of dissidents struggling to bring democracy and human rights to their own countries had an opportunity to interact directly with political and intellectual leaders in the free world.

Obviously, many democratic voices suffering under repressive regimes are prisoners in their own countries. But other voices courageously devoted to the non-violent struggle for human rights - including Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt, Garry Kasparov of Russia, Alexander Milinkevich of Belarus, Junning Liu of China, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam of Sudan and Mamoun Homsy of Syria - came to the conference organized by Vaclav Havel, José Maria Aznar and myself, whose goal was to determine the best way to help support the spread of democracy and human rights.

President George W. Bush, who put the democracy agenda back on the world stage after 9/11, came to Prague to renew the commitment he made in his second inaugural address to work toward "ending tyranny in our world" and met with each and every dissident.

The conference was potentially historic for the opportunity it provides to establish a new relationship between democratic and non-democratic governments.

In a declaration signed by all the dissidents, a call was issued to the free world to support the struggle for human rights in non-democratic countries by, among other things, sending foreign ambassadors to meet openly with democratic dissidents, raising awareness of conditions under non-democratic regimes and linking bilateral and multilateral relations with those regimes to the question of human rights.

It will be argued that a few dozen dissidents spread across the globe have very little power. Yet I know from experience that dissidents are as powerful as the free world allows them to be.

If their cries are not heard, if non-democratic regimes are permitted to act toward them with impunity, then dissidents will have little influence and few followers. But if they are embraced, if regimes that trample on their rights are confronted, then they will be empowered and many will join in their struggle.

The difference between my struggle in the U.S.S.R. 30 years ago and their struggle now is that even though I knew my human rights activities could lead to my arrest and imprisonment, I also was convinced that the free world would stand by my side.

Tragically, many dissidents today do not have the comfort of knowing that someone will care when they are imprisoned, that the international community will demand they be released, or that people will march for their freedom.

Only in the last three months, more than 20 democratic dissidents were sent to prisons in Syria, Cuba, Vietnam and other countries without drawing international rebuke or sanction.

Dissidents do their part when they courageously step forward. Leaders and intellectuals in the free world must do theirs by not leaving them to face their oppressors alone.

At the conference, one of the key figures responsible for the "cedar revolution" in Lebanon, a man who buried two of his fellow organizers after they were later assassinated by the Syrian regime, put it this way: "We are willing to pay a heavy price for our freedom. The only thing we ask the free world to pay is attention."

In one respect, getting the democratic world to do that is harder than it was when I was a dissident. In a bipolar world, the Western media naturally focused on the other superpower. Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa conducted their struggle in different countries, but their enemy had the same address in Moscow. The challenge then was getting those already watching to understand that the "people's" Politburo spoke only for itself.

Today, however, tyranny is more diversified. Cities like Pyongyang, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh and Havana are a few of the many independent capitals of repression. A real problem facing the dissidents who came to Prague was how to get the world to focus on their specific country long enough to make a difference.

One solution, it would seem, is for them to work not only with fellow dissidents in their own countries, but also with dissidents from other countries fighting for human rights.

Judging from what I heard in Prague, it will not be difficult to find solidarity in a common cause. When the dissidents at the conference were listening to each other's stories of their respective struggles in Belarus, Cuba, Sudan or Egypt, they were astonished to learn that it is the very same story of a free person in a totalitarian regime.

Despite coming from vastly different cultures and traditions, these dissidents understood that they all were ultimately waging the same struggle, one that pits democrats versus dictators, freedom versus fear.

By working together, they could empower one another, and make their case more effectively to the free world. Hundreds of single straws, each in its own right not strong enough to effect change, could quickly become a broom.

Democratic leaders who correctly understand that the advance of freedom is critical to international peace and security, would then have an unprecedented opportunity: To use their considerable moral, diplomatic, political and economic leverage to empower those dissidents and help them sweep the world's remaining tyrannies away.

Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in the Soviet Gulag, is the chairman of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem

Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune